Three Simple Questions for America

Here are three simple questions for America. And one very long-overdue answer.

1. Fact: In just the 2005 third quarter (barely 90 days), the major oil companies posted excess profits [again, excess profits] of $32 billion; that is over $350,444,900 (or over 350 vaults of a million dollars per vault) each and every day, seven days a week. Even during (and especially during) deadly Hurricane Katrina. Naturally, that same level of obscene profit was going strong for years before, and continues every single day. Plus, hundreds of millions more of our tax dollars each day go to insider military contractors who profit immensely from the war in Iraq... totalling (when combined with the oil companies) roughly a billion dollars in excess profits, every single day. Not just gross revenues, but excess profits, after paying all expenses. Q. Do handfuls of multi-millionaires & billionaires need or deserve a BILLION DOLLARS EACH DAY - that is, a thousand millions each day - more than your family, friends, children, neighbors, loved ones, and co-workers deserve to afford food, medicine, health-care, gasoline, warm clothes and home-heating fuel this winter?

2. FACT: Well over 2,100 brave American military heroes have died horrid deaths, and tens of thousands more have been seriously or gravely wounded for life... while hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian men, women and children (who we were supposed to be providing a better life) have been killed or seriously injured. Q. Are Americans or Iraqis (or the Middle East, or even the entire world in general) now more peaceful, more unified, more at ease, more cooperative, more safe or more secure from terrorists? The 9/11 Commission, staffed not by Liberals but mostly by Conservative Republicans, recently said we are not. That being so, we must ask too if the huge Iraqi oil profits have gone to the Iraqi people and to the cost of fighting the war, so US taxpayers won't foot the bill (as we were promised), or has most of that money gone instead to multi-national corporations, oil companies, military contractors, bankers, lawyers, lobbyists, Washington insiders and White House deal-makers?

3. FACT: If foreign terrorists looted our bank accounts, stole our family's food, harmed our children, ran off with our hard-earned savings, weakened our families, stole the warmth from our homes, or bankrupted our household - even just one time - our nation would execute them, on sight, and rightly so. Q. Why, then, are greedy home-grown and multi-national traitors & thieves - who steal from the mouths of American children - who loot many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH WEEK from the pockets of American families - walking the streets as free men, instead of receiving the God-ordained human justice of punishment that fits their crimes?

"So, what else is new?" you may ask in frustration; "It has always been that way." But there IS something new: finally, a way that these American and international and multi-nation econo-terrorists can finally be punished under US law. "Which law?" you ask? Easy. Under the USA Patriot Act, plain and simple, because it is designed and empowered to root out and punish evil. Greed is evil. Capitalism is great, not evil. Greed is evil. America is great and blessed, not evil. Greed is evil. Our consumer culture, with all of its quirks and faults, is still great - because it allows a broad spectrum of freedom, creativity, initiative, personal enterprise, dreams of success and honestly-earned riches. But greed is utter, abject, deader-than-dead evil. And greed - at its ugliest, most venal, most vile - is what most often has come to rule the rulers in the most powerful & successful Democratic nation that has ever been blessed to exist on planet Earth.

America and its citizens are being drained of their life-blood by a few dozen small gangs of extremely wealthy people... whose mad, pathological, unbridled, irrational, inhuman greed forever drives them into endless compulsion to take more and more and more of everything from their less-blessed and less-wealthy human kin. The USA Patriot Act - beyond any shadow of a doubt - is as applicable to the demonic curse of greed as it is to murder, treason, terrorism, and any other evil. Best of all, the Patriot Act fully overrides, nullifies and supercedes any & all laws that have previously been used to shield greedy domestic & foreign evil-doers, and to shield all their domestic & foreign conspirators, talk-show propagandists, PACs, cronies and defenders.

Please note: This is not a political rant, not some latter-day juvenile declaration of anger or hatred between the Haves and the Have-nots. It is simply a new Declaration of Independence, a stating of the three unspoken but all-too-obvious truths that have never dared to be stated out loud before.

