THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

This week, Americans went to the polls in an off-year election and, as in the previous election, “threw out” most of the incumbent legislators in Washington. The “Tea Party,” an extreme right wing Republican splinter group, who had a number of their candidates elected (many who were somewhat less than qualified) has trumpeted their success as a conservative victory. The Democrats, having lost their majority in the House of Representatives and nearly losing their Senate majority, lament that they were not able to effectively communicate their accomplishments of the last two years to the public.

Both sides are wrong!

In 1776, when a group of “extremists” signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, their grievances were many but their slogan, “No Taxation Without Representation”, echoes through the years as the real issue that separated the majority of loyal British colonists from their parent country. Parliament had passed act after act without any real thought as to how it would affect the colonists. Taxes were levied without recourse to the colonial legislatures, and no colonial representation in Parliament. Judges and administrators that strove for fairness rather than blind obedience to the Crown were eliminated and others appointed in their places, while free American seamen were hijacked from their ships and conscripted into the British Navy. With a few exceptions, the colonists never really wanted independence; they wanted their rights as British citizens and loyal subjects of the Crown. Independence and the war that followed were the result of British politicians refusing to listen to or consider the plight of their brethren in the colonies. It was the only course that remained open.

The American election in 2008 was a “wake-up call” to the incumbents in Congress that the people were fed up, incredibly angry and wanted a change. They were tired of partisan gridlock and attention being given only to well funded corporate and foreign lobbyists. They wanted their elected officials to work together to solve THEIR problems. In the ensuing two years, Republican obstructionism and Democratic intransigence has maintained the gridlock, or required enactment of such complex and serpentine legislation that most of it will not only be unworkable and expensive, but ultimately will solve no problems. The “blood bath” of 2010 has been a result of that anger and frustration.

WAKE UP CONGRESS! This is 1774 all over again and there is little time left to stave off a second American Revolution. Although this one will be fought at the ballot boxes rather than on the field of battle, it will be a revolution none the less. Unless you begin working together to solve the problems of ALL the people, then when 2012 comes around, you can expect an electoral “blood bath” that will leave no incumbent standing. THAT is your only mandate, and you have little time to act.

Re-read and remember the words upon which this nation was founded; “. . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [the needs and rights of the people], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government . . .”

These are the final words of

WE THE PEOPLE!

RIGHT CHURCH, WRONG PEW

Yesterday several hundred thousand people turned out for John Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity,” on the Washington Mall. His themes; “Americans can get along and work together, but not their representatives in Congress” and, “24/7 cable media” focuses entirely upon negatives and antagonisms in our country, and so fuels the fires of fear begun by our politicians.

Later, there followed a CNN report on the “Tea Party Movement.” It was clearly designed to show them as a right wing fringe organization, expose their corporate benefactors, and decry the lack of qualifications of many of its candidates. There is more, however, that an objective observer got from both.

America has always been a multicultural society. It is our greatest strength, not our weakness. Yes, there have always been vocal minorities who have opposed civil rights, immigration, and tolerance, mainly because they have forgotten, or never been taught their own heritage of emigration to America and its reasons, but they have always, ultimately, been left behind by our always increasingly tolerant society. Left to our own devices, without the constant spotlight of media coverage, it will always be thus.

Americans have also always been a creative, industrial people with a formidable work ethic. While there are always a small minority who feel that the world owes them something, most want to earn their way through life with the dignity that brings. They also want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit, unfettered by government controls over their individual freedoms, as long as they hurt no one else. To succeed, however, Americans must not be afraid to fail. Such failure must not mean poverty and death, but a chance to begin again with fresh ideas. When Thomas Edison was reminded that he had failed, thousands of times, to produce a light bulb before he succeeded, he answered that he never failed, but learned thousands of way not to produce one.

The “entitlement” programs that so many have now begun to question are not handouts, they are a safety net we owe to our own people because we are no longer Bronze Age nomads who must leave their sick and wounded behind to preserve the tribe. We are a modern industrialized nation whose least citizen deserves adequate food, clothing, shelter, education and health care, no matter what their current contribution to our society is. These are things we must do, not because they are easy, but because they are right.

The majority of Americans are not only middle class moderates, they are fed up with politics as usual. They are electing silly, sometimes totally unqualified candidates not because they believe they are the right people to server in Congress, but because the wholly partisan actions of the current representatives and senators have proven they are the wrong ones.

In 1867, Otto Von Bismarck remarked that “Politics is the art of the possible.” The time has come for our politicians to accept what he knew. We do not expect the absence of partisanship, but for each side to compromise enough so that each gets something. Government is about governing, not elections. Perhaps it is time for a moderate, non-aligned voting block to exist in Congress that becomes the “swing votes” needed to pass legislation. Perhaps, even a small number of these “Rogue” politicians will be enough of a roadblock to the “politics as usual” crowd to force them to work together once more for the benefit of their employers – WE THE PEOPLE.