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Back in 1968 I was young and maybe a bit naive, although at the time I wouldn't have called it that. The thing is that now, in retrospect, I still wouldn't call it that. I wasn't one of those hippie, peace and love children. I was a radical. I realized that total peace is a dream, that there will always be conflict; it's just human nature. I didn't have a problem with people dying for a cause, just so long as it was their choice, their cause, and the cause wasn't someone else's money.
In Viet Nam all I saw was an opportunity, a business venture entered into between the US Government and major corporations, deals to keep a war going under contract with manufacturing, transportation, communications firms and many other big money players.
It's no big secret that there's tons of money to be spent in war, and big business will spend tons of money to have those government contracts. Government spends big, with our money. They buy nothing but the best, like $700 toilet seats, $300 screw drivers, or to learn the most important things like when the Dept. of Education spent $34 million to help us learn to be better shoppers with our own money. [ http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3782 ] So it only stands to reason that by opening the floodgates of spending the government is going to have lots of friends to cash in on the spree. The problem is, it's our money they're blowing to have their little parties, and it does no good for the economy of the United States to throw our money around the world or create jobs in other countries -
which brings me to the economy.
It's a word. It has meaning when it's relative to a particular situation, such as, let's say, the state of national finances or a family's financial status. We can all understand when our family's economy is on the upswing or if it's in the toilet. When we have a net income which exceeds expenditures with a sound savings and investment program working for us, with contracts for future increases in our income which well exceed cost of living and tax increases ,plus a healthy life and health insurance and retirement plan to assure our family's opulent stature and lifestyle, our economy is said to be strong. On the other hand, if one or more major source of income becomes unstable due to illness, unemployment, loss of contracts or failed investments, and it directly affects your ability to maintain any or all of the safety nets which you've put in place, and your capacity to fulfill your financial obligations with your creditors, you may say that your economy is in a slump. When this occurs within a small based family system, this can, and, these days, most probably will, have a dramatic impact on the lifestyle and living standards of that family, which could lead to anything from change of location to divorce to suicide.
The reason for this is because it is such a confined closed system with no room for fluctuation. The best way to make this analogy is to compare the family to a small 10 gallon salt water fish tank. A salt water aquarium is a very delicate environment, and any little change in the atmosphere of the tank changes the chemical and ph consistency of the water, causing discomfort, disease or death to the inhabitants. In a small 10 gallon tank there's not much room for error since there's not much water to circulate and filter out contaminants, so the filtration system has to work extremely hard to bring dangerous levels back into a safety zone. Most times they fail. Now consider a 1000 gallon tank. Some of those same changes occurring in this environment dilute quickly in the larger quantity of water, the filtration system filtering out the contaminants before hardly a fish knows that something has even gone wrong. Things can go wrong much more often, and as long as the water is changed and filtered, being monitored on a regular basis, no one in the environment may even notice for a long time that there's even a problem. But, if the keeper of the tank gets negligent, spending his money on other things, he'll begin to neglect the tank, not having enough of the proper chemicals, filters or even food to maintain a healthy balance. This keeper can, for all intent and purpose announce a strong, healthy economy (environment) and hardly anyone but the weak and the sickly may even notice a difference. This can go on for some time before more and more inhabitants begin to fall, for no apparent reason. The water may begin to cloud a bit, it may even take on an odor,but when these things happen gradually, over time, they're not quite so noticeable, so that by the time enough inhabitants take notice, it may take drastic measures to save the tan; that is, if the keeper is even interested in saving the tank.
Welcome to our 1000 gallon tank. It's called the US and it's in sorry shape. It's been getting that way for some time now. It's called a recession or a slump or a dip, or whatever the keeper decides to call it, but if you're in a 10 gallon tank, it doesn't matter what you call it, you're in 10 gals. of crap. And just look at all of those people in the 1000 gal. tank. What are they doing? Why, nothing. Some of them are totally oblivious to what's happening; others are catching on, but they're watching out for themselves, and a good portion are circling the drain, having already run out their resources. What to do?
Well, back in 1968 I said that I truly believed that there would be a true revolution, a takeback of our government by us, the people. I knew that there would never be a political solution. I knew that JFK was murdered by the establishment because of his social reform plans and his intentions to pull our fighting military out of Viet Nam in his second term. I knew that Bobby Kennedy was murdered for the same reasons, plus his vendetta on the mob and its heavy influences on our political systems. I knew that anyone else who tried to run on a similar platform would be castigated, turned into one of those dreaded commies and ridiculed, along with anyone with balls enough to vote for him, and I knew that a third party vote was a throw away. We've been so conditioned to believe that it's become truth. I watched propaganda fill the airways, money fill the pockets and drugs distract the nation through the '80s and '90s. I twinged when Reagan and Bush "1" spoke of a new world order, and I wondered why no one else was scared, and I kept thinking of that Steppenwolf song, "Monster." It kept playing over in my head. That, and "Something In The Air" by Speedy Keen. How cliché, but I thought those days seemed to have us on track. That was when I believed that we would never get so far gone because we were aware, and now I think "are we?" Can we fix this? Certainly not with this election and not with a vote.
There are only 3 bushes to chose from and all of these fools are arguing over which bush is the right one for the job. We had the right one, I believed. Though I may be wrong, there was something in his demeanor, something about how he stuck to his point and didn't waver. John Edwards seemed to offer the only hope, if he could keep himself from getting assassinated. He went against the grain, shunned lobbyists, spurned big business. He didn't focus on all of the symptoms of the disease, the economy, immigration, health care. He aimed at the disease. The corporate government. He realized that if you fixed that everything else would fall into place. Why did no one else see it?
I wonder now, if he were back in the race, would Obama and Clinton even be spoken of? Somehow I don't think so. It's amazing how some people can learn so much in such a short span of time. What seemed like two perfect choices has turned into "who the hell are these people?" What would happen if John Edwards reentered the race? Could he? What if we all finally got smart and wrote him in? A sincere grass roots movement? Could we? How could we even get that started?
Or, what if my '60s premonition came true? True patriots taking advantage of their second amendment rights and removing these so- called leaders from power and trying them in a court of law, as they should be, for treason and war crimes and then holding our own elections where money didn't matter, only honesty and integrity? Would anyone even try to stop them? Maybe it's that time. What do you think? There's not much time left.
