“Get On Your Knees and Pray ‘We Won’t Get Fooled Again!’”

Have you ever read or come close to understanding what The Who was saying in the lyrics to this great anthem of revolution from the ‘60s?  The lyrics were ‘radical’ for their times and perhaps even more so today. (see below)

Who would have ever believed 'The Who' would be so prescient in their analysis of political theory and cycles? "There's nothing in the street....Looks any different to me...And the slogans are out-phased, by-the-bye"

Wow. How did they know that all the debt built up during the W Administration was just going to get so much bigger under the Obama Administration?

Maybe they didn’t know what they were saying since the music was so good. Or the stadium was filled up with so much blue haze from all the marijuana being smoked and passed around…..

The reason why we are bringing this up is because of a conversation we had recently with a true blue liberal from the ‘radical’ ‘60’s…and who has stayed true to her utopian beliefs of peace and love for everyone from that time to the present.

Good for her, we say.  It is better to have some core principles and stick to them instead of having none at all and only want to ‘be in power’ just to make decisions for the rest of us.

But she said something else that really cut us to the bone: “Teach me about what is going on in the federal budget.  I have no way of knowing what is really going on in there’.

What would happen if all of the anger and angst of Disaffected Progressives and Disgruntled Conservatives we hear a lot from lately and the general “We Hate Them All!” attitude of the Tea Party people could be combined under some new umbrella to get something done? Instead of just yell about it?

Now that would be 'radical' indeed.

And no, being the ‘Radical’ Party does not mean what you think it means right off the bat.  We are not completely off our rocker by this time teetering into old(er) age advocating violence like the Weathermen Underground or the Symbionese Liberation Army. (what did those guys really want anyway, besides Patty Hearst, that is?)

The term “radical’ really means ‘at the root’ coming from its Latin derivations.  That is why that thing in the square root symbol in math is called a ‘radical’…it means getting back to the root of that number.

Jesus was a ‘radical’ in his time; can you simply imagine what a shock it was to the prevailing wisdom of the day in a small outpost in the Roman Empire (or come to think of it, today in 2010) to have anyone suggest that we should give all of our possessions to others and turn the other cheek when we are wronged?  Our modern American first inclination is to call our lawyer to find some loophole to get out of The 10 Commandments, not obey them without question.

Mahatma Gandhi was a ‘radical’ for promoting ‘peaceful civil disobedience’ and Martin Luther King was a ‘radical’ for adopting that strategy for the civil rights movement.

Thomas Jefferson was probably the ultimate ‘radical’ in American politics. He said on more than one occasion that ‘a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing.’

Well, he might have wanted to stick around for the one coming up right now…it could be a doozy for the next decade or so.  (One election cycle does not a revolution make:  it took at least 5 cycles to get the GOP established as a major political party out of the rib of the old Whig Party)

We, as a nation, have got to get back to some ‘radical’ first principles of civil self-government.  Like defending our borders and getting our expenses and tax revenues into some order and balance.  If we don’t, we run the risk of letting our national debt get completely out-of-hand and we don’t even want to speculate about what could happen then.

Always remember this in this congressional election cycle year:  Our U.S. government is not something that ‘someone else controls.’  “We” control it each and every election we vote, or decide not to vote, in.

We can change every single congressional representative and 1/3 of the U.S. Senators every other year.  And the President every 4 years.

But we need to come to some consensus about what we all want as a nation so these new elected representatives will have some sort of ‘mandate’ to enact into legislation.  We can no longer afford to elect people based solely on the simple-minded platform of: “I Am NOT Him (or Her)!”  We have to make it very clear what we want done before the campaigning starts and expect the newly-elected Congress to do, not to make up something after the fact under some innocuous banner like "Change is Coming!" or "America First!".

We are smarter than that as a nation....aren't we?  (Please say a hearty affirmative "Yes!"over your coffee this morning)

Electoral revolutions are a remarkably wonderful and efficient way to ‘refresh’ the Republic regularly to keep it modern and not allow it to get stuck in the mud based on past Congresses and legislation that was enacted under far different circumstances than exist today.

The only thing we ask of you is that "We Won't Get Fooled Again!” by any political party ever again.  They think you are stupid and not able to think for yourself which is why we are going to keep providing you with information that you might not otherwise get from the media or either of the two major parties. You can then make your own decisions on what is right and what it wrong.

We know that is ‘radical’ but we think you can do it.  Cause we have to. This year, 2010 and in 2012 again and every other year thereafter.

‘Then we'll get on our knees and pray….We don't get fooled again!’

Lyrics:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals when they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they'd all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are out-phased, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And their beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss