::::::::
It's difficult to imagine what Thomas Jefferson -- or any of the Founding Fathers -- would make of what has become of their American Experiment. They certainly would not recognize today's Teabaggers, whose message is antithetical to the original Boston protests over unfair taxation without representation and lack of autonomy and basic human rights.
They would not comprehend why this group of grammatically-challenged overfed whiners were complaining because they were to receive affordable health care coverage, or government-funded quality education programs, or adequate public safety systems, or secure infrastructure, or regulations that ensured the integrity of our food and drug supplies. What backward, medieval Fox "News"-inspired group-think produced these monobrow'd knuckle-draggers who have so vocally demonstrated their utter disregard for True American exceptionalism? The inspiration and hope for a better way of life and citizenship that fostered James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and the others we celebrate today.
The late great wise man Hunter Thompson once wrote this in his seminal work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about the progressive movement in the 60s:
"You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning....And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave....So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
The waters have receded to a mere trickle, but yet we persevere. We scream into the night and rage against the dying of the light. Join us tonight the fight!
