Requiem for a Nation

What happened to our country proved to be so much more grave than the perils of the Revolution and the Civil War. Our national heritage was destroyed at the hands of enemy forces, forces not approaching us from beyond our shores but from within. Our constitutional government, the envy of all and the model for freedom-loving souls the world over, had been usurped. Our people had become subjects not citizens, subjects of a ruling merchant-class that attained tyrannical dominance in every branch of government- executive, legislative and judicial. They prevailed. The people were left with no leaders, no advocates. There was no effective countervailing force to oppose the oligarchy. The politicians- virtually all of them- had been bought and were their willing servants. And all that furthered the sovereignty, security and prosperity of the people was systematically discarded; while all that created the greatest profit for the merchant-elite was relentlessly advanced. And they convinced the people that they were powerless; that it was futile to take measures against the rulers. The people had been subjugated and posed no threat to their dominance. The rulers’ prime industries were the production of weapons of destruction and the lending of money at unprecedently usurious rates of interest. And thus they initiated an epoch of perpetual war for profit with the express or implied consent of a people burdened by debt and driven to never-ending increased labor in order to avert insolvency and ruin, a people so diverted, so preoccupied, so consumed by fear that they consented to anything, hardly noticing that the very soul of their nation had been consigned to ignominy and perdition. There were calls to action; but they went unheeded by a people propagandized to believe that it would be useless as well as un-patriotic to rally in unison against their rulers and to withhold their money tributes from their coffers. And so they were silent. And they continued to work and to pay. And so the nation passed away while the world looked on in disbelieving sorrow. Requiescat in pace. Et lux perpetua luceat ea - May she rest in peace. And may perpetual light shine upon her . Perhaps down through the ages she will rise again- in another land and among a different people.