PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS

by

Larry Martines

Prologue

            No one alive today can say for sure, what attitudes and opinions were shared by the American population when patriots and tyrants walked the land during the United States of America’s formative years. From what we do know, and what we can surmise, great injustices imposed by tyrants on a very industrious population were recognized and seriously discussed.

            Settling and developing a civilized society in a new land had been the labor of relatively smart, dedicated people – people who were not easily distracted from the main issue of survival and from the main reason they came to an unsettled land to begin with.

            After suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes that continuously placed them in the paths of tyrants, people weren’t of a mind to be distracted by bread and circuses. Nor were they of a mind to be intimidated by the force of arms dangling over them like the proverbial sword of Damocles. No doubt, those hardy people heeded the voices of the patriots of the day who stood above the fray and clearly stated the obvious – but that was then . . .

             . . . And, this is now . . .

            At the beginning of the twenty-first century the American population majority had evolved into a collection of contented conspicuous consumers who gorged on make believe food, waddled into fat city and squeezed into their SUVs as they drove themselves to the poor-house. High on drugs, spirited into their embrace by the Albanian drug lords with the blessings of Osama Ben Laden, snorting Americans supported the wrong side of their pathetic war on terror. Massive debts accumulated. Consumer queens maxed out their credit. Speculating fools flipped houses until the housing mania music stopped. Joe six-pack and his hockey-puck buddies burned themselves out on sporting events and infotainment. Health declined as people tripped out on Designer drugs that became the cash cows of medical and drug technology. Reading ability and reading material headed for extinction. Government fiscal and monetary mis-management increased at exponential rates. War had become the permanent political distraction du-jour. Bureaucrats groveled in the swill of corporate largess – and two political parties without a dime’s worth of difference between them dominated the nation’s power structure.

            The concept that national opposing political candidates belong to the same secret societies, never made its way into American consciousness. Implications of this staggering to contemplate anomaly appended to a free society remained well beyond the grasp of most of the voting population.

            That available useful information had existed, free for the taking, was an amazing counterpoint to the degraded awareness of the American population. Americans, had become misinformed and programed to do and believe what they were told. Meanwhile, tyrants stalked the land and occupied the nation’s power structure while the few patriotic voices that cried out were not heard.

            Such had become the sorry condition of the heirs to that noble experiment once known as the American Republic, who stood by and let tyrants trample their freedoms and morph their once gold based republic into an empire gorging itself on the forbidden fruit of fiat currency.

            And so, during the closing years of the twentieth century, Wall Street’s enticing rhapsody, like an inescapable rapture of the deep, captured many who heard it. And there were many, too many, who succumbed to the ‘buy the dips rapture’ of the rally refrains. Money, like children who followed the Pied Piper, had simply vanished. The new millennium moved into place as it made a nearly seamless transition with no noticeable Y2K bother, and without missing a beat the rhapsody played on to a packed house.

            A single decade into the new millennium, the rhapsody lay in the dust bin of history. Thus by 2012 a poorer, sadder but not much wiser people, learned that a depression is a lot more than just a mood swing. Few survivors of the great depression of the 1930s are still be alive, and they are truly depressed to see it happen again in their lifetimes. Like in old time continuous-play movie-shows, it’s time for them to say, “Excuse me please – this is where I came in.”

            But, history is like that. When least expected it springs back, raring to repeat itself all over again. It loves to do an encore. Its reprise is always better. It really loves to get your attention. The script doesn’t change, but there’s a lot of gratuitous ad-libbing. It’s as if history knows that the more things change the more they stay the same. And it knows well how to lead the players in its best sing-along chant, “This Time Its Different” mantra.

            The double aught years staged a replay of the lead-up to the 1930's depression days, as the Lullaby of Wall Street turned bittersweet. Toward the end of the first decade of the third millennium the lullaby no longer played on Main Street. There they heard a different tune, another replay – Salvation Army style – only nobody knew the words. The refrain might just have become an inflation-adjusted, “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

            While Wall Street hyped its hopeless wares to wide-eyed audiences, the gung-ho gangs down on Pennsylvania Avenue did their own parody on a famous old WWI song, “Over There.” This time there were a lot of Over-Theres’, like a whole world full of them. And they didn’t have ‘A Slow Boat to China’ in mind as they roared off into the wild blue yonder; promising to be right-back when it’s over, over there . . .

            Washington’s toga and sandal set strutted and fretted imperiously on their oil-slicked stage, truly believing their subjects loved them. A small cabal had seized control of American foreign policy and steered the world’s only super-power into a role of a client-state waging war in pursuit of mid-east hegemony. “What fools ye mere mortals be?” Thank you Puck. Once again, by popular demand, history repeats for the benefit of the born yesterday crowd.

