One Utah

Like many Americans, I have sat back to watch for a hero to arise, someone who can make sense of what has been going on for the past four unbelievable years of war and horror. But what I have seen instead since September 11, 2001, are Americans under attack from the very people they thought were protecting them and we have been conditioned not to resist. While diverting our attention to “devious outlaws” from other nations that harbored weapons of mass destruction, secret operations and presidential proclamations have been enacted to take away the very freedoms we have sent thousands of our children to fight and die for. And because we should have no fear of our elected leaders we have blindly allowed “Corporate America” to take over our lives until we now cower at the thought of speaking up. Out of the ashes of the “Twin Towers” has come forth a “new” America and it is one that I don’t particularly like and it is one that we should be very leery of.

A writer by the name of Bob Avakian wrote: “Amidst widespread revulsion over George Bush and everything he stands for, millions are increasingly desperate, frustrated, and angry as they realize the election of 2004 offers them no possibility to vote against the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and other horrors of the Bush agenda. And this realization that on crucial questions confronting the people of the U.S. and the entire world, the fact that John Kerry does not offer any serious challenge to Bush highlights the reality that THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE WILL NOT BE EXERCISED IN THIS ELECTION.”

Not only does John Kerry not have much to offer, but neither does any other bureaucratic millionaire who is seeking office these days. Ouch! How can this be possible? Our country, this the United States, has always been controlled by the people, of the people and for the people….right? Wrong! Though I love my American history and the many hero’s that thwarted the evil British Empire to create this great nation, we have always had a minority of the wealthy in charge of what we ate who we married and how we were to live our lives. The “Great American Dream” was in control from the start by those who had the funding and today the decedents of those families are not about to let go of that power.

For years, America has had its own dictators masked as every day citizens, but in complete control of the day-to-day operations of this country. Whether you want to call it a secret society or the total unknown, our banks, government and lives are totally in control of just a few, who, one day, will destroy everything around us including the environment to achieve their one goal; to have it all.

Oh come now Ms. Jackson, how cynical and preposterous you have become! Well, thank you for noticing, but denying that there isn’t a conspiracy is just as irrational as saying there is no global warming. Ah! Remember all those such as President Bush who have denied that? Oh my, big oil who has influenced those that rule us, has had no hand in the silencing the many world scientists, who have warned us for almost four decades that we are destroying this planet and ourselves. Yeah, right!

Hmmm… not once have the publications of hundreds of scientific papers pleading with us to stop the destruction of this planet and its people, been squelched by this administration. You’re right, it wasn’t once, it was hundreds of times. “But why” you ask? Because like the cigarette companies that for years lied and covered up the research that we were killing one another with smoking and second hand smoke, big oil has kept us from advancing into the next step of our evolution to better our lives and to guarantee the future of our children.

“Pish Posh!” you say. “You are deluded and a troublemaker Jennifer” and I couldn’t agree with them more. I am! I don’t know, call me crazy (and I am, just a little), but I see the deliberate attempts by those who are in power to control my life and the lives of my children and I don’t like it one damn bit.

When I was quite young, there where two popular cartoon shows. One was the “Flintstones” and the other was “The Jetsons” and I liked them both. As a child I liked Fred Flintstone who would come home to his wife Wilma and daughter Pebbles and then be run over by an awaiting baby dinosaur, Dino who would lick him ferociously like today’s dog. Ahhh.. A life where there was very little pollution and no real worries was both childlike and carefree.

Then there was George Jetson who would come home in his space vehicle to his wife Jill, his daughter Judy, Elroy his son and a real dog this time Astro. You giggled and laughed at the maid robot and was mesmerized by all of the Sci-Fi technology that would one day be in your own home.

But where are all of these interesting gadgets today? Particularly the space aged cars and better ways to live more productively and with greater ease? All of this was to one day reduce pollution and to free us from old fossils that we have killed and died for, for over a hundred years. I’ve seen these inventions on television. They were supposed to be here by the 80’s and then the 90’s and now to be unveiled in 2020 to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Didn’t they say those same words back in the 1970’s when alleged authoritative sources declared we had less than 10 years of world oil reserves left?

I am concerned and angry that we are but cattle being told what to do in every way by the anointed and are suppose to like it. Tell me, what is so different in the ways our lives are being dictated to, than in those days of old in England when royalty told the serfs what to do.

If I have to go further in providing proof to you that we are limited in what we can do, visit an airport and try to board a plane without standing in line to undress for a government employee and have your luggage searched. Go to a courthouse or to the state legislature to listen to laws being discussed and listen to the interpretations of the laws that segregate us into classes so that the very upper class is not affected. Try to visit a relative in Canada freely, without having to produce many forms of documentation other than the once cherished driver’s license. Watch the walls that are being erected on the Mexican border to not just keep the Mexican population out, but to seal us in. Then listen to the statement of Ronald Regan some 20 years ago say “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!”

In our last election we saw a glimmer of hope, but is it just a mirage that will only fade again once we allow the elected to go back to “business as usual?” An example of this is the Utah State House Speaker Greg Curtis making the promise to listen to his constituents after almost being ousted by one of the narrowest margins. He had been behind big business leader, David Checketts of the Salt Lake Real soccer franchise, to take tax dollars to secure land and build a stadium. The Salt Lake Tribune reported “The Sandy Republican says several delays by Salt Lake County politicians and soccer burnout on Capitol Hill has caused Curtis to move on. He told the Tribune it’s unfortunate but he personally thinks soccer’s dead. “The people of his district warned him to listen to their desires and not of big business. He later promised after his near defeat only to back the governor of Utah and bring forth 36 million dollars after the county government deserted such a scheme, calling the deal a financial nightmare. Hmmmmm… now Mr. Checketts, who is a millionaire, has his funding and those who need medical care such as our children and elderly go without. Let’s see, a soccer team vs. human life and possible assistance. Guess who won? Salt Lake Real not the majority of Utah’s people.

So, we have big business, big oil, rich politicians, health care mongers and ammunition manufactures who prey on the feeble minds of Americans, who have no will to resist and are left to fight for the scraps thrown down from the big banquet table. That sounds like a fair fight to me! With 45 million Americans without health care, Social Security in the trash can, war with every nation that tries to mind its own business, I’d say we’ve done a great deal to preserve our freedom.

Maybe it is time to revisit our “Declaration of Independence” and see how close those times in which it was drafted is so similar to ours.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

If you read closely, there is one item of this great document that I leave with you to ponder:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

This entry was posted Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Democracy, Disaster, This Blog, Utah Legislature, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.