Independence Day

"Our Independence Day" by v. johns, 7/4/08, 11:27 PM

Martin County, at times, appears to be one of those kinds of places where the poor and the middle class are so caught up in caste etiquette and so hellbent on keeping up with and competing with one another over the pettiest of grievances that they have been excessively slow to envision the larger war that has been - and is being - waged against them in the form of government waste and corporate greed. While the poor sweat blood for pennies a day and greet anything even remotely resembling style and class with disgust... often decrying middle-class values with jealousy, scowls and taunts... the middle class, itself, finds itself not being able to keep up with the Joneses - let alone the Kilroy's - as they teeter on the edge of descending rapidly into the lowly ranks of the poor via high fuel costs, layoffs, foreclosures and near death home values. Meanwhile, the rich frolic and play as if their fortunes have nothing to do with the middle class and the poor having money in their pockets to buy the goods and services that the rich produce and peddle to them.

In the meantime, a new strain of rich, the super rich (who make the rich look middle class and the middle class look poor... who have learned to profit on the bad times of others... who REALLY DON'T owe their fortunes directly to ordinary citizens but to legal loopholes and corrupt schemes, almost in direct partnership with our government) has emerged. And they have raided and squandered vast swaths of our nation's resources in global theft schemes that have brought this once respectable nation to its knees. Schemes that have threatened even THEIR fortunes...

But not as much as WE - the people, that is - are going to threaten their fortunes once we get control of our government again... IF we get control of our government again...

All this time that has passed, somewhere along the way, WE, the citizens, have dropped the ball in our duty to maintain a constant vigilance in our pursuit of a more perfect Union. Now, without further ado, we have landed ourselves on the financial front lines of a global war against ordinary citizens for corporate dominance and control over nearly every aspect of our lives. That dominance and control being for the express purpose of exploiting and reaping loads of capital and cash off of as many of those aspects as they can...

In this sick, twisted narrative of Eden's descent into the bowels of Hades, all the while that the poor and middle class have been fighting each other over mere nonsense, some in our state government, along with their Washington and private sector counterparts, have robbed us blind in the midst of our drunken stupor. While we have hated each other for the dumbest of things, the powers that we have allowed to be, for their own personal vanity and gain, have sought to add company to our misery by taking it and shoving it and sticking it to the middle class... Robbing them broke, beating them down and driving them in droves deep into the depths of financial ruin and personal despair...

Perhaps the saddest note in this sordid song of tragedy and lost dreams is that both the middle class and the poor have been used perfectly and effectively as foot soldiers against their own American brethren. Dividing the nation and the state along liberal and conservative lines, the conservative working poor and business-owning middle class were made to believe, by their leaders, that their generally better educated liberal counterparts were the impending social downfall of the country, if not the world. When, in truth, their own severely flawed conservative leaders were the actual secret torchbearers of doom itself. They were told that God, guns and the rights of gay citizens (or lack thereof) were the most important issues of our time and they believed it. They were told that terrorists were going to strike again, at any moment, using everything from pens to shoes, and they believed it. And they punished and struck against any of their fellow citizens who didn't...

Here in Florida, rural conservative support has been used to thwart real progress in the state's most populous, and perhaps, most liberal counties... Leaving them swamped in gridlock and crime with corrupt local politicians and overzealous, rule-skirting home developers driving drunk at the wheel.. All the while setting the stage for the kind of economic rot and decay that has not been seen since many generations ago...

The Bush era here in our great state (Jeb) coupled with the Bush era in Washington, that will thankfully be ending soon (George), yielded droves of misguided citizens who were puzzlingly ready and willing to vote at the polls for things - God, guns and gays - that had nothing to do with solid, concrete progress and prosperity. Many who were poor, instead of voting for issues and policies that would help elevate them to the ranks of the middle class and beyond, were tricked and rallied into voting against their own best interests. In the meantime, the middle class has found itself, seemingly suddenly, but really slowly over time, joining the ranks of the poor.

The failed 2006 anti-incumbent-laced attempt of our citizens to punish the ruling Neo-con dominated party (Republicans) and regain control over their government revealed yet another dynamic: That those that they had elected to act out their civilized revolution (Democrats) were either too spineless, too weak in heart or too weak in numbers, at the very least, to carry out that mandate. Leading many to wonder and suspect whether or not we have all been lulled into the seduction of an illusion of competing ideals... and ideas... whether or not we are all doomed to repeat a vicious cycle of electing those who run in our name but serve their terms to the appeasement of the private and corporate masters in which they serve...

Today, let us all celebrate our Independence Day by vowing to once again become the nation of independents and free thinkers our forefathers envisioned. By vowing to never again allow ourselves to become so divided that we nearly forfeit our country's future to those who would sell us out... If we can imagine ourselves defeating seemingly undefeatable alien monsters in the movie "Independence Day," then surely we can imagine ourselves, on this holiday of the same name, defeating the wicked, non-caring private and corporate interests of the world that have crushed so many dreams and destroyed so many lives...