We slept, too afraid to risk the pain of discovery. Immersed in daily activities, we failed to notice that our government had been stolen. Temporarily eased by superficial, soul-stripping illusions, we clung to a belief that a diaphanous cloud of protection billowed overhead. Unaware, we allowed shadowy figures to render the people irrelevant.
Citizens, half hidden in dark forests no longer recognize themselves. We forgot who we were. 'Like the parable of the boiled frogs.' Put a frog in boiling water and it jumps out immediately. Place that same frog in tepid water, increase the temperature slowly and it will not move. We are that 'boiled frog.' The bones of our democracy have been stripped of its vital marrow, silently invaded by outsiders who have taken control of our fates. In the most recent poll, 75% of all Americans said that if terrorists attacked this country with radioactive or biological weapons, 'we are not prepared.' People have lost control of their governments at every level and in the process have been reduced to 'spectator status in decision-making'.
Democracy is a living process that depends on citizen energies to save it from tendencies to allows others to do it for us. It requires a blend of art, science, intelligence, texture and awareness. An Astronaut cannot leave his spacecraft without the life connecting cord attached to his capsule. We must face the fact that the lifesaving umbilical cord connecting citizens to its government has frayed, possibly beyond repair. We stand at the vortex of a simple truth. Unless citizens are prepared for a new boldness, willingness to take risks, Democracy will wither and die. Risks associated with speaking out often incurs vicious criticism from those in control. But, speak out, we must.
At the very edges of crisis.......
Two major events signal us -the bombing of the Twin Towers, and Hurricane Katrina. They proved how unprepared we are for events that appear to be beyond our control. Yet, in the wake of soul searing disasters, the 'true American character' emerged. Love of our fellow man and willingness to sacrifice for them shone through. The very characteristics that our government bureaucrats allege they possess, instead, came directly from the people.
We watched as government at all levels, local, state and federal, both Democrats and Republicans, proved their disconnection from reality, incapable of leading the country during times of disaster. The reasons why are obvious. Politics in the United States is a game played only by those with the financial capacity to run for office and those willing to 'play the game.' 'Playing the game,' as I used to be reminded in the N.J. State Senate, means ' go along to get along.' 'And if I don’t I used to ask?' 'You don’t wanna know baby, one Senior State Senator warned. A fateful statement I was later to face.
Tectonic energies have been grinding at the foundations of our 'real selves' for years. Their roars now vibrating at a high pitch, our spirits stir from a long slumber. From the very pores of the earth we are prodded to wake from this long sleep. The human species longs to taste the elixir of its own fruits. Instincts buried for years are breaking through dense fogs of oblivion.
Voices of our higher selves urging that we spring into action startle us. The authentic person is breaking through.Haunting messages that once invaded our dreams drifted away. Holographic images only partially understood, floated in and out of our consciousness. We watched in horror as left behind citizens of New Orleans waited days for food and water. Horrific, images of buildings falling amidst clouds of smoke at the Twin Towers paralyzed our senses. Billows of smoke and grit appeared to chase people down them streets of New York as if it were a living monster. Now we know the truth. While we searched the skies for divine rescue, the government believed to be the equivalent of the Greek Oracle, was not. The Oracle always lived within us! We are the Oracle.
Crispin Sartwell, a Political Science Professor at Dickinson College wrote in a June, Philadelphia Inquirer, article 'that Americans are now processed by state educational institutions into a fundamental unanimity that revolves around the simultaneous muttering of cliches: Even 'believe in yourself' is an invitation to witless conformity. 'America is dead,' he continues, and no one seems to be mourning.'
The rising upward in the bureaucratic structures of T.S. Eliot's "midget personalities" who achieve giant status is now commonplace. An Oriental saying that 'the nail that sticks up gets pounded down' is more evident today than ever before. Witness a community walking with heads bowed, frightened to speak at local political meetings, frightened of uttering critically analytical words to its governments at all levels of crucial public meetings.
This is today’s America. That’s why we grasp at false messages from the propagandists. Deluged with messages flashed on our television screens.
Authentic persons define themselves not by what they can get from others or by the accepted norms of a diluted democracy, but against that which the calls of his/her conscience demand and the sacrifice necessary to achieve a higher goal. In today’s America, authenticity is rare. In today’s America, political bosses and their allies run candidates they can control. Control of the candidate results in control of government funds and how the funds are washed to their supporters and allies. It is a form of subtle racketeering that has become accepted as 'that’s the way it is.'
In essence, this is a story about forgetting and remembering. It’s about our struggle for authenticity.... Of standing at the entrance of our dark forests, afraid to face our soul’s interior wilderness to plumb the depths of our very being.
It isn’t about them – the government! It’s about us. It’s about our willingness to have allowed our government to be taken over by the wrong people in the silence of the night. Our passive volition set the stage. This is not about political parties. Each demonstrates no real vision for the country and the world. It’s about our lost audacity and willingness to have fought for what we always knew was right for ourselves and our children.
We are people estranged from our deepest longings. Like Odysseus, longing for his homeland for 20 years, his family and home taken over by strangers, we too seek a world where our deepest longings and needs are recognized.
Those strangers in an alien land are the people we have become. Without giving it a name, we have succumbed to a form of tyranny disguised as progress. Enveloped in chaos and seething with unrequited anger, citizens cannot form a cohesive plan to fight back. 'Nihilism, exists as a state of mind' author Alan Bloom once wrote.
The fate of our futures is tied directly to the personal power we are willing to invest in its transformation. Each of us as part of 'the whole' must be willing to activate unused power. Inevitably, 'the hero' slumbering inside must rise to improve the human condition. Warrior Archetypes and citizen heroes carry the original memory and hologram of the 'whole' person.
A forest of possibilities awaits, and the compelling drama of the battle for our individual places in a universe that reflects an inner vision of greatness, will give new visions a rooting place. The answers that lie in dormancy, will find new expression in the extraordinary acts of ordinary people.
Those who cherish truth, boldly audacious in its pursuit will refuse to allow the fruits of their works and the futures of their children to wither in a barren desert. 'They will reach high' as Henry Kissinger once said, 'to try to touch the hem of God.'
In the becoming of the 'hero deed' the ordinary citizen in this majestic struggle will take on the pain of the magnificent Trumpeter Swan, fluttering damaged, unused wings before flight. In flight, the deed transforms the doer in search of that diaphanous dream that seemed to have slipped away.
The next chapter will describe steps to take to begin the process of taking back our governments at every level in every state in the nation.
Alene S. Ammond, Former N.J. State Senator
About Alene Ammond
She is a former New Jersey State Senator who was called the 'Serpico of the Senate' because of the corruption she exposed. Alene won a landmark federal lawsuit preventing ouster of State Senators, legislators, Congressmen from their political caucuses by party leadership. She spoke out against a conspiracy to destroy the NJ Commission of Investigation who had several Senators under investigation.
She was a national magazine columnist; a radio talk-show host, public speaker and is a published newspaper writer.
Alene was the former Executive Director of the Public Policy Research Project, Inc., a Public Interest Analyis group that studied policy and its repercussions on taxpayers and consumers.
She continues to expose political corruption and is well known for her assistance to citizen’s groups fighting corrupted government agencies.
To contact Alene S. Ammond please email her at AleneAmmond@gmail.com.
