The Ring of Power

It's raining, it's pouring and all the old men are snoring in Washington, I guess. At least there seems to be nothing in the way of movement today. Except I heard that John McCain enlisted the world of the Lord of the Rings in his attempt to shame his fellow rethuglians in to coming to the table. Apparently he referred to the tea party folks as hobbits with plans to return to Middle Earth after they defeat Mordor. Not to be outdone they fired back that obviously McCain had been corrupted by the power of the ring!

Funny but lame.

Years ago as we were driving back during a snowstorm after protesting the first Gulf War, my thirteen year old son asked me if the U.S. was the Rebel Alliance. I said, no, we weren't the rebels, indeed we were the Empire. It's still an apt metaphor but so would calling the tea party fanatics The Forces of Mordor be apt. I think Mr. McCain got things a little mixed up. The tea party people aren't Hobbits. I think they're a bit closer to Orcs who work for Mordor.

And who has been corrupted by the power of the ring?! Please. The tea party and other ultra-conservative republicans have surely been taken by the power of money and power. If that isn't the Ring I would be at a loss to find another such fitting example.

We want so badly to name ourselves the Rebel Alliance, the simple, loving Hobbits. We want to be Frodo on a quest, Luke Skywalker hunting down the Force. We want, as John McCain did, to envision ourselves, even in difficult times, as the Good Guys, the people with the white hats. We're John Wayne, not the black-hatted gunslinger.

I hesitated a moment before I answered my son that cold night racing through the Pennsylvania mountains. There was a part of me that didn't want to tell the truth as if doing that, saying it out loud, would make what his father and I knew to be true, much more horribly real. But it was real. It is still real. We are the Empire, we are Mordor and we bear a huge responsibility to our children and grandchildren to tell them the truth. If we are to discover our way out of the forest we must face the reality. Then we can gather the courage of Fordo and Samwise and perhaps then we can get on the path to destroying the Ring of Money & Power.

Because we know in our hearts that "men are so easily seduced by (that) power".

Simple Power of The Commons To All People!