OCCUPY ORLANDO

OCCUPY ORLANDO

Thomas Paine from his poem Liberty Tree. "Unmindful of names or distinction they came, for freemen like brothers agree, with one spirit endow'd , they one friendship pursued, a   their   temple was  Liberty Tree. " 

 

                During Occupy Orlando, I experienced representative democracy in a form that Thomas Jefferson would recognize.  I saw peaceful assembly as envisioned by the "despicable rabble" of   1765 as they gathered around their Liberty Trees to protest undue corporate influence. 

       Small business was thriving in the colonies but British corporate conglomerates encouraged the Crown to tax, tariff and parasitize the rapidly growing small business community. Eventually, John Hancock would be considered a smuggler and Sam Adams was a fugitive the Redcoats intended to hang as a traitor.

       The Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court has declared corporations as persons and this act is  similar to the Stamp Tax of 1765 as a final straw.  No one is objecting to wealth, but disgust at the grandiose gluttonous greed unleashed in the last 30 years has got us regular folks miffed.          Colonizers love capitalism and completely understand how it has been hijacked by rapacious resource extractors and the monopoly money debt system. 

       Along with the growing rise of corporatism there is the undue influence and stealth coup of the Republican False Witness Party. I saw every American demographic represented at Occupy Orlando, BUT, the moral high ground hypocrites are out in full force, dissimulators trying to misrepresent peaceful protest.  I met bright  people with  good jobs that have come on  hard times due to the gangrenous greed of our banking system or corrupt health care & and misdiagnosis'. 
  

       The only reason corporations make jobs is because the entire structure of Main Street Small Business was crushed after WW2. Unions had brought dignity to the American worker bringing us out of our Third World conditions, but the misnamed Greatest Generation were willing dupes to profiteers who clear cut southern forests to ignite the cheap housing boom of the 50's, and bought stocks in companies such as GM who dumped toxins into rivers and poured industrial  solvents down wells. 

        Many who are sitting pretty today were beneficiaries of the high wages of the government subsidized weapons industry, or investments with companies whose toxic sites that currently need a taxpayer cleanup. We have an EPA because large companies will not do the right thing, ever.

       I realize that union wages priced many American goods beyond the reach of most people in the world by the 70's. Corporations then fled to look for the most obedient and servile labor force they could find. 
       One result of the occupy movement will be foreign workers demanding better pay and safe working conditions with unions, because the unions have not outlived their usefulness. Wal Mart heirs have $80,000,000,000 

2025 update: more like 180 billion.in the bank and could afford an across the board three dollars an hour raise for all non-salaried workers. With or without a union, this would be an instant stimulus package and the many industrious, underpaid, unhappy Wal Mart workers would agree.

       In 1788 the new government of the United States had many bills and loans to be paid. Many of our states' rights issues were studied and discussed and a limited federal government was agreed upon. To provide a common defense was understood by George Washington to mean we would not be a meddlesome component in the world's conflicts. "Government is like fire, it can be a handy servant, but a terrible Master." 

       I agree with the Tea Party and their opinions on government over reach, Departments of Education and Energy are state issues and these departments can be eliminated. We disagree on defense cuts.    
       In 1788 most tax revenue was generated from tariffs. A 25% tariff on all products from China would embolden workers there, in their fight for higher wages, as we demand that China end slave labor and worksite tyranny and   focus on environmental abuses and pollution. 2025 update. China has 2000 unit aprartments that keep you locked in unless your social goddy goody is green.

       During the Orlando General Assembly,  the motion to list corporations to boycott was tabled and  ethical safe companies should be promoted instead. The General assembly's are a pure form of representational democracy as any person could have input into decisions. To read the disparaging comments of those trying to malign the Occupy Movement is to see ignorance on display. 

Our civic groups are the high thread count in the fabric of freedom and our voices around the world will be heard.

       People sitting pretty today very likely have gained this security from investments in polluting industries, their portfolios swelling from profits in companies like Kimberly Clark who cut down 150 foot ancient spruces to make tissue paper. 

Everywhere profits and a distinct lack of mature leadership.

Unseen is the environmental devastation as hillsides erode. 

 Those mocking protestors may also be part of the corporate cabal of lawyer politicians who profit greatly from government projects. Many don't realize that 40% of Congress are lawyers and it is them that have created the law debilitated nightmare we have today.  This lackey system of sycophants will do the best they can to halt liberty from emerging.

       Little known is that the Revolutionary Sons of Liberty were roughnecks and gang members. Paul Revere eventually became a renowned silversmith but was known as just another wharf rat to the British sympathizers known as Tories. Sam Adams organized these gangs. Groomed for the clergy, he chose another path and was considered by the governor a troublesome pest and "leader of this group of Mohawks."  In fact the clergy seemed conspicuously absent during the actual revolutionary struggle but were always usurping political power with their bogus 'great awakenings'.