            On an even grander scale, history replayed another of its favorite themes. This time adding oil to the opium trade as the world played war again for the benefit of the commodity control crew. Earlier in history, large portions of the world’s population had become addicted to opiates. Vast fortunes accrued that had fueled nineteenth century opium empire building.

            Empires come and go as history reshuffles its nation players, but family fortunes can and do survive. In the twentieth century, oil moved to center stage as the fortune building commodity du jour and war’s raison d’etre. It set the stage for still more family-fortune-building grabs for empire.

            Opium production continued as a cash cow hiding behind the smoke of an over-hyped war on drugs. Simultaneously, later day oil wars grabbed the spotlight while hiding behind still another, also over-hyped, war on terror. Interests in both commodities coincided in many penthouse offices of power elites.

            Following the 911 catastrophe, history rolled back again to the 1930's. This time to stage a reprise of events that had followed the Reichstag Fire that had given rise to Nazi Germany. The insidious “War on Terror” stripped away what remained of freedoms in America and what remained of a free press. Pre-emptive war became the bellicose crusade of the appropriately named chicken-hawks that dominated the American power structure.

            History being the frivolous creature it is, restaged one of its grandest wealth redistribution acts. Its fondest trait is to keep doing something until it gets it right, a tall order, given what the human population has, so far, provided it to work with. So history like Sam, plays it again no matter who listens or bothers to learn its lines . . .

            The stage is then set for what will surely follow . . . . 

Chapter One

Winter 2012 in South Florida

            Ricardo’s youngest son, twelve year old Pepe, an experienced field hand, knocked on the trailer door. Speaking in good English, he said, “Mrs. Martin, my father says he has work today for you and Mr. Martin – if you can come right now.”

            “Oh that’s wonderful, Pepe. Steve is right here, I’ll get him.”

            “No need, I’m ready, let’s go.”

            Maggie gathered their meager supply of bread and vegetables in a carrying bag, having learned the hard way not to leave food where others could find it, she and Steve followed Pepe to the front of the ramshackle trailer park. After briefly greeting Ricardo, they climbed in the back of his old, dependable truck. Eleven others seated there, all related to Ricardo, gladly squeezed closer together making room for their gringo friends.

            Everyone was friendly and happy to see them again. Maggie felt good and showed it. Her mood was contagious, and even Steve seemed buoyed by it. Smiling, she spoke to her companions in their language. “It’s good to be with you again and be able to do some useful work. I never realized how much the human spirit needs the nourishment of hard work and being close to nature at the same time. Steve and I may be a lot poorer financially than we ever thought we’d be, but I feel good and happy to know all of you.”

            Martha, Ricardo’s wife, looked at Maggie and smiled broadly revealing wide spaces between her few remaining teeth. “I happy when Ricardo say work for you. You nice lady. Tonight . . . maybe you come . . . have paella with us. Pepe catch many shrimp . . . make good, with rice and vegetables.”

            So in spite of the hard work that lay ahead in the sugar cane fields, Maggie felt joy in the prospect of supper time camaraderie with Martha’s family. But she thought about the costs to the environment and society in general that were the result of these sugar cane fields poisoning the everglades. Corrupt politicians pocketing campaign contributions, burying reform, continued to subsidize an industry that owed its existence to the public dole. The catch-22 in all of this was that she and Steve plus Ricardo’s family, as well as many others, were dependent on the meager sustenance the industry’s paltry wages provided.

After twelve grueling hours hacking down tough sugar plants, they wearily climbed back into Ricardo’s truck. Everyone settled down as well as they were able to in preparation for the long drive to the place that Ricardo and his family called home. By comparison, the rundown trailer park Maggie and Steve lived in was a giant step up the living scale ladder. The settlement Ricardo’s family and his Hispanic neighbors occupied was like a Gypsy camp in which they were squatters living well off the beaten path.

            The truck that brought them there appeared incongruous in these surroundings. Its presence being the primary visible evidence of advanced civilized society. The camp site consisted of ingeniously crafted bamboo structures with roofs and walls thatched with palm fronds and other dried out vegetation suitable to the purpose. These improbable dwellings stood in a circle, surrounding a large open space where everyone gathered to prepare and share their food. The entire scene, minus the truck and the clothes worn by these otherwise dark skinned people, could just as easily have been that of any South American jungle village.

            Martha supervised the food preparation. She served Maggie and Steve first as honored guests. Enticing aromas of carefully spiced natural foods, cooking on open fires, soon mingled with smoke from the wood burning fires, titillating everyone’s sense of smell. Living up to its aromatic promise, the paella and vegetable side dishes were superb. Pepe had indeed caught a great quantity of shrimp. It complimented the paella perfectly.