(1) America is being carved up, like quick-buck scrap parts, by billionaire gangs of money-hungry people who are truly and psychotically out of touch with reality, as evidenced by their endless obsession to take more and more from the poor, the hungry, ill, crippled, elderly, starving, infirm, injured, exploited and victimized. Therefore, these mentally ill thieves and global looters are unfit to hold the positions of power that they have been granted.

(2) For generations, we have been brainwashed into feelings of despair and futility, subtly reminded from all corners that "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer". We were tricked into believing that - even in the world's most free Democracy - we were powerless to control or to try to heal these sadly sick, greedy, obsessive and mentally ill people, but...

(3) the USA Patriot Act changes all of that. The USA Patriot Act clearly authorizes our government to vigorously pursue, prosecute, imprison for life, or execute any terrorist, anyone guilty of treason, of any nation, including economic terrorists, and including Americans.

The time has come to take a better look at who terrorists truly are. In the last five years, all Americans have had to sacrifice. City, state & federal budgets have been slashed, depriving hundreds of millions of American adults and children the necessities of libraries, school funding, lunch programs, sports activities, road repairs, medical services, emergency programs, essential public services, etc, etc., etc. Military personnel and their families have suffered and sacrificed most greatly, with thousands even giving their lives, and tens of thousands more are condemned to entire lives in wheelchairs and hospitals. Yet, amid all of this, small handfuls of extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily greedy people have firmly avoided making even the slightest sacrifice. To the contrary, they have forever helped themselves to hundreds of billions of our dollars, into their personal pockets. They show no signs of ceasing or even slowing their unending greed and their traitorous betrayal of America's people, families and children.

If We The People demand that our leaders use the Patriot Act to fight all terrorists, then by law - by Law - they must do so. If they do not, they can be promptly impeached. In a free Democracy, they must jump when we whistle; never the other way around. The time has come to remind them. The time has come to remind them. The time has come to remind them.

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

18th Century Patriot in the 21st Century

Patrick Henry was born in 1736, in Studley, Virginia. His early years found him trying his hand at being a store-keeper and farmer, both of which met with very limited success. In his early 20's, Patrick Henry took an interest in law. Few thought he would succeed. But he soon showed an innate talent for his newfound profession - a gift, a knack, a keen wit, a deep insight into human nature, a compelling and inspiring way with words. Combined with his sincerity and perseverence, he soon blossomed into a skilled, respected and well-compensated lawyer.

This was all during the time when the new American colonies were starting to itch for independence from England, and especially from King George, the aristocratic ruler who was woefully out of touch with the needs and rights of common hard-working citizens. Patrick Henry was an articulate spokesman for the ever-growing independence movement. Serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he spoke eloquently against the rule of the British Parliament, asserting the rights of Americans to be free of King George, his unenlightened attitudes, his restrictive policies, and his unfair un-American dictates. At first, the more straight-laced and conservative old-school party hard-liners were outraged, even shouting "Treason!"aloud while Patrick Henry spoke, unwilling or unable themselves to display the courage needed to cut loose from antiquated aristrocracies, from old allegiances to traditional Powers-That-Be, afraid to let America stand proudly on her own feet.

But he kept right on speaking, despite any hostility and interruptions and, before long, more and more people started hearing the enlightened wisdom and logic of his words. Without needing to raise his voice, Truth was simply louder and clearer than any narrow-minded bullies who tried to shout him down.

He was a fierce defender of the rights of individual human beings, and battled mightily over the content of the US Constitution, to ensure that it provided everything possible to protect average citizens against the excesses and invasiveness of people in government. Few Conservatives today - long proud of Patrick Henry as a key figure among America's Founding Fathers - realize how much he boldly and audaciously stood face-to-face against the powerful and wealthy conservative establishment, to demand respect for the rights of common folk.

But, that indeed was who Patrick Henry was. He was a man who did not coddle the Powers-That-Be, did not lick the boots of the self-appointed royalty who publicly patronized the humbler citizens while secretly despising and betraying them. He was a man of the people, of the American people, of free people - not a sycophant babbling "Ditto!" to the half-witted condescending drivel of kings, corporate pick-pockets, oily con-men, political pretty-boys or other addicts of power.

