Thomas Jefferson's Prayer

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

This was Jefferson's greatest fear for the survival of the nation he helped to create and dearly loved. If Jefferson were alive today he would be appalled at how corporations have seized control of our government and our elected representatives of both major political parties. He would be severely shaken at how the corporations are not only breaking our laws at will but how our laws are being rewritten to serve corporations at the expense and suffering of the people, our environment and our democracy.

Needless to emphasize, Jefferson would hold our present corporate controlled government as reprehensible and a dire threat to our nation's survival. He would be one of this nation's most outspoken critics. How hypocritical of those in power to pretend to honor our nation's founders while destroying the foundations of their most sacred beliefs and their hope for our nation's continued survival.
Our corporate controlled government is at war with the very concept of a free republic, one with a democratic form of government, the very foundation upon which this nation was formed. Free democratic expression is antithetic to the corporate model which strives for complete freedom from any regulation and total domination and control over the corporate workforce and it's production.

When a government is taken over by corporatists it is shaped to become a corporation and is dictated by corporations. Corporatists loudly proclaim their disdain for government and would "like to shrink it to a size it can be drowned in a bathtub", to quote one of their most avidly subsidized lobbyists, Grover Norquist, who parades behind the mask of one who represents the working class. Corporatists like Norquist believe in privatizing every aspect of government services claiming it will save costs and offer more efficient service. But what it really represents to them is profit and power.

Corporate control of government and the goal of expanding opportunities and maximizing profits is a direct cause of our nation interfering in other countries political affairs and going to war. War means huge profits for the right corporations - usually the largest and most greedy. In every case the common people in the effected countries suffer greatly while the corporate class, the most wealthy and influential, profit. The common folks get death, imprisonment and suffering while the corporations and those who cooperate with them share the profits and the spoils.

Greed and the quest for profit and power spawn corruption. Always has, always will. Corporations are corrupt by nature. Anyone who has worked as a corporate officer or in corporate management knows this. Corporate influence and control of government breeds corruption of government. The death of democracy under these conditions is a certainty if corporate dominance is allowed to continue. In order for a free republic and democratic government to survive, corporations must be closely regulated by the nation's government. Corporations cannot control the government. How difficult is that to understand?

In a free republic the government is meant to be a servant of the people - not corporations. And the people are not to be servants of the government - or corporations. The nation was formed for the benefit of the people - not for the sole benefit of corporations.

Elected representatives are supposed to be representatives of the people - not representatives of the government. And the government is supposed to represent the people - not corporations.
Corporations cannot survive as models of democracy and neither can democracies survive as models of a corporation. Governments of free societies cannot become privatized without becoming fascist corporate states.

Without an outcry from individuals like me and you, without public demand for reforms in our election process which allows corporate control and the obscene and criminal influence of corporate lobbyists, we are doomed to lose our free republic status and our democracy. Plain and simple. We will be Enronned and Exonned out of existence. We will be Tysonized and Wal-marted into corporate and class servitude, total slaves of the corporate state.

Jefferson understood this. He saw the dangers of "our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength".

In the face of repression a nation's people are often distressed by the perceived limits of their power as individuals to the point of not being able to perceive it at all. They give up and acquiesce to those in power out of fear of punishment or further repression. They quietly hope things will somehow turn out right, or that God will intervene or that others will fight on their behalf.

What should you do?

Political activism can be a source of inspiration in what it reveals about us, not only from our personal efforts but in what we may discover about related efforts by others with whom we link or cooperate. There is nothing more patriotic than fighting to defend your country, not as a military invader in some political war in a foreign country where you are not wanted.and where the war is simply to further corporate empire and political gain, but to defend your country on your own soil against those who would take us over and subjugate us to their control.

That's where we're at.

To stand up for your country and your fellow countrymen as a personal choice and fight for freedom against those who would repress and control us and those who would steal our nation's future and that of our children's is the highest patriotic act of all.

One you should be willing to die for.