            In spite of the forces that placed them there, Maggie felt good about being in this improbable place sharing life in a way that perhaps, it was truly meant to be. She mused, “Steve, how lucky we are to be blessed with friends like Ricardo and his people, and being in this heavenly spot oblivious, at least for the moment, to the mad mess of civilization running amok lurking out there.”

            Steve, massaged the back of his neck with the juice from an aloe plant to ease the effect of the sun’s relentless attack on his gringo skin. “Well, it’s interesting to see how basic life really is and how living with nature can be its own reward. Back in our so called civilized life, more appropriately known as the rat race, we used to spend a lot of money to go off to some exotic location to go native. Here we are, doing it for real and as you said, lucky to be here.”

            Juan, Ricardo’s younger brother, softly strummed on his guitar and set the mood with a few vibrant, Spanish sounding, chords accompanied by some Segovia like finger work. The setting sun illuminated the sky above them and presented a colorful display typical of evenings in South Florida. Daylight rapidly turned to dusk. The aromas of the meal wafted off on a soft evening breeze as Juan began singing in a clear tenor voice.

            The generally depressed state of Maggie and Steve’s lives, and that of most of the others, were temporarily forgotten. Here in this secluded place, at least for this idyllic moment, under a panoply of brightening stars emerging in a clear, darkening sky above them, Maggie and Steve quietly counted their blessings. Relaxing comfortably, they listened to the plaintive melody and sad words of a universal lover’s lament, like those sung the world over in its infinite variety of languages. Characteristic sounds of chords produced by classical finger-work on the well-used guitar, complimented the Spanish phrasing so naturally it seemed it could be no other way.

            After the refrain came a chorus, where others joined in. Soon Steve and Maggie became part of the group, with Steve lending a respectable baritone and Maggie a fine contralto. Juan smiled in appreciation, as simpatico voices blended in a means of communication transcending place and time.

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Chapter Two

In the days that followed there was little to do, and life in the trailer park ground on in a quiet weariness of deepening despair. Perhaps the main thing that kept Steve going was Maggie’s gentle prodding. She never lost faith in him or herself. They managed to barely scrape by, doing menial labor alongside many immigrants, most illegal, who occupied the lowest rungs on the economic ladder. They helped pick the citrus crop, cut sugar cane, and did occasional lawn service work when someone needed extra hands. Steve and Maggie were luckier than most of their downsized contemporaries. Hispanics who comprised the bulk of this itinerant work force, accepted Steve and Maggie based on their acceptance of two decent human beings able to communicate with them in the idioms of their own language.

            When they were able to find work, it usually required putting in long, hard hours. They got as close to basic survival type living as that of their immigrant friends. Their situation was typical of their contemporaries. However, for Steve and Maggie having the advantage of simpatico relations with the local immigrants, often meant the difference between near starvation and getting by. As it was, their lean, strong bodies reflected their basic close to the earth diet and hard work. They were aging well: Steve with more grey in his full head of hair, showed mature, rugged, well tanned good looks, Maggie retained her youthful, slim firm body that, in spite of being in her late fifties, was still the blond goddess; albeit, more tanned than when Steve had married her during their halcyon years.                

Toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the worlds financial system imploded and collapsed on a monumental pile of greed and incompetence. Governments the world over resorted to financial bailouts that amounted to little more than pouring more gasoline onto the raging debt and credit fires. Of course, in the process the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen, shifted huge amounts of money upward into the hands of those that were responsible for the financial collapse.

            In the wake of the worst breakdown of the economy in modern financial history, unemployment checks were meager and hard to come by. Additionally, what once had been a comfortable surplus in social security accounts became a deficit of unmanageable proportions. People had belatedly come to grips with what it meant for the government to have spent away the previous year’s surpluses and simply replace them with IOUs piled on top of the unimaginable high national debt. In effect it was now painfully obvious that instead of having the money on hand previously collected for their retirements, it was now necessary to either create more debt, cut benefits, or raise taxes. With these being the choices, naturally, Congress did all three.

            Seventy million baby boomers began moving into the retirement ranks. As if this wasn’t enough of a financial problem, illogical, costly, unjustifiable war had been stuffed down the throats of a nation of badly deceived people. Then the debt bubble collapsed and the American economy imploded. New freshly printed and borrowed money was thrown on the fading embers of a burned out economy. It produced temporary flame ups, but like the hungry fires of hell all was consumed.

Congress, as usual, protected its own turf. It devised ways for its members to circumvent the problems. Taxes on social security recipients were increased. Some politicians subtly advanced the idea that social security is, after-all, simply another name for welfare. Radio type neanderthals pushed for reduced social security payments to the point where it backfired, and even the slowest minds began to see the enormity of the double taxation shafting being doled out by their so-called representatives. Resentment was building. The public’s mood grew more ugly by the day.

