Does anyone remember Mr. Obama? The man who ran on a program of “change?” Who abhorred torture and Gitmo? Who kinda, sorta, hinted that he would end the endless wars in the Middle East? Does anybody know what happened to him? Where he went?
How did we wind up with another Cheney/Bush clone in the White House? Since his election, still more billions have been given to the banksters, the Wall Street speculators who caused the current melt-down, and above all to the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and the Pentagon. Every piece of “Gone with the Wind” sized legislation is held up until every special interest, every bankster and insurance group is completely protected, at the expense of We the People. Continue reading →
Adrienne watched a government commercial on TV to “help restore America” and asked me to look into it. It is http://serve.gov/ and turns out to be a site that offers one a chance to either pledge one’s time and money to any one of many government or privately sponsored projects or register a project of your own. As I read it over, an idea popped into my head, so I created a project! It is now registered on the site.
The organization is We the People
Its intent? “We the People in order to save our Union are working to see the Constitution and Bill of Rights returned, intact and functioning, to the Halls of the United States Government.”
I’m not sure where I (or we) go from here, but I thought it would be a neat idea to form an organization on the government’s own website that deals with one of the greatest problems We the People face.
Apparently it also creates a blog for We the People. Anyone interested in signing on, please send me an e-mail. It would be great if it caught on and many people signed on to the project! The potential membership is around 200 million. I’m not exactly sure about how one works one of these sites, but we’ll figure it out as we go. Comments are sure welcome. We could really have some fun with this, or perhaps even accomplish something.
So, if it sounds interesting, let me know at theplace@wavecable.com
Don’t pledge any money! This is just an idea, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could come up with something we could deliver that would make our alleged representatives aware that We the People want our Constitution back?
Dear Mr. Obama,
You have repeatedly asked for input from We the People. This is my fourth letter to you and the only response, so far, has been a preprinted postcard in a hand addressed envelope. It did not in any way address my concerns, which you have asked for, repeatedly.
I would like to remind you of a few things which We the People helped to bring about after 1945. The United Nations was formed to provide a forum to solve disputes peacefully, at the conference table. It was empowered to use “Peacekeepers” to quell actual warfare and combat while these problems were resolved. Continue reading →
For those of you who have been following the saga of our letters to Obama, I must report!
Today, (July 11th) we received a hand addressed envelope from the White House addressed to Adrienne and me. Inside was a 4″ by 6″ form card. Continue reading →
I was reading Harry Browne’s excellent article Uncelebrating the Fourth when a memory came back to me from the Vietnam War era.
My wife and I had been invited to my insurance agent’s home for a party. (Christmas or New Year, I suppose, I no longer remember) One of the people there was a State Department official who had just come from Vietnam. Of course, the conversation veered around to the war. I said that an ideological war was not worth fighting. The official jumped in. Continue reading →
Just last week, my wife and I were discussing the hopes and dreams of the new nation, 233 years ago. We were lamenting that this nation, which once was governed by a Constitution and Bill of Rights unlike anything that had ever been written in the history of mankind, had deteriorated into a greed and power driven banana republic, its Constitution and Bill of Rights in shreds, buried under a mountain of fascist legislation like the mis-named Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the many warrantless surveillance acts and Executive Orders. Continue reading →
I recently received an e-mail from a young man in response to my article My Answer to Mr. Obama. We have corresponded back and forth and I got to wondering if maybe this exchange between the young and the old might be of some interest to others. I asked Jake if he would mind my publishing our correspondence and he said he would not. Continue reading →
I just received the letter below, so obviously you have not been reading my letters to you.
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Stephen –
Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.
Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that’s not why we did it.
The pundits told us it was impossible — that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that’s not why we did it. Continue reading →
This was written on the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day
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A thousand ships put to sea, a vast unseen armada
Intent on smashing their way through the armored gates
Named Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah,
Of Hitler’s vaunted Festung Europa.
High winds, pounding seas and driving rain.
A bad day to invade, the Wehrmacht thought.
Thousands of seasick GI’s agreed,
Waiting to embark in the predawn murk.
The air was filled with the howl of shells
Pounding the beaches and cliffs,
Punctuated with the rasp of 88’s and thud of mortars
Returned fire, blasting landing craft to drown off the beach.
Finally, the shore was reached, hemstitched with fire and shell
And ten thousand young men raced into Hell.
The first wave was ashore, grimly hanging on,
With ninety percent casualties, walking wounded still fighting.
Festung Europa was beginning to crack
As more poured ashore with no turning back.
Pinned down on the beaches, no Dunquerque this time,
They fought their way up the bluffs.
By the end of the day, that beachhead had spread
Miles into the French countryside.
The sound of village church bells rang the knell
Of Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich.”
And mourned the death of so many thousands,
British, American, Canadian, Frenchmen, Poles and Dutch
Who waded into that bloody shore
And quickly found an end to their war.
Now, old men roam amongst the headstones,
Seeking the names and resting places
Of the lost friends of their youth.
While in the background, the bands and politicians play.
They shake their heads and wipe away a tear
Finding those who died to bring about peace
For the children and grandchildren they never knew,
Who now are immersed in wars of their own.
The memory of man must be short.
As long as there are politicians and zealots
Who dream of Empire and conquest,
Control of oil, or grain, or water or wealth,
There is an inexhaustible reservoir of
Youth, and blood, and dreams
That can be ordered forth
To be poured upon the soil.
And only a few old men left at graveside
To bow their grizzled heads and pray,
“Oh, Lord, let our sacrifice be enough.
Let our children live in peace.”
Steve Osborn
6 June 2004
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It would appear that we haven’t learned a thing, have we.
