August 3, 2010
By Henry Pelifian
The United States, despite a representative government, is imitating former empires with their attendant failures.
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Political Royalty
by
Molly the Robin
My
name is Molly and I am an American robin. I learned to think by seeing
myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of
hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park.
He only got half the story right as most people do. I use public school
libraries which are often closed. I usually find windows or openings
into schools. I only have to perch on a tree or bush or deck to watch
television news, which is hardly worth the trouble most of the time.
I
landed in the patio of a retiree who has a lush garden with many
delicacies. There was a tablet of paper on a table and I read what she
had written. I heard her on the telephone talking very passionately
about politics and she said that she would like to write a column for a
newspaper because she had never done it. So here are her words, an
American retiree, a teacher with thirty-one years in the educational system:
"What
we have here in the United States of America is our very own political
royalty who ride in luxury limousines to luxury homes sometimes on
government planes to luxury hotels at luxury resorts and back to the
luxury limousines to one of their luxury homes where they feast on the
finest organic free range meats, seafood, and the finest and freshest
organic vegetables and beautiful fruits few of us citizens can afford.
As
a taxpaying citizen standing in line for everything, standing in line
at the airport, at the supermarket, at the DMV, waiting at the doctor's
office, waiting and standing in line while the political royalty whose
salaries we pay live another kind of luxury life. A life of privilege
which I cannot afford. I only pay them so they can afford it without
using their own money.
Meanwhile,
for the actual job I pay them to do, which is to make laws to keep us
free and safe seems to be lost somewhere. Let's see, roads, bridges,
trains, unsafe lakes, rivers and drinking water polluted, cities crime
ridden, industry jobs outsourced. Household products foreign made, a
question about my credit card takes me to a foreign land. My groceries,
fruits and vegetables are mostly imports. What- we can't grow our own
grapes or broccoli anymore? We can't make a wrench, a wreath or a towel
anymore.
Crimes
in the public schools have increased when they should have decreased 20
years ago. The obscenities on TV and the movies have become
commonplace and accepted. This is our America today."
The
superstate that has been created in your country is for the benefit
primarily of those in the national government, lobbyists and the
industries the lobbyists represent, often to the detriment to the
majority of the American people. A new slogan has emerged for the
republic: A country for the few, by the few but of the many. They have taken to calling Medicare and Social Security entitlements, which are really necessary government services while almost everything else in the government, including their perks and privileges are nothing more than "entitlements."
I
came across a old newspaper article about your military building new
bases and homes and recreational facilities including golf courses and
pools in the Philippines costing a billion dollars when the dollar was
worth double or more than it is today. Well, at that time the U.S.
military just assumed the Philippine government would permit them to
stay another 100 years. It did not happen and that billion dollars
worth of construction was lost.
Now, that does not compare to the
amount of money lost and stolen in Iraq which is now in the tens of
billions of dollars. If we included the waste, fraud and abuse in
domestic spending it is in the trillions of dollars.
What lessons have been learned by the national government about
spending the people's resources? That's something you've never seen
discussed on the television networks.
It really is expensive
maintaining an empire and the least of it has been in propping up
dictators in the name of freedom around the world: Marcos in the
Philippines, Shah in Iran and many more you can read about in the book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer.
The
irony is that in the United States has one of the most expensive
educational systems in the world, yet the majority of the American
people are blissfully unaware of their country's own history-foreign or
domestic. In fact, many Americans, possibly a majority, are ready for another war, attacking Iran.
Simon Bolivar said:It is a terrible truth that it costs more strength to maintain freedom than to endure the weight of tyranny.
I'll be flying off now. It's getting late.
Authors Website: http://www.amazon.com/Henry-Pelifian/e/B007IUGMY8
Authors Bio:Henry Pelifian has written many columns and articles on government and current events. He has published a play THOREAU based on the life, works and words of Henry David Thoreau, a war novella and short stories based on his years overseas called Stellar Energies To America and Land of the Tuk-Tuk set in Thailand and Iran.
He served two years (66-68) in the U.S. Army and deployed to South Vietnam for one year from 67-68 and he served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand (75-77). He has an B.A. in English/Drama/Education and an MBA in International Management. He has worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Iran during the Shah's era and he has experience in both public and private sectors.