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It had become increasingly more difficult for Steve and Maggie to cover expenses, even after moving into the rental motor home in a drug infested hell-hole in southern Dade County on the Florida gold coast. Like Steve, several of their neighbors were former corporate types. Both he and Maggie had befriended another couple who were in much the same circumstances as they.

            Roger and Ginny Westlock, both crackers, native Floridians, had also followed a similar tortuous path to the same dead-end trailer park, prophetically called Sunset Park. Steve and Maggie had been born and raised on Long Island in New York. However, Roger and Steve had a lot in common. Each had seen combat in Vietnam, and each belatedly had married their high school sweethearts after returning from active duty. Both owned guns and had no qualms about carrying them everywhere they went, in spite of the government’s slyly introduced security checks for gun ownership. Insisting their wives carry them also, they made sure the ladies could hit what they aimed at.

            Like a lot of others, they found places in the woods to practice shooting, and on several occasions they came across campsites occupied by heavily armed militia type groups. Normally they didn’t impose themselves on members of these groups, nor were they given any encouragement to do so. However, they knew they were being watched carefully during these encounters, and that these groups operated outside anything deemed acceptable by the government. In fact, there was a lot of talk in Congress about banning such militia organizations. Normally, Steve and his group just moved off to a different area while noting the militia types always broke camp and disappeared into the surrounding brush, obviously not wishing to prolong any unnecessary contact. It seemed both groups were wary of each other.

            During one such encounter, Steve thought he recognized a former army buddy who looked pretty much the way he remembered him, especially since he was wearing combat fatigues. Leaving Maggie and the others standing in the path, he walked into the campsite.

            Avoiding nervous, startled looks and a quickly developing state of tenseness, he looked straight at the man he thought he knew and called out. “Joe, Joe Kowalski! Is that really you? Or am I having a time warp here?”

            The man he addressed looked at Steve for a long moment, and even though Steve appeared older, leaner, and now had grey hair that matched his own, a glimmer of recognition stirred, and gelled as the familiar tones of Steve’s Long Island voice registered. “Steve! God, damn! It sure’s hell is me, and I’m sure glad to see you again.”

            Joe, reached out his hand and warmly greeted his old friend. The others in the group relaxed with a few smiles developing on relieved faces.

            “What’s with the army clothes? You did get out! Didn’t you?”

            “Yeah, I sure as hell did, old-buddy, but I’m kinda back into it again. Not officially though, just a bunch of good guys getting ready for what’s coming.”

            “What’s coming?”

            Maggie, and the others came over to listen in, curious to know who Steve was talking to.

            “Oh, Joe, this is Maggie, my wife. Maggie, I want you to meet Joe Kowalski, the best friend a dogface could have.”

            Joe shouldered his AK-47 and leaning over, reached out to take Maggie’s hand as Maggie said, “Of course, I’ve heard Steve speak about Lieutenant Joe Kowalski many times. I’m certainly glad to meet you.”

            Steve introduced Roger and Ginny and then tried to resume his conversation with Joe. “You were saying, what’s coming?”

            “Oh, that’s nothing. But tell me what you guys are doing way out here, shooting in the woods?” Joe waved expressively toward the cornucopia of native trees and shrubs in the surrounding Everglades.

            Steve understood Joe’s hesitance to explain any further in the presence of people he didn’t know. “Roger and I, we thought it would be a good idea if the girls got to be good with their guns. There’s no telling these days when that might make a difference.”

            “Right, old-buddy, things have gotten pretty bad. I think y’all are doing the right thing.”

            Roger, looked directly at Joe. “I see you’re doing some heavy duty type operations out here,” Roger’s eyes swept over Joe’s combat equipment, and then at several other similarly outfitted men standing back in the shady cluster of Florida scrub pines.

            “Roger is one of us,” Steve said, “did his time in Nam, and knows the score.”

            Kowalski reached out and shook hands with Roger. “Always glad to know another gook fighter. If you fellas are really interested we could take a little walk in the woods back here. I think you would appreciate what we’ve got going.”

            Intrigued, the foursome followed Joe, as he motioned them to come along to where the other members of his squad were standing by. At a hand signal from Joe, they fell in behind, obviously taking their orders from him even though there was no evidence of rank showing. Walking along single-file, Joe led the way with Steve, Maggie, Roger, and Ginnie trailing immediately behind.

            Joe moved down a barely defined path and spoke over his shoulder. “I take it you guys are not doing too well these days.” He kept talking without waiting for any confirmation, obviously assuming he was correct in his assessment. “You’re not alone there. In fact, these fellas behind us and myself share that predicament too, and you’re about to meet up with a bunch of others in the same boat.”

