All that Jive

The most used freedom by far is the right to waste. Even though we have tightened up a little during times of recession we still are enthusiastic users of things. It is the nature of an immigrant population that found itself washed ashore a virgin territory. So much potential and seemingly endless resources put at our disposal was a blinding illusion. Certainly, we thought, this abundance of things will last forever.

We run the water like it is not the most precious commodity on earth. We continue to guzzle oil as the pump runs dry. Developers eat up huge swaths of real estate to build repetitious, offensive, ugly structures. Loggers, miners and drillers still push Congress to grant them access to our precious public lands and they win thousands of acres every year. Bankers take monetary resources from the public trust and use them to return to their excessive, speculative and greed driven ways. The good will of congress is bought and sold everyday by an army of corporate zealots padding the coiffures of a corrupt and hypocritical legislature.

Despoliation and greed is woven into the fabric of the national character. Even before our Revolutionary experiment we were evictors, slave drivers, land grabbers and mercenary adventurers. Manifest destiny amounted to government sponsored but widely unsupervised rape of virgin resources from Appalachia to the Pacific coast. The mannerisms of 'we the people' mimics the bad behaviors of those in power. If not, then where did banker little boys learn about avarice and greed or did their corporate sisters assimilate the desire to corrupt and take advantage?

There have been a few good men that have saved us from our own worst inclinations. Others have offered sound counsel but were turned away. Some were martyred, vilified or persecuted as false prophets. Good men have always existed at a risk and they will rise up time and time again but our attraction toward and toleration of scoundrels and rogues is a national sin. There is not one representative of government who could speak to us that we all should not stand and say 'You Lie.'

If our new President does not learn to stand, quit the equivocation, clean his own house and testify to the truth of our fractured system he will fail and be lost. There's no room middling placation, no time to sleep with the devils or pander to the pollsters. We need a Moses without all the jive.