       The first revolution was accomplished by the 99%. A Black Native American, Crispus Attucks, was the first casualty during the Boston Massacre.  Atheists were not discriminated against as they are today and many independent voices influenced events. One of the little people was an important advisor to George Washington. In fact, Washington D.C. and its breathtaking architecture was designed by a flamboyant gay dude.  You are being sold a pack of lies and you really need to look hard for the truth that has been thoroughly whitewashed. 

     Occupy Wall Street may not resemble the window smashing, effigy hanging,  cannon hauling, tavern singing patriots of 1776, but in some ways  the pursuit of Liberty and Justice for all is exactly similar. The second American Revolution  will include women this time giving us the energy needed to defeat  coercive authority. Or as The platform of the Progressive Party in 1912 said in their mission statement, their stated goal was to defeat "the unholy alliance between business and government." TheBull Moose Party was led by Theodore Roosevelt and though they didn't win, T.R. was carved into Mount Rushmore for a reason. Trust buster extraordinaire.

Thomas Paine from his poem Liberty Tree. "Unmindful of names or distinction they came, for freemen like brothers agree, with one spirit endow'd , they one friendship pursued, a   their   temple was  Liberty Tree. "     

Donut Shop Pundits CHAPTER 12

John A Almada
2012

Liberty Lessons

Lesson  1
Does War create Liberty?

          Do we follow the 9^th  commandment  ……or the 9^th amendment of the  Bill of rights, constitution thingy?  In the case of tea party ‘patriots’, the answer is      neither. 

             Remember in 2009 when the national discussion was energy self-sufficiency and Infrastructure Repair? The price of gasoline had gone upto $4.25. We needed a fresh, optimistic new start, and it had nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats. It had to do with Liberty and our ability to create without coercion. We would invent our way out of the near-depression created by the real estate bubble. Small business creates more jobs than the big corporations, let’s remember, and as I often say, “the innovations of the future are going to come from the garages of America, not the boardrooms of corporations.” 

                The cranky Donut Shop Pundits are trying to be the fulcrum of power and falsely claim to represent America. Donut shop pundits are who glennbeck and rushlimbaugh emulate, the charismatic right-wing jackbag at the donut shop or breakfast place, holding court as teens sling the donuts or home fries, and slack-jawed yokels nod as these ‘pundits’ jettison dissension from their pulpits of powdery hate. This week the word has gone down from the 1% to the Donut Shop Pundits. 'If Obama is re-elected it will be the end of America.' So they all begin working it into anything they can.

          They have wanted to go back to 1950 since 1962 and they influence public opinion more than we’d like to admit. The only problem is that; their world has died, and the Old Order refuses to admit it. At the donut shop you hear, "I earned that lifetime pension defending our country, not like those welfare queens and food stamp moochers". What the alcoholic military pensioner doesn't like to talk about is that he or she worked 18 of those 20 years, selling boots in the commissary. Hardly defending our country, but thoroughly enjoying the perks of a  socialistic, overly huge military.   No offense of course.  I'm all for a military closer to the homeland.  Higher pay, no more lifetime pensions, More Seals, less salesman.  Fewer lifers, more Coast Guard         

George Washington (upper right)sits around with 13 goddesses from this fresco on the ceiling of the Capital building. Minerva and Ben Franklin confer below

          We could cut troop strength down to 750,000. More warriors, less shoe salesman at the commissary. and pencil pushers. Too much Veteran benefits for some, terrible health care for others. 
         My children will be paying disability for those injured in the Bush Wars. This is what the so-called greatest generation will be known for---bankrupting the future with golden promises and unsustainable payouts. 

      Highways, bridges, hospitals, wetlands, inner cities, all need workers to repair and maintain, and we are truly wasting our money on a worldwide military and costs will dog federal budgets nearly to the 22nd century.
            We are truly wasting our money on a worldwide military. Too many lifers milking their jobs to get to twenty years. The soldier who shot 16 Afghanis was 18 years into his stint---he was only 2 more years away from retirement. It is conceivable that someday, someone who retired from the military at 40, collects a pension till they are 110, we’ll be living longer they say, so, therefore, 20 years of work will yield 70 years of pension.      

            
              We need to evolve socially also. United States sells weapons to 100 countries, what’s that all about? Weapons help boost the economy? Or would money be better spent on hospitals, bridges, restoring wetlands, health care, have blighted inner cities rejuvenized. Building or adapting roads to accommodate  slower 25 MPH traffic as we create a more diverse transportation system . It is such an irony that taxes are being used instead to  bomb hospitals, bridges, wetlands and creating bombed neighborhoods that need repair.

