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Is It Time For A Bloodless Revolution?

Is It Time For A Bloodless Revolution?


By Norma Sherry

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

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Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

*************

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

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