Chapter Three

            Joe led them further along a narrow path not easily found. He navigated through a sea of saw grass with water on either side – definitely not a route anyone would normally take. At times, it looked as if the trail would disappear completely into the surrounding bog, and at other times they slogged through ankle-deep water. Twenty minutes later another narrow trail appeared. It widened, and Joe led the group into a clearing under a copse of beautiful cypress trees. Their canopies provided both shade, and concealment – two important features.

            A gentle but steady breeze blew in off the ocean from the southeast, keeping the ubiquitous flying bug population in check. And for the moment at least, made that particular location in the Florida everglades not only humanly bearable, but a pleasant experience.

             Maggie grabbed Steve’s arm and leaning close said in a hushed tone, “Steve, there’s a small army here. Can this be a military force?”

            Joe answered for Steve. “Maggie, this is a military force, but it’s not one that belongs to the government. This one belongs to the people. I believe you’ll understand who we are, and what we’re about, after the general has an opportunity to explain it to you.”

            Looking ahead at the men they were approaching Steve singled out one of them, albeit he was wearing the same combat fatigues as the others. Aside from the fact he was standing alone at the edge of the group, there was an unmistakable look about the man. His tall, stately bearing, accentuated by a generous amount of wavy, brown but noticeably greying hair, crowning a rugged handsome face, had a familiar look. It didn’t take Steve long to make the connection. “Joe, is that General Davidson?”

            “It sure is, old-buddy, and even though we don’t sport rank here, we all call him General. He’s the main man here.”

            The General looked at the approaching foursome and waited for Joe to make the introductions. “General, I’d like you to meet an old army buddy of mine, from Nam, and his friend also Nam: Captain Steve Martin, and his wife, Maggie – Major Roger Westlock, and his wife, Ginny.”

            “I’m George Davidson.” He stood and shook hands while looking each of them in the eye. I’m very pleased to meet you. Come sit with us, join us for lunch . . . every army . . . even this one, moves on its stomach.”

            They sat on small, three legged, canvas-topped folding-stools around a light weight folding-table that served as the general’s mess and map table. Steve, acting as spokesman for his group, answered the general, “Sir, we’ve heard a lot about you, especially when you took early retirement from the military. Prior to that, it was widely believed you would go on to become the number one military man in the country. Then, you just dropped out of the news, off the radar screen as it were.”

            “That was a deliberate move on my part. It took a while for the press to go away before I could find enough privacy to begin building this group of people. I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to any of you that we’re building a military operation to force a major modification in the way our government conducts itself, and return sovereignty to the people. Mind you, we’re not talking revolution, if all goes the way we think it can, and will, there will be no fighting to speak about, and the shooting will last less than a lazy summer afternoon.”

Maggie was the first to react. “I must be dreaming. Can this really be happening?” Ginny just bit her lip and looked very nervous, clearly looking to Roger for direction. Roger understood the general very well, and understood Ginny even better. He grasped her hand in his and squeezed it gently as he often did when she needed the reassuring comfort of his presence.

            The general addressed his next remarks directly to Maggie, as he smiled warmly. “Maggie, you’re not dreaming, it is happening as I’m sure deep down within yourself you know as I do, it must happen. What we have in this country today, is not what Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and the rest of our founding fathers had in mind when they did what they had to do, by standing up to good old King George.”

            “But why can’t it all be changed peacefully, without bloodshed?”

            “Would that it were possible, but it has all gone too far for an orderly correction. The system is corrupt from top to bottom and hardly has an honest man in it. It’s controlled by alien interests. I’m really sorry to have to say this, but the overwhelming majority of our representatives are so beholden to the money suppliers, the owner-class, and the international financial oligarchy, they can no longer render proper representation to the people. The small minority that may not be, simply look the other way. No one wants to run the risk of rocking the boat, and anyone attempting to do so is doomed. It’s gotten so bad and has been that way for so long that it’s accepted behavior in la la land, and the people be damned.

            “Further in most instances the people who think this government needs to be changed are afraid of the government. That’s unacceptable. It’s time to make the government fear the people.”

            “Yes, maybe so, but the people have made a start in the right direction. The last election saw an unprecedented move away from the dominant two party system. More independent voters acted on their convictions.”

            “Agreed, Maggie, and we have no quarrel with the intent demonstrated by the people. They thought they would see acceptable changes. But it appears the new administration has been made impotent by the real power that controls the country.”

            Maggie understood well what she was hearing. It was practically a mantra with most people she knew, as it was with Steve, Roger and Ginny. However, hearing it in the presence of a sizeable military force and from a well respected former high-level military man, cast a different aura on the matter. “General, if I catch your drift here, you’re leading up to some sort of armed intervention in the government, a coup perhaps. But all you said so far still doesn’t add up to make that a necessity.”

            “Given where we’re at, and where we’re being led, there’s no chance of a peaceful correction. As we have already seen happen, when the system breaks down the judiciary obeys the establishment’s direction. The problem needs to be forcibly addressed. The very core of leadership in this country is dominated by treasonous minds.”

