"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free......"

No longer is our Miss Liberty looking outward at the world as she utters these fine words. Alas, she is looking inward to our own America.  Once so very beautiful and unconcerned with the rest of this planet. Perhaps 90 % of the American public have been dumbed down by junk media or narcotized by consumerism; always the need to feel better off than their neighbors.

July 4th, to many, was another respite from the ever increasing drudgery of getting through this down sliding (avalanche?) Economy. A day off from one's low paying job ( or for many, two jobs ) , spending the hours pumped with beer, booze and barbecue. Easy to forget the $4.00 a gallon of black gold that cuts into the mortgage payment or the kid's karate lessons. Easy to forget the utter and tragic waste of $ 600 billion tax dollars that could have paid for better schools, better jobs, better health care...... Oh please.... No need to go down that path again!

Bottom line: we've been conned, hoodwinked - Downright lied to by our government in Washington, and few seem to care.

The politicians do not represent us. Perhaps they never really did. Oh, true, a certain segment of them have always stood tall and spoken out for fairness, justice and equality. Yet, by and by, the majority of them are merely the paid puppets of the moneyed elite who have always ruled America.

Isn't it time that we who work the factories, mind the stores - Do the labor that keeps the rich safe and secure behind gated and guarded havens of splendor - Begