There is so much evil in the air around America, it has become difficult to find a fresh breath of air. Along with the noxious smell that is still being emitted from the events surrounding September 11 almost five years ago, there are so many other events pouring forth the rotten stench of corruption, I almost feel as if I'm drowning in pollution sometimes.
It's not just the stinky haze that poured over this country after the infamous election scandal in November of 2000. The sun grew a little dimmer when the Supreme Court illegally stepped in and told almost 300 million people that their wishes could be trumped by the desires of seven unelected "officials." The sky became a little darker yet when this questionable "president" and his surrounding of sycophants (and controllers) railroaded the country into an illegal war against a country whose only offense against the people of the U.S. was that the country was sitting on top of a huge amount of "black gold"--a commodity that had helped catapult those who were in power to that position in the first place.
It's not our impotent legislators who, like Pontius Pilate, "washed their hands" and gave this psychopathic executive branch free rein to do whatever they wished regarding the Middle East (when it has always been obvious that what they wished was to invade, conquer, and exploit the region). It's not only the more than 2,500 American military personnel who have died in the illegal war that resulted; the uncounted civilians in Iraq who have been unjustly murdered and the many more who will die because of our actions; or the more than three hundred billion dollars of hard-earned money that has been squandered.
Those are just some of the more visible things. The discovery that this psychopathic leader of the country (and, by default, potentially the world) has been relegating the citizens who are supposed to be his bosses, to the role of his enemies, and therefore, by his definition enemies of the country can only be described as menacing. The less obvious ramifications of these actions such as the fact that Americans are no longer living in a country that is regulated by a set of rules that were designed to protect them from an overzealous governing body, causes an even thicker smell to permeate the air.
Those are only larger, more obvious sources of the pollution, a little like the trash can burning merrily away next door, casting a nasty pall of smoldering garbage over the neighborhood. These egregious offenses mask the many much smaller sources of pollution, somewhat like a school of fish left to rot in the sun when the river dries up, or that huge brown pile of dog-poop another neighbor's dog left as a gift in your front yard.
But the multitude of smaller offenses makes a huge impact as well. A legal concert in Utah, raided by paramilitary police; a clown in New Jersey unjustly wrestled to the ground by obscenity-screaming police; a man in Alabama arrested for peacefully criticizing the court system; a couple who politely ask for directions arrested by testy police; a woman arrested for failing to show ID while riding on a city bus;
another woman arrested for trying to keep her own baby from being mutilated by the medical system; the secret police establishing their turf by first arresting a man for taking pictures with his home security camera system, then arresting another man for taking pictures with his cell phone; and our annual dubious distinction of being the country with the highest prison population of any industrialized country in the world; the list goes on and on. These offenses committed against the citizens of our country are so extensive, so pervasive, it almost makes me just want to give up!
And maybe that's the intent--make the offenses so blatant, so frequent, and so obvious, that even citizens who want to effect reform feel such powerlessness they just throw in the towel!
Each of these "minor" offenses against our freedom, our self-respect, our vision of ourselves as citizens of the "greatest" and "freest" country in the world, adds to the pollution in our lives and makes the American landscape become a little bit bleaker, duller, and grayer.
And there is only one way to restore that gleam of democracy to our country. First, we have to educate ourselves to what is going on. Next, we have to let our lawmakers, who are sheltered in some unrealistic cocoon, know that we are aware of these travesties, most of which have been legislated by these same people. And finally, we have to let them know that we are not going to take it any more! Let these bozos who are kowtowing to big businesses that benefit in some way, or to megalomaniac leaders who get a woodie from the power they wield, know that we want it stopped, and right now!
I keep hearing, well, let's wait until the November elections, maybe some change will come about (it won't), or wait until the next presidential election, things will change then (it won't). But this country can not wait. Irreparable damage has already been done to the country's economy, the world's ecology, and to the image of America as a country and Americans as a people--and every day that we "wait for change to happen" intensifies that damage.
We need to let these complacent employees know that they need to do their job--which is to represent the wishes of the citizenry, not the big businesses that they are serving now--or we'll do what any boss would do to a recalcitrant employee: fire them.
Then, do it. There must be legal measures for recalling or impeaching our elected representatives and replacing them with employees who will do the bidding of the people. Let's find out what these procedures are (I don't know, and I'll bet that 99.5% of the U.S. population don't know either--isn't it funny that that's not taught in the school curriculums that are designed by subordinates of these representatives?) and do it. Once we've fired twenty or thirty of the couple hundred who deserve to be fired, maybe the remainder will sit up, pay attention, and say, "Hey, these people mean it! Maybe I need to do something different here."
The only way we're going to take control of this monster we have allowed to be born, then fed and nurtured with our hard-earned dollars, is to become active, participating citizens again.
Turn off your TV, make a phone call or two, get together with some like-minded friends (but be damn careful--remember, that phone call is likely to be monitored, and that meeting is likely to be surveilled) and start making change happen. Insist on a reform of the lobbying process that has made a travesty of the legislation process; insist on reform of the election process that has allowed these criminals to remain in positions of power over us, their putative employers; and insist on the reform or repeal of laws that go against the basic premise of the Constitution that governs this country--those laws that prohibit limiting a person's right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Because the minute you begin to take positive action, the air is going to become a little bit--just a little tiny bit--clearer. We must each take the first step in what's going to be a long, hard journey--but one upon which our very lives depend.