He realized, sadly, that the struggling society he saw around him would change and improve only through a deadly and bloody war against King George. But, if that is what Fate decreed, Patrick Henry was resigned to its destiny, its absolute necessity, and he soon knew he must become a military leader himself, and serve General Washington. It was that realization - that Truth, that courage - which helped enshrine his name among the most well-known and revered of all men of our early history. He was a man who helped carve America out of the solid rock of an unshakable, unstoppable, undeniable new vision of government that was dying to be born.

So, who am I, 230 years later, who now writes under the name of "Patrick Q. Henry"? And how did I choose that name?

Answering the second question first, I simply added the "Q" in honor of the whimsical bit of Americana from which the name "John Q. Public" was born. I too speak as a person of humble roots, with no pretense to grandeur, as a representative of every person, of every common citizen who wants only to peacefully enjoy life and be left alone, to let others do the same, with my soul embedded in the traditional simple truths and virtues of America and her humble but rightfully proud citizens.

As for the first question, all of my life I found Patrick Henry to be the embodiment of all that America means to me. Though he was a man of the most rudimentary early education, that limitation was easily overcome by his brilliant inner spark to speak crucial truths. He said what needed to be said, without fear that his countrymen might initially be shocked or scandalized by his audacity, his daring, even his seeming blasphemy and treason. He knew that it is not treason to speak out against a leader whose authority is not legitimate, whose brain had stumbled into a governmental role that was far over his head; rather, to speak out thusly against such a leader is instead the highest form of Patriotism. And he knew, conversely, that it is not Patriotism to forever "throw good money after bad," to forever defend the attitudes and policies of an inept leader, a failed political administration, or a dysfunctional system of unjust laws and misdirected national policy; rather, doing so is the lowest form of cowardice.

Under the noble banner of Patrick Q. Henry, I speak in the spirit of my 18th Century namesake. Through his eyes, amid his words, among his thoughts, I find the basic truths upon which the United States was founded. In his day, America was not even seen by the world as being a nation at all, but merely as a straggling and disheveled band of British colonies. Still, in his eyes and the eyes of his fellow Patriots, America was already more than any other nation. America was something different, something extremely special. It was a grand and noble historic experiment. Guided by his hand, clasped arm-in-arm with his fellows, common people rose to the highest nobility of freedom, all witnessing the sacred birth of a new day, a new way of life, a new method of governance, a new and electric sunrise on a tired, antiquated, muddy geo-political horizon.

I write too as Patrick Q. Henry because, like my namesake, I likewise have grown very disillusioned with the excesses, immorality, deceit, corruption and greed of the those who have attained the excessive power that has come to dominate and betray the common citizens of America. While my true name is not a house-hold familiarity, I am indeed very prominent within many of the halls of power in this modern world. I have seen, with my own eyes, the scandalous scales and venal veins of evil that have woven themselves into the once-proud and civilized flesh of Democracy. The revelation of my true identity and the secrets I know would greatly embarrass and destroy the careers and families of many within our great nation, and still others around our world. So I have chosen - for the moment - to express these needed truths to my fellow Patriots, while temporarily behind the noble facade of my 18th Century namesake.

Similarly, I have wilfully chosen a writing style markedly different from my own (which is known in many circles), to further conceal my identity. I confess that it shames and troubles me greatly to have to do so, because the America envisioned by Patrick Henry was one where such fears were to be banished forever, where Freedom of Speech was sanctified second only to the Ten Commandments. But, having eyes deeply rooted within the skulls of today's Powers-That-Be, I have seen beyond question the horrid degree of antagonism and retribution against Patriots who are willing to speak the Truth to the American people. I have witnessed the unspeakable hidden treachery that has been visited upon those brave souls who have dared to reveal the things that Americans deserve to know.

