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Stand Up and be Counted!

A young friend of mine wrote a diatribe that I feel everyone should not only read but send to their elected officials.  It is mostly a complaint about the treatment of those who are part of the "Occupy" movement but there are other issues here and I think it bears repeating until every single American has heard it enough times to get off their complacent buttocks and DO SOMETHING about our "representative" government.

You don't remember what to do?  Let me refresh your memory.  Every Senator and Representative has an "open office" address/website/phone number.  You can go to www.senate.gov to find out who your senator's information and www.houseofrepresentatives.gov input your zip code and get the contact details of your district representatives (or all of them from your state if you know all the zip codes).  WWW.WhiteHouse.gov gets you to the White House email and believe me, Obama's staff reads every single email they get!  Recently he asked the American people to email him "What $40.00 means to me" as a way of convincing Congress to pass a new tax relief bill.  In TWO DAYS  he received 40,000 letters and used them to SHAME the Republican congress into passing a stop-gap law for the working people.

Below is Jared's letter which has been mailed to congress and the White House.  Copy it, put your name on it and do the same.  I did.

-Diatribe of a concerned American citizen

I am a young American male.

At this moment, that isn’t what’s important. What is important, however, is my prerogative to express the following thoughts to other Americans and world citizens, young and old, male and female who can read and understand what I have to say.

Because I believe in this country and love what this country represented at its conception.

Because I believe in the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the right of the people to peacefully assemble and protest their grievances.

I can say, with complete certainty regarding the sum total of my academic upbringing thus far, that the founding fathers of this nation would have been utterly appalled at its current condition, and outraged at the police crackdown upon citizens conducting peaceful protests demanding that their voices be heard which have occurred nationwide and continue to occur despite persistent public outcry. The people who choose to speak out have been stymied by the vile and reprehensible machinations of a system which seeks to suffocate and de-legitimize their cause at every turn.  

They say we do not have a purpose, that we do not have an achievable goal. We do now.

That is because this movement is growing. It is growing spontaneously in all directions, in every part of the country, grasping for a solution to stabilize the social structure. It is a movement that will not fade away; it is destined to grow because it is rooted in a fundamental human need, having arisen as a consequence of our civilization.

That need is to achieve social harmony.

This is a very simple doctrine rooted in pure equilibrium, presenting the individual with the opportunity to advance and achieve a reasonable standard of living through his or her own hard work.  This is not to say that we are naïve enough to delude ourselves into thinking that we can, in our lifetime, live in a utopia. Rather, all we can do is lean towards it. However, the argument stands firm that we are not content to settle for the rampant corruption that is currently in place, we should therefore oppose it.

We oppose corporate cronyism that lines the pockets of politicians with virtually unlimited resources to influence votes and control the political process.

We oppose UC Davis cops who pepper spray students sitting and demonstrating peacefully.

We oppose the bulldozing of tent cities organized in ‘Public’ parks, and the subterfuge of the propaganda machine labeling them ‘unsanitary’ and ‘unlawful’. The destruction of public forums only strengthens the legitimacy of the cause.

We oppose multi-billion dollar bailouts for banks and the big three. (Ford, GM, Chrysler). Let them founder like a sinking ship, and have another entity take its place, as should be the natural cycle of economic renewal.

We oppose an administration that would have the gall to present us with a health care reform that essentially forces us to purchase a service, and in so doing, choosing to spoon feed us as though we were infants.  

We oppose a government that represses our right to voice our frustration at its incompetence. We oppose SOPA, and any form of censorship whatsoever. We oppose a government which permits itself to spy on its citizens and seeks to detain them without due warrant or trial.

These are the desperate tactics of a government whose aim is to suppress and distort the truth by utilizing the media as a powerful tool of propaganda, assured that any dissenters would be labeled “Terrorists”, effectively becoming an enemy of the state. It is a system which is using fear and ignorance as coercive tools to undermine any resistance being forged among the populace.

The moniker of “Homegrown terrorism” will be applied to grassroots groups which represent the greatest ideological threat to the current system in place. The most magnanimous among them will be labeled anti-American or Anti-Christian. Trouble makers, dissenters, radicals, and any other politically correct term they can muster, true to an Orwellian vision of a nightmare society.

 When the individual voice is drowned out and complacent ignorance is indoctrinated into the hearts of men who are placated by mindless entertainment and brainwashed to accept their roles as slaves in a machine to serve the elite, will the corruption of the current system flourish, but the seed of unrest is ever present.  This system is the antithesis of free enterprise. It is a form of extreme corporate capitalism that knows no boundary or national border. It exists in Socialist China, and it exists in the United States.  It exists worldwide. This is what happens when an extraordinarily vast amount of wealth is locked up in vaults by the inordinately powerful elite. These elite receive tax breaks and benefits, while the masses are left to suffer being kept in a control loop of easy credit and consequent debt, living a life of indentured servitude to corporate entities which eliminate their benefits and treat them as though they were disposable.  It is an unbalanced system which seeks to focus and concentrate power only to the select few elite, and it favors the form of government that is most sympathetic in supporting it.  

 This abject favoritism to the elite extends to every facet of American society. Keep in mind that traitorous corporations are not penalized and taxed for outsourcing jobs and weakening the foundation of the American workforce and the American manufacturing base.

Our protests are occurring as more people awaken from a sleep of fear and ignorance. We protest the disproportionate salary ratio of CEOs to their blue collar workers who are collectively busting their asses to feed their families while they struggle to keep themselves sheltered.

Our protests will continue. Though they should remain civil and non- violent, the option for self-defense should never be discarded. I adamantly stress this point as a last resort, solely for the fact that there is no absolute certainty that the government may not hesitate to use lethal force against American citizens. The founding fathers of our nation anticipated this and installed the second amendment for many logical reasons.  Despite what the propaganda machine may have you believe, they supported dissent against tyranny, and the ability for the common citizen to overthrow a government should it become harmful to its people.  We shall strive to remain peaceful, but persistent.

We have before us a bloody world history of uprising should we open our eyes.  The French revolution. The October revolution. Tiananmen square. We have Tunisia. Egypt, Libya, Syria. All of these are examples we can learn from and interpret meaning behind their causes.  Only through education can we free ourselves from ignorance.  There will always be those who will decry our cause as mere lamentations, seeking only to twist and contort our message.  Have we become so desensitized and jaded that we have forgotten the necessity of having to fight for our rights? The only noble option is to stand firm in our individual belief, which is truly a unique American characteristic.  We will not be silent. We are the 99%.

Only until the day comes that police have opened lethal fire upon protesting American citizens has the government truly lost all legitimacy and descended into totalitarianism.  Only then should we be prepared to give our lives without fear, for the distinct honor of preserving our liberty and freedom. Only then are we to take up patriot arms against a system which deserves a regime change.      

 – Jared Kramer

Atlanta, Georga