red onion

I'm going to revisite this topic again and again. Here are some notes I wrote last night, not very cleaned up:

I feel compelled to delve into this subject because there has been a great deal of chest beating over this issue recently. It's used like a political football.

I wonder sometimes the percentage of the population who don't even believe in the existence of patriots any longer.

How many of those who use the issue like a political football, really understand their heart's definition of a patriot? The truth shall set you free.

It is an outmoded term to some, quaint even, charming in a way, whose definition, is easily dismissed, usually for the convenience of aiding in the aquisition of more power, or more wealth, or more...stuff.

The putting aside of principle for personal gain, is antithetical to the definition of patriot. The putting aside of principle for personal gain has now become a threat to our republic, indeed, to our world.
Can one be a patriot while aquiring power, wealth and stuff?

A corporation can be composed of one individual, or two, or three, but it exists because of the individuals who compose it.

As a patriot defends the rights of the individual, the corporation can therefore, never be stronger than the patriot, than the individual.

There are those like myself, and many of my friends, who really do want to live a life as close to their ideal as possible, and are miserable right now because of the evolving political landscape.
"Negative" events are driving a wedge between, we believe, our dreams and a quality future, and the potential to realize our dreams.

The United States doesn't know it yet, but it is in a state of emergency.

The young feel their dreams threatened, wether by economic catastrophe, the war and a potential draft, or tired and discouraged from the constant, national hyped threat of danger that sits like a guest in the living room now. You wish it were time for them to go away, but they have actually just arrived.

Terror threats are here to stay as long as we invest in the mis-understanding of other nations and peoples.

What is a patriot? Someone who realizes that the structure of the United States Government was designed to address the individual need for freedom and the pursuit of its own happiness. A patriot understands, that if the quality of life of the individual human beings is damaged and decayed, then the republic is threatened.

A patriot recognizes that if the practice of an economy allows the aggrandizement of a corporate state, over and above the individual in laws and practice, then the republic is threatened.

A patriot is not necessarily bound to any political party, stands for its individual, self-understood beliefs that are flexible to aquired awareness and knowledge. The individual joins the political party for its own reasons, often to share in a community of interests, but the individual does not need the party for existence. The party however, needs the individual, for its own existence. It is nothing without the thought, awareness and actions of individuals.

It is my judgement, that the political parties' need for individuals has aquired the monstrous proportions of unfettered greed for power and money. The political parties urge towards self-preservation has superceded the needs of the individual it purports to represent. The party wants devotion and loyalty from you. How devoted to your principles is the party?

The elected official, we tell ourselves, is the servant of the people, at least, that is the ideal, is it not?
It is my judgement, that the people have become the servants of the elected official. The elected official benefits from a multi-pronged attack in the quest for power: government involvement and corporate involvement, in one lifetime, and sometimes at the same time.

It is my judgement that this corporate involvement, distorts and changes the viewpoint of the elected official, and affects decision that are made with the public's interest at heart. The role as defined for poiticians in modern America, is for the elected official to "balance" the interests of corporate, and the individual. But it is not working.
The climate of corporate America has become one of convenience and excuse. The tremendous outsourcing of jobs from the modern hubs of America does not benefit the individual, yet guaruntees a growing crisis, manifested in the growing numbers of those in poverty.

The corporation, though legally classified as an "individual", is a structure created by individuals. As much as the individual sublimates it's own sense of individual identity into the corporation, surrenders its individuality, to that extent, the individual begins to self-identify with the corporation, and so its primary purpose becomes one of corporate-preservation.

The individual becomes dependent on identity with the corporation, and begins to believe that the individual needs the corporation for self-preservation. Many have this sense of identity though they don't necessarily work for a corporation. How many people really believe it would be best to destroy the corporate structure and replace it with an organic model of individuals organizing for the common good? This is not necessarily a subject much talked about widely.

We take the need for the existence of corporations for granted. We have come to believe that it is the only viable option with which to organize individuals around, though we fail to see that the corporation, because it has no soul, does not benevolently open its arms to the individual to address the true needs of the individual.

The corporation creates needs, from which it prospers as individuals convince themselves that these needs must be fullfilled, satisfied. The corporation creates its reason for existence, (needs for the individual), and convinces through PR work, the "true" existence of those needs for the individual. The corporation, through profit, is primarily concerned with self-preservation.

See the documentary, "The Corporation", and you will begin to understand that the corporation "legally" has taken on identity as though it were an individual. The corporation is nothing though, without the individual that composes it. We can demand that the corporation reflect what brings quality to the life of the individual.

If the corporation harms the individual, then it is a threat to the republic, as the republic is composed of individuals, and a patriot is concerned with the rights of individuals.

America is asleep. The patriot is asleep. Will she awaken in time to save her republic?