            Taken back by this accusation, Maggie said, “Treason! General, that’s really heavy. How do you figure that?”

            “Have you heard of the Council on Foreign Relations, the CFR as it is commonly referred to?”

            “Yes. It’s my understanding it’s an international organization dedicated to developing a new world order that presumably will benefit the people of all nations.”

            “Well that’s partially correct. It’s stated mission is to create a new world order, more recently referred to as Globalization, but its real purpose is to insure the elite gain control of the world in a super-national plutocracy. This means the end to our indivisible nation with liberty and justice for all, gained by the war of independence fought against the same type of plutocracy that ruled this country as part of the British Empire. In effect what we have today is a CFR organized to reinstate that plutocracy on the world stage using the resources of this country to achieve their ends.

            “The American public is blind to the depth to which this group penetrates their lives and well being. Beyond the presidential administration this group has its members in important congressional positions and in major news organizations. It has debased the American system totally to the point that it doesn’t matter which party or even who occupies the White-house.”

            “But, General, surely there must be some way for enlightened people, such as you, to make themselves heard in a peaceful way without resorting to armed intervention.”

            “Enlightened people no longer have a voice in this country. The CFR dominated media permits only what they allow for public consumption. No voice speaking against what the public is being told can be heard, and any that do speak are effectively stifled, or worse. We have crossed the rubicon to where the first amendment has been rendered meaningless by what has evolved as news management. Censorship, if you will that would have warmed the cockles of the hearts of Adolph Hitler and Joe Stalin were they here to see it. Recognize this, and understand why we must take the only option open to us. That is, if you believe as we do that our government as originally constituted is worth restoring.”

            Maggie, recognized a dedication of purpose in the General she had seldom encountered and certainly not in her recent memory, hesitated a moment and then decided to probe the General in a new direction.

            “But, General, given all that, you must realize that to rise up against the US government is to take on a powerful military force, perhaps the most powerful in the world.”

            “Yes that’s true. However, I believe there will be no retaliation by the so called powerful U.S. military. There are fundamental reasons for this. Consider that they have learned the hard way that they cannot shoot what they cannot see. The most powerful military force on earth is useless in a guerilla warfare scenario. This has been amply demonstrated against American superpower forces in Vietnam, Somalia, the Balkans, Columbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq – also against Soviet Union superpower forces in Afghanistan, not to mention superior British forces were soundly defeated by American colonial guerillas. Add to this, the military has been badly abused by their government. They’ve been sent into harms way for what amounts to nothing more than empire building and economic conquest of other peoples. They’ve become targets on the international stage, and many of them seriously question what they have been doing, and are being asked to do. It’s one thing to shoot at people they have been told are the enemy, but it will be quite another for them to do so at fellow Americans.

            “The American people are about to learn exactly why the founding father’s created the second amendment. It was precisely their intent that there is a constitutional guarantee for the ability of the people to form civilian militias as a last resort for preserving their republic.”

            “You’re saying in effect that a small group of militia, or guerilla type fighters, can prevail over the most powerful government in the world, and in its own backyard at that.”

            “That’s what I’m telling you, Maggie. But please understand, it’s not a matter of just start shooting. First there has to be a well thought out, coordinated plan of action. And yes, there will be armed intervention, but no, we do not plan a coup. That will be unnecessary if things go the way we think they will.” 

             Somehow, all this was not as unsettling as it might have been. She recalled the events surrounding the death of her father-in-law, the aftermath of the mid-east wars, the demise of the economy and along with it Steve and Roger’s worlds and that of so many others she had come to know. These events had already made it clear in her subconscious mind that radical action would be necessary if the problem was ever going to be addressed. Here in one fell swoop, the path toward a possible correction was being laid out for her and the others.

            As if the general was reading her thoughts, he continued. “What I’m telling you, is really not unexpected in your mind. It has been long in coming, and now that it’s here you’re ready to embrace it.”

            “That’s a very insightful observation on your part, General.”

            “Not as much as you might think. It’s been a natural development. Many people have recognized that this course of action is inevitable. It is the only possible way to bring the system back to a place where we can live with it. You would have been an exception to what we’ve come to expect from people we tell these things to. Of course, we are fairly selective about that. You may find that inconsistent since we don’t know you, except for the wartime association between Joe and your husband. But then again we’re also very good at sizing up people, and we believe you think the way we do.”

            “And if we do not?”

            “No harm done, Maggie, we have no argument with our fellow citizens. It is for them as well as ourselves that we think the unthinkable and plan the improbable. While you may not wish to join us actively, it is our belief that you would not stand against us.”

            Maggie liked this man and thought she saw an inspirational aura around him. For a moment, she thought she might be reliving a scene played out of the past where great, revered men of this nation’s early history, Grey-Champions as it were, captured the minds and hearts of a young country. So with much of what was being planned still unknown to her, but with no further hesitation she said, “General, speaking for myself, I’m with you . . . I would like to take an active part in your plan. How can I help?”

            The general smiled warmly, as he recognized someone he could rely on, and he turned toward the others. Steve was first to respond, “Count me in, General. Where my wife goes, I go.”

            Roger, answered in kind. “I’m in also.”

            Ginny chimed in, “Me too. Where my husband goes, I go.”

And so it was by a chance encounter between two old war buddies, deep in the everglades national forest that the course of four people’s lives was forever changed, and by that, so too, might the course of a heretofore great republic change as well.

Chapter Four

            Maggie and Steve returned to their trailer home where they held long discussions about the times they were living in, the general, and what he planned to do. After a brief interlude in their deliberations in which they had reflected on the startling events they had recently experienced, Maggie commented, “Tyrants, no less patriots, are seldom recognized while they shape and attempt to reshape their times.”

            Steve, deep in his own personal contemplations, raised a quizzical eyebrow and responded, “In what category would you place the general, whom I presume prompted that remark?”

            “Assuming that’s the choice, I’d have to opt for him being a patriot, maybe in the extreme, but generally I guess that’s how patriots become patriots.”

            “That poses an interesting consideration, namely identifying the tyrants.”

            “Once upon a time that was easy to do, now-a-days it’s a horse of different color, but still a horse, or maybe a horse’s ass.”

            “Touche, however there are a lot of them. Our highly evolved structured society breeds them, big time.”

            Maggie thought about that for a moment and felt that Steve’s answer was too broad, she was looking for something, or someone more identifiable to place in the tyrant category.

            “The general mentioned the establishment owner class. Let’s explore the sinister implications of that.”

            “Yes, I was a little startled to hear him put it just that way. All of a sudden what has happened to the economy begins to come into focus.”

            “Exactly! What he’s saying is that, the real power resides with the people who actually control the people we elect to represent us. In effect, nobody, elected or otherwise, represents the interests of the people. Unfortunately, most people are so brainwashed and distracted by the pervasive media owned by that same owner class that they simply accept whatever they’re told by it.”

            “It goes further than that. The worst of the candidates know how to pander to the most vile and base instincts of the dumbest members of society. As we have seen, they mobilize them, march them to the polls, pull their chains, and they pull the proper levers to put their choices in the front seats.”

            Maggie thought about this for a moment and said, “There’s even more to it. If they’re truly in control, how does the owner class benefit from the fiscal mess the country has managed to get itself into?”

            Steve scratched his head. “You know, on the surface it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense does it?”

            “No . . . and that’s probably what protects them. Somehow in direct contradiction to what we would otherwise believe, they have to be prospering in the process of destroying the country.”

            “Maybe, sweetheart,” Steve said, “It’s not the country that’s being destroyed, but that its wealth is being plundered while what they are destroying is the minds of its people.”

            “Very good, Steve. We certainly have witnessed the demise of real learning in the government controlled school system, and ergo, the minds of the people with it. So at the end of the day, it’s like taking candy from a baby.”

            “Very aptly put, Sweetheart. So let’s go back to a time before we got into the mess we’re in, when the final touches to the greedy mosaic of financial manipulative control were being put in place. A time that preceded what I think we can agree was, and still is, the greatest calamity ever to befall an empire. Powerful men at the pinnacle of their financial structured universes were revered as heroes of the day, while those outside sounding warnings were contemptuously disregarded or dealt with in more sinister ways.”

            Maggie picked up the theme. “The powerful, Houdini-like chairman of the Federal Reserve respected at the time for his magical mastery of financial, economic, and stock market mysteries, held the economy in precarious balance, in spite of ever expanding financial mal-investment excesses of the day. The visible part of his delicately orchestrated financial minuet was worshiped by the investing public as a bravura performance, worthy of the ultimate financial deities of the day.”

            Ahh, Steve said, “I can see who tyrant number one is to be – good choice.”

            Maggie warmed to the subject and moved on. “However, there was a dark side to his visible successes. Clandestine,” her voice taking on dark ominous tones, “behind the scenes financial market intervention practices by governments were in reality the rubber cement holding the over stretched, over-leveraged world-wide investment mosaic together. The ultimate systems scenario was unfolding, invisible to all but a select band of elitists – with no loyalty to any nation. They had evolved their technocratic methods to such a sophisticated level that only few people were aware of what the grand design was. This gross interference in the operation of highly touted ‘free markets’ was actually talked about on the margins. However, no one, not even us, wanted to upset our perceived prosperity secured in the almighty, mesmerizing, ever rising stock markets along with the then, not so easily recognized credit expansion.”

