PREFACE

The ideal of freedom is an innovative notion that can be found at the heart of America. This ideal is embodied in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Constitution. But its greatest power lies in where it lives – in the hearts and minds of the American People.

The Constitution of the United States provides for checks and balances among the three branches of government. Our Forefathers who authored the Constitution expected the greater power to lie with Congress as described in Article One of the Constitution.

In the 1976 movie NETWORK, actor Peter Finch, playing news anchor Howard Beale, famously said the line “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” It became a national mantra of sorts. Our mantra guides our thoughts and actions and helps define our why, prioritize our actions and even focus our energy in a positive manner to achieve our purposes. Today there is still a lot of rage in this country about many issues. Given the current state of our country, we should all be mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore. It is time for our social and political consciousness to collectively arise and send our sacred message to American leadership. It is time for those who are not old enough to remember that we need to hold our politicians and government responsible for their actions. Just as in the protests over racial injustice and the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, our intentions are pure and our kindness genuine.

I am sick and tired, and mad as hell that the people we elect to Federal, State and Local offices act like clowns and no longer represent us or the ideals of our Founding Fathers. You should be too! In this piece I only am directing my views as they regard the Federal Government and the Nation as a whole. This is not a political statement but an intervention as to how “WE, the American” people can take back our government from the clown’s.

In 1963, at the March on Washington, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech (partial excerpts)

“I am happy to join you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation… So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our Nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men… would be guaranteed the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… We must forever conduct our struggle to the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day our nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream… I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as brothers and sisters. 

I have a dream today… This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My Country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside. Let freedom ring… When we allow freedom to ring—when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants…. Catholics (Muslims) wll be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, Great God almighty, We are free at last.”

We can draw inspiration from those who made a difference and helped create the human rights we have today. These humanitarians stood up for human rights because they recognized that peace and progress can never be achieved without them. Each in a significant way they changed the world. Let us use their inspiration to further our cause.

Martin Luther King, Jr., when championing the rights of people of color in the United States in the 1960’s, declared, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The great advocate of peaceful resistance to oppression, Mahatma Gandhi, described nonviolence as “the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest of weapons of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

Fighting fiercely against religious persecution in eighteenth century France, Voltaire wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Thomas Jefferson, inspiration and principal author of the American Declaration of Independence declared that “The care of human life and happiness, not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

Thomas Paine from Common Sense, “These are the times that try men's souls." Paine believed that Americans should trust their feelings, rather than get bogged down in abstract political debates.

For some, the introductory material may be well-known. For many, their elementary and high school history and civics courses have long been forgotten, in whole or in part. For these individuals this is a short review to refresh memories. And yet for others, especially those that have immigrated to our country, details may not be known or understood how everything intertwines. Hopefully, the material may help put things into perspective.

You are likely to not agree with all or or possibly even some of the ideas presented here. We will just have to agree to disagree. On the other hand, you may agree with all or some of the ideas I present. My purpose is to motivate every reader to reassess their own thoughts and beliefs and begin to understand, question, and repair the terrible mess this country has fallen into over many years, many administrations and many sessions of Congress.

Xenophobia is a learned fear. We are not born with it! I am thoroughly aware that we will not come up with a utopia, but at least we can have an open discussion, listen to each other, respect each other, as difficult as it may be, and if we work together: whites, blacks; Gentile and Jew; Protestants, Baptists, Morman’s, Lutherans… Catholics and Muslims, Asians, Hispanics, Africans-Americans, Native Americans, and all who inhabit the United States of America, together “We, the People” can reach a livable consensus, and work to overcome the xenophobia that is instilled in many Americans. If we can, then this Great Experiment can be saved. At that point, we will be able to join hands, and as Dr. King said, and sing in the words of the Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, Great God almighty, We are free at last.”