Thus, my shameful anonymity must continue for the moment, until my newfound Patriots and I have untangled the tentacles of the current corruption, and exposed the poisoned barbs of their un-American secrecy and vindictive retribution. Only in this way can I continue to work unencumbered, beyond suspicion, maneuvering within the belly of the beast, as I and my fellows gather unassailable evidence to reveal the dastardly truths of how greatly betrayed America has been in recent years, at the hands of those cursed by Satan with insatiable obsessions for power, money and needless warfare.

Unlike the chaotic morass of crass commercialism and immoral duplicity that prevails today, the America of Patrick Henry's lifetime was a place of principle, a place of decency, a place of character. It was an America in which Patriots practiced a true love of country, not a nation in which sheep-minded revelers merely waved a flag whose origins they barely understood. It was an America where people were fully ready to fight and die for the freedoms with which they had been blessed, willing to sacrifice all in defense of America and all that she stood for. It was not a nation that would march into battle behind a cadre of high-level pretenders who had all themselves evaded their own military duty to America in their youth and middle years and all their lives. It was not an America that contrived deadly wars mainly to enrich the opportunists, profiteers and financiers of warfare. It was not a carnival of figurehead-glorifying, self-promoting and hypocritical hucksters, like those who populate today's radio talk-shows, each made millionaires by being lapdogs of the corrupt and traitorous billionaires who pay them. Rather, in those days long ago, America was a new and exciting land in which true Patriots stood always ready to defend their nation's basic ideals, and to promptly and permanently oust any pretenders to any American throne.

Thus I have resurrected the hallowed name of Patrick Henry, giving it new life in this very new century of which neither he nor his peers could even begin to imagine. I do so only with the utmost humility and commitment to the honoring of his name, and to everything that he and his fellow Patriots stood for. I truly feel that he spoke for me, and that - if he were alive in the flesh today - he would smile gently to confirm his blessing that I indeed speak for him, and for his brave colleagues, and for their vision of America.

Lastly, I speak always remembering that - as was true in 1776 when my namesake turned 40 years old - we are all Americans. Differ though we may, we all are blessed with our right to express our differing thoughts and beliefs, while we all still fully remain Americans, forever rekindling our kindred spirit of the esteemed Voltaire, who proclaimed that - while he may have differed with other persons' views - he would defend to the death their right to freely speak those views. I speak too always recalling the wisdom and knowledge of human nature upon which our great nation was built. Namely, that power corrupts, and can corrupt all leaders; and that it is our sworn duty as Americans to always scrutinize, always doubt, always challenge each and every official to whom we grant temporary power, elected or otherwise. Our duty is - first and foremost - to whatever is best for our nation, to whatever is most likely to retain and ensure its integrity... never to any individual person or political administration to whom we naively felt allegiance a month or a year ago.

With that philosophy as my mission's beacon, I hereby offer you the writing of Patrick Q. Henry: the reincarnation of a spirit, an ideal, a magical moment in world history. It was my namesake who long ago spoke the immortal words, "Give me Liberty, or give me death" in 1775. My request is for you, just for a moment, to "Give me your trust, or give me at least your attention" as I try my best to capture the true spirit of Democracy and America, as they were intended, as they were once enjoyed. As I do so, I ask God for His guidance, as I likewise ask my namesake for his. With the help of the spirit of both, I hope to use this modern and magical public forum to stimulate thought & discussion, concern & action, to help guide us all safely through our troubled and tumultuous modern times. And to offer you, dear reader, a voice of reason, fairness, justice and sanity, and to inspire you to take any and every action needed to ensure America's strength, survival and Liberty.

May God Bless America.


Sincerely,

Patrick Q. Henry

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

Love It, or Leave It

Beginning during August of 2005, two political armies began facing off at Crawford, Texas. One group wants the American troops in Iraq to come home as soon as possible. Its leader is Cindy Sheehan, whose son - a US serviceman - was killed fighting in Iraq. The other group, who strongly favor continuing the war, have repeatedly expressed their strong disapproval, angrily asking: "Who does Cindy Sheehan think she is to tell the President how to run the country or the war? Who does she think she is to request that the President speak to her, and to answer her questions to her satisfaction?"