            Seeing a pleased look come over Steve’s face, Maggie rose to the occasion with some of her well known way with words if not hyperbole, “Like magnificently structured seaside sand castles unable to withstand the inevitable wash of the tides, Americans’ bloated portfolios floated on a sea of central bank liquidity. They poured ever more watered-down digital-sand-dollars over a rising tide of monolithically moving market indexes. Unlike Odysseus tied tightly to the mast, the untethered public heard the siren’s singing their summoning serenade, the rapture of the deep, and followed it all the way to the bottom. Stock-owner Americans remained maddingly enchanted by the marathon musical performance of the delightfully dancing Dow.”

            Steve generated a broad smile as he realized this was his Maggie, re-emerging from the mental depths where they both had fallen. “Very well said, sweetheart, but that’s a nice allusion to what we both know, sirens or not, was something a lot of dumb, greedy investors brought on themselves.”

            “Yes, and perhaps the straw, if you can call it that, that broke the financial camel’s back was the mortgage backed security meltdown that followed the sub-prime and liars loan excesses. Given that an easy credit inspired housing mania and securitization of mortgages with questionable credit ratings seriously disrupted the world’s financial markets.

            “Who could forget that? No one it seems seriously questioned the entire lender of last resort concept that allowed the world’s central banks to massively intervene in what essentially is and should be a free market type operation.” Steve said and then added a sober commentary to that all to easily accepted state of affairs, “Perhaps if the government via the central banks did not pose itself as a lender-of-last-resort bailout-functionary, then the financial organizations might operate with a more risk averse attitude.”

            “Ah yes, there’s no denying that. But added to that, there were other players in the great wealth destroying debacle. The financial Ponzi schemes had many carnival type hawkers enticing the gullible into their financial big tops. Financial television channels endlessly hyped the never-ending mantra of investing for the long term, while regularly calling market bottoms in a long line of bear market sucker rallies.”

            “I assume you’re referring to concentration of media ownership into just a few hands, namely those of large international corporations.”

            “Yes, this is where responsibility gets murky. Most people paid little, or no attention to that travesty. A free press, and we’ll consider television an extension of that concept, disappeared right in front of their dumbed-down, between the goal-posts, blankly staring faces.”

            “That’s a little strong, even for you Maggie.”

            “Perhaps, but maybe not strong enough. Remember, sweetheart, stupid is as stupid does. And given what all that abject stupidity has done, all the rest of us go down the tube, pardon the pun, right along with the glazed-over eyes of Joe Six-pack and all his lard-ass hockey-puck friends.”

            “Wow, that sure sounds like you don’t think much of people in general.”

            “Well, Steve, what else is there to think? When, what we see is that the people keep returning the same corrupt politicians to office, election after election. And how easily they’re distracted by the latest titillating epic of the day, or how they fill hours of boredom with talk shows, soap operas, reality nonsense, and whatever sport’s spectacle commands their attention.”

            “So,” Steve said, “let me sum it all up. A dismal voting record, plus an even more dismal awareness level, are the twin forces at play here. They have produced a simultaneous dumbed-down, hyped-up population of dis-informed, distracted and easily directed people.”

            Maggie smiled and said, “Couldn’t have said it better myself, but we’re not quite done with this. The people have another underlying weakness, namely fear, which is too easily exploited. Ever since Harry Truman followed the advice of Arthur Vandenberg and perfected the tactic, the government has become very proficient at implementing it, namely scaring the hell out of people. Then, all of a sudden, they fall in line ready to do whatever they’re told. From this mass of dummies, the powers that be get all the cannon fodder they need to fight their wars, wave the flag, and become state informers, or worse, on anyone who speaks out against the lie du jour.”

            “Sounds familiar, like people get the government they deserve.”

            “Unfortunately, we wind up with it as well. But while we’re at it, we might as well complete the picture, at least as far as we can see it. We can’t forget debt. That dishonorable scourge of an earlier depression scarred generation, became the easy, all too acceptable, path to instant gratification for their grandchildren, namely us and our contemporaries. On this altar of greed, built on sand pillars of easy credit and fiat money, technocrats manipulated public and private debt beyond bankrupting levels”

            “Now you’ve lost me, I thought this was going to lead to the Chairman of The Federal Reserve!”

            “Ah, but it does, my love. Him, and all the bankers, aided and abetted by the financial ‘Masters of the Universe’ fat cats who are the real, but invisible power behind everything that happens.”

            “That’s a lot of tyrants.

            “That’s the problem. Things have evolved in our times, so the tyranny is built into the structure; ergo, all the elite technocrats inside the structure are the tyrants.”

            “If that’s so, and now that you point it out so clearly, I agree it is, what can we do about that, or them, or whatever?”

            “I don’t know, Steve . . . perhaps the General does.”