Liberty and justice, not wealth, are true American values
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It was with profound disgust that I read the recent opinion piece from a Polson resident singing worshipful praise of corporate wealth, greed and some perverted sense that these are the most fundamental of all American values. She continued with references to the Occupy Wall Street protestors as being in need of showers and some kind of work ethic — the same old “dirty hippie” nonsense that gets aired on Fox News and other purveyors of lies.
I’m sure the American founders would be in complete agreement with her views. After all, greed is the most basic of all American values that we cherish, and whenever any “dirty hippies” or other such un-American types stand up and fight for what they consider to be basic human rights and justice, they deserve to be brutally attacked by police, pepper sprayed, dragged off by their hair and placed in jail.
God bless America, land of the free and home of the brave. God bless the souls of the corporations, which are worth far more than the souls of the people. God bless war, and God bless profits.
I for one stand in complete support of the OWS movement and what it represents — a real American grassroots rebellion. Real people with real voices and real guts standing up to the powers that be that have so annihilated everything this nation once supposedly stood for. I worship no one’s wealth, nor do I envy the wealthy. But I do value liberty and justice for all.
Americans of all stripes, who have “played by the rules” for their entire lives, have seen their retirements decimated, their jobs outsourced, their homes blatantly stolen from them and the futures of their children ripped to shreds. Most of these people are not “dirty hippies” but rather quite mainstream working-class people who have believed for their entire lives that hard work and diligence would be rewarded.
No, in America today, hard work and diligence aren’t the keys to success; gaming the system and playing poker with other people’s hard-earned assets are the ways to “success.”
Worship wealth if you wish. Glorify greed. Condemn real authentic American people who are standing up and fighting for justice in the finest tradition of great Americans of the past. I won’t stand with you, and I won’t stand up for you. Apologists for injustice deserve the same fate as the liars and thieves on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., who are looting the lives and the fortunes of the American working class as well as everything for which this country claims to stand.
(Editor’s note: Robert L. Phillips, a Ronan resident, is a former editor of the Flathead Courier and the Ronan Pioneer (1984-1987).)