•           Instead of using the 9th amendment to support the effort  to balance the foundation of authority:: Instead of heeding  the spirit of the 9th commandment that demands we speak truth about other people, the closed minded right wingnuts persistently plunge forward, jettisoning their appalling display of ignorance, their fecal contamination of  half-truths and an insurmountable pile of lies from their pulpits of hate.
•       
•              What does bearing false witness mean you ask? False witness can be described as making up deceptions to make a person appear sinister or crooked or un-American in the teabag rulebook. Gossip campaigns that bring people down, this is bearing false witness but they seem to revel in it. Do not lie about your neighbor or relative, ALWAYS SPEAK TRUTH, this is what the 9th commandment states.            
•     The credit collapse   will clear the path for the final industrial and military destruction of what’s left….that’s any good. Resource bankruptcy will be our grandchildren’s birthright. THEY WILL MERELY BE A POOL OF WORKERS THAT WILL PAY OFF BANK, INSURANCE, AIRLINE, INDUSTRIAL AND GOVERNMENT PENSIONS. 
• Our founding fathers are accused of being slave owners and that, but the foundation of liberty had to begin somewhere and it had to begin somehow, it couldn’t arrive full blown out of nowhere. Let's see you leave a constitution that is still admired 235 years later.
•     Environmental wacko is  the term used by Rush Limbaugh to describe people involved in earth stewardship. He thinks that the only good tree is a dead tree. Furniture, decking, house frames, sports equipment;  trees are a product exclusively. All good utilizations, but many of us feel trees need to be forests too, and not just baseball bats. The best wood has been harvested, the old trees incinerated to grow monoculture crops.
• Planting as if nature mattered, creating a sustainable resource base, a movement for change and real progress and getting a grip on the 21^st century. Capitalism bankrupt…...dictatorships barbaric…Socialism is passé…Like  it or not this is the era when new governing principles will be created. A movement that respects all life on the earth. THE EARTH MOVEMENT.

                   People who say this is a Christian nation are bearing false witness; most Christians therefore break the 9^th commandment. Spreading lies, half-truths, and defying the spirit of the 9^th commandment while they pass out NObama stickers at Bob Evans, speaking lies out of both sides of their mouths. While at the same time they are using the 9th amendment in the wrong way. 

              But that is Lesson 2. How to use the 9th Amendment the way the founding revolutionaries intended.

LIBERTAS       HOLDS

      THE LAMP

When the greedy can mock the compassionate,

when the slovenly moral can hurt the innocent,

when the ones you love destroy your dreams;

it becomes time to concede the hint.

Whether reform becomes revolution,

And the separation of church and hate;

Calls to us to secure our means, 

let us bring freedom to the state.

Falsely accused the righteous will plead,

The veiled will scream and clamor for justice.

The gift of life falls from our grip,

Game over friends, it’s the end of bliss.

Poetry is power, the Egyptian understands, and

The camel concedes the passage is small.

The gods cry and the goddesses cringe

Now hoping we will stand tall.

Pele erupts to bury the deceit and

Cities look up to see the flames.

Even the blind will see the light and

History cannot record all our names.

Thank you muse and inspire me now,

To reach the souls who have gone dead and cold.

While the evil conspire to deceive the lame, 

Clarity of vision is ours to hold.

We stand together to exorcise and train,

While Libertas holds the lamp aloft to see.

Temerity we seek with hope to claim;

A life worth living for all to be.

The otherside embraces and awaits our return

And with shield and sword we discard our name.

Swirling the whirlwind we ride tonight,

V for victory and PEACE for all to claim

THE LIBERTY TREE

 
As another strong squall blew in from the east, on September 21^st 1938, my dad bent down and grabbed the cap that had blown off his head; tucked it under his arm, and ran the rest of the way home. Although far out to sea when he went to school, the undetected and untracked hurricane had picked up speed, slamming into the Connecticut coast around 3 o’clock with 115 MPH winds.

The winds were still blowing over 90 MPH as the dangerous quadrant of the storm went through Hartford where my dad lived. His mom, sister and he looking out the window as trees flapped like the neighbors laundry on the line,  my grandmother barely having  time to bring hers in.  The Long Island Express it was called and this unseen hurricane was the strongest storm to ever hit New England in recent memory.

            Just south of Hartford in Wethersfield, where my mother lived, the Great Elm, pictured above and recognized as the largest in the United States, held onto most of its large branches but was heavily damaged.