A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Revolution

As I sat in my tiny box room home office in Ossett, England in 2008 I had a terrible foreboding of things to come. Four years, several hundred thousand miles, a heart attack and a new avocation later I still have that foreboding. The difference today is I better understand the source.

There is truly a threat to an American Ideal that many people perceive is not from a single person or party. It stems from decades of trial and error, learning and progressing by a movement. Much like the tea party movement which was rooted in a common set of principles, this movement is one that does not accept the premise that all men are created equal. It fosters the belief that a few men are suited to direct the rest and these see no more relevance of the common man than that of a tree or a blade of grass.

There are differing opinions in these self anointed elite. How to rule, how to treat the masses, how to secure that power and pass it along appear to the common man as a differing ideologies. They may be differing methodologies but the ideology has completely escaped many. It is the ideology of control.

There is a path to this lofty perch that anyone may climb. In working to reach that goal, the climber may fail to realize the metamorphosis that is taking place. Let me share a story of such a metamorphosis that I observed recently. A few tea party leaders, basking in the glow of recent successes in 2010 parlayed their new found notoriety and power into an elevated status within the ruling elitist class. In short, they join and were given a say in their local Republican Executive Committee. With that simple stroke they failed to see the effect. With the recent primary election past, and the party’s man the victor they felt as though they had lost a crucial battle. Yet there was a candidate from the opposite party running with their very ideals, Constitutionally Conservative, Fiscally Conservative, and a proponent of smaller government. Yet when faced with an opportunity to carry on the fight, they all refused citing the fear of losing their new found status in the GOP if they were to support a “Democrat”.

How soon they forgot their rallying cry of non-affiliation and simple ideals. They had been offered entry into the club and were grateful to have it. Above what they held dear in the beginning, they held the perceived ability to ascend to a class they aspired to reach. Now ain’t that a damn shame? Well, it is, but it is also a shame they do not realize that their “Betters” knew what they were hoping to achieve, they gave them a taste, and they reeled them in hook line and sinker.

The Chinese knew it, the Romans knew it, and the American Ruling Class knows it. It is a simple equation. Placate the mob. Keep them happy, keep them fed, and change their status in very small increments until there is no longer any danger of them seizing back control.

This revelation doesn’t open any avenues of resolution. It simply explains a little more about what is going on. Dems and Republicans want to win but they are patient to try again if they fail on this turn. What they do dearly fear is to lose their grip on power. To lose that power would be worse than the loss of an election or a program or an office. When you scrutinize the political scene in these turns you can see through the veil, behind the curtain, to the barons, earls, princes, and kings. You can understand the tactics the strategies the motivations and the ethics that drive them along their inevitable path.

And if you can see the truth in the moment and understand the reality of the “movement” then perhaps, just perhaps, you will be able to remind them that power comes from the consent of the powerless. Rulers cannot rule without the presence of those who would be ruled. The voices of the many will always overpower the voice of the few.