This afternoon I was running errands in Sterling Virginia - a place that seems to have all the shops and services required by the Thomson family. At the luggage repair shop I met this talkative fellow who in the course of the conversation asked me if I had seen the HBO mini-series John Adams. I told the fellow that I had read the book and bought the entire collection of disks when they went on sale at Target over the weekend.
He told me - and I agree - this several hour long docudrama will complete your education on the Revolutionary War.
All my life, I have stood uncomfortably in faked reverence when someone wraps a flag around themselves and starts spouting off, idealistically, about our "forefathers."
The "forefathers" - it turns out - were just as "up in your face" as politicians today. This country's formative years were fragile and could have gone in several different directions.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican ... or an Independent like myself, you should take the time to rent or buy "John Adams" and be proud of your beliefs. Contention is a good thing...
1 comment:
Mike, good to see you flogging the keyboard again. So true about the founding fathers and many of the citizenry of the day. I will definitely pick up the series on John Adams when I am in town today. The British were determined to do us in early on. And why not? We had no Navy, no real militia. They kept shooting at us for about 40 years. Today the Brits own a huge chunk of the U.S. economy. And they are still at it. Currently a U.S. hedge fund with major British capital (which probably means middle-eastern) is attempting to gain a controlling interest of CSX rail transport. I hope the ‘old Constitution’ can weather through. The founder’s gave us a good government and a way to hang on to it. And, they knew we would hit some rough spots. Even warning us, time and again, about the evils of the corpocracy. Here are a couple of warnings from Joel Hirschhorn’s book, Delusional Democracy.
"Thomas Jefferson: The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... We must crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to bid defiance to the laws of our country."
James Madison: We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. ... when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions."
Some notables continued that refrain right on through our history:
"President Abraham Lincoln (1864): I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
"President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That is, in essence, fascism....ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."
"Idaho Republican Senator William E. Borah (1926): Money has come to be the moving power in American politics. Some years ago, politicians got into the habit of seeking contributions from men of great wealth.... It was inevitable, if the large sums were to be given, that large sums would have to be returned in some way. Hence, money and politicians joined forces, and money has its say in shaping legislation and in administering the laws of the country. It is a fearful national evil and will in the end, if not controlled, destroy the government of the people and substitute, therefore, a government of the few---the few who have sufficient money with which to buy the government."
"Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: The Republicans are 95% corrupt and the Democrats are 75% corrupt."
And so it goes. We know what we have to do. I’m up for a REVOLUTION. Check it out at www.demreps.com
Hardball
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