Easy. Cindy Sheehan thinks she is a citizen living in a free Democracy. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't studied the subject, here is how a Democracy works.

Democracy's principles operate exactly the same for any nation, large or small. The citizens create and organize all the things that any nation requires: roads and transportation; police and fire-fighters; safety inspectors and school teachers; sewers and street-lights; civil servants and soldiers; tax collectors (to gather the revenue to finance everything), and executives (to make it all run smoothly and fairly).

Any persons who are granted any job within a Democratic government are there for one reason, and one reason only: because the citizens of that Democracy have given them the privilege and the honor of serving their nation. If any person holding any government job fails to meet the standards of the citizens - regardless how low or high that public official may be - it is those officials' unfailing duty, their unrelenting obligation, to fully snap to attention and provide a good and solid explanation of their job performance. We are their bosses, always, NEVER the other way around. No exceptions.

Why? Because, in a Democracy, the officials are in every way the employees and the servants of the People. Period. That is the very essence of Democracy and the absolute definition of Democracy. In nations where government officials command the people, where the officials and bureaucrats can give orders without having to answer to their people, that is called a "totalitarian" government, or a "police state," or a "dictatorship," all of which are the total opposites of Democracy, the enemies of Democracy.

Thus, if the dog-catcher isn't catching dogs, any citizen of a Democracy has the right to demand an explanation, and to even demand that the dog-catcher be promptly fired. If the fire-chief cannot properly put out fires, it is every citizen's right to demand an explanation or a resignation. If any public officials betray or lose the trust of their employers (the citizens who hired them to manage the affairs of their nation) then all citizens have the right and the duty to demand that the offender fully explain his actions; and, if deemed necessary, demand the offenders' replacement; and, if warranted, demand their criminal prosecution and maximum punishment.

Likewise, if an elected chief executive - of any party - promises to protect his nation, but his hand-picked lieutenants fall asleep at their posts and permit a most grave attack to occur during his watch; if he responds to that attack by mistakenly launching a massive war against a foreign nation who was not responsible for the original attack; if he swears on a stack of Bibles that he has fully reliable evidence that the nation he is mistakenly invading is an absolute imminent threat against the US - a charge which he must later admit was unfounded and incorrect; if he embarrasses his nation and his countrymen by snidely accusing other world leaders of being cowardly and gutless for not following his footsteps into a horribly mistaken, deadly and costly war; if his incompetence and malfeasance leads to the needless horrid deaths and catastrophic mutilations of thousands of his nation's brave young soldiers, and causes life-ruining injuries to tens of thousands more of his nation's military heros; if those same errors in his military and political judgement result in the mortal injuries and deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and children in the foreign nation he wrongly attacked while swearing to be defending its people; if all of the above happens while a small handful of that chief executive's friends and supporters are sharing tens of billions of dollars in personal profits from his unwanted and never-ending war, all while his own nation's military families and common folk are forever short of money for food, rent, home-heating fuel, clothing, medicine and doctor visits for their children... then one simple question deserves an answer.

Namely: In our noble Democracy, why isn't every citizen commanding that this elected official - who the American people entrusted with leading and protecting us, and whether he were to be Republican or Democrat or anything else... why isn't every citizen demanding that he stand promptly at attention, front and center, to justify the utterly catastrophic, humiliating, debilitating, bankrupting, crippling, horrendous, unprecedented world-class disaster and never-ending hellish bottomless-pit of war into which he has led our great nation?

That is how Democracy works.

Naturally, if that leader can defend his actions and policies to the satisfaction of the citizens who have inquired, then he has received a vote of confidence and everything can continue as before. But if he cannot defend his horribly failed leadership and policies, then it is those citizens right and duty to proceed with whatever corrective or disciplinary actions that are granted to them by the timeless wisdom of the US Constitution.

Still, in all fairness, we should consider a deeper and more subtle question. What do we say to those war-proponents who point out that any public challenging of a Commander in Chief "Sends the wrong signal to our enemies; makes us look weak and undecisive; and causes our braves troops to feel that we aren't supporting them". That is a fair question. And the answer is simple.

Our sacred Freedom of Speech always - always - comes first, always overrides all else. Why? To understand, simply consider the opposite. Imagine that a president were to be elected some day - Democrat or Republican or whoever - whose policies and actions were greatly out of line with the American values that you and everyone you know holds dear. Imagine further that he sent hundreds of thousands of our troops to fight and die in some war that you were certain was very ill-advised, wasteful, costly, unneeded, or which served mainly to enrich his well-heeled supporters within the corporate marketplace of warfare. Or imagine that our troops were asked to fight on the side of the communists in Cuba or in Korea. Would you be quiet? Would you let your sons and daughters continue to die in vain each day, continue to be gravely wounded by the thousands, month after month, year after year, for no good reason, or in support of regimes that ran counter to American ideals? Or would you honor your sacred duty as an American to speak out - early and often, loudly and tirelessly, repeatedly and relentlessly - to let your Truth be told?

Would you let your Freedom of Speech be inhibited because your words might be interpretted as unsupportive of the ill-advised president, or because of the possibility of your words being seen as some kind of contrary "signals" in the minds of total strangers in foreign lands? Would you abandon your Freedom of Speech out of fear of their theoretical thoughts, whoever they might be? Would you not know in your heart and belly that our brave troops in battle would be painfully praying and wondering each day, "What in the name of God are we doing here? Why have our countrymen and leaders abandonned us and left us to be slaughtered in this meaningless hell-hole?" Would not the most loving and loyal support of our precious troops be demonstrated by letting them know that help, relief and sanity were on the way, by doing everything possible to get them back home, safe and sound, as soon as we could? In short, in that situation, would you let anything stand in the way of Democracy, stand in the way of our cherished and hard-fought Freedom of Speech?

Indeed, if you did throw away your precious freedoms so casually, then all that any new president (of any party) would have to do upon his inauguration would be to promptly launch some needless war, and then demand that all 300 million Americans must be totally quiet for four years, lest any foreigners perceive some "signal" that everybody in the country may not agree 100% about his decisions. Does that sound like America to you? Does that sound like Liberty to you? Does that sound like Democracy to you?

To the contrary, the very essence of America and Democracy is that - even though we disagree, as all humans always do - we still all stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, coast to coast, under the banner of Freedom and Liberty that lets us ALL be free, even free to agree to disagree when necessary.

Of course, the pro-war camp stationed at Crawford, and their various supporters around the US, have every right to choose an alternative form of government to live under if they disapprove of Democracy's design. Fortunately for anyone who wants to stifle or suppress the voice of our free People, nations like China and North Korea are always seeking single-minded robots who will work hard, keep their mouths shut, and keep their political opinions forever unspoken. Or, as an alternative, those same eager pro-war warriors might remember - each time they rightfully shout "God Bless America!" - that thus far God has blessed America... and that He has blessed us with a blessing called "Democracy"... and that He has blessed us with the freedom to speak our mind, and to loudly and persistently challenge every elected (and un-elected) official to whom we have granted the honor and the privilege of administering our great nation's affairs... and that (up until now, at least) none of us have ever had to worry that someone might ask us "just who the hell we think we are" to tell a President how to run our country, or whether or not we want an unneeded war, or to ask us "just who the hell we think we are" to command our public servants to answer our questions about how our nation is being managed or absysmally mis-managed.

In a Democracy, it is our right and our duty to tell every official how we think our nation should be run, which of their actions we disapprove of, and which wars we want our nation and sons and daughters to wage. And it is those officials' sworn commitment and absolute obligation to jump whenever we whistle. Period. "But, they are too busy!" the pro-war die-hards may say. Still, I say - and every thinking American knows - if those leaders have the time to forever attend rallies of their cheering supporters - then those leaders have the time to talk to all of us.

God Bless Democracy. Love it, or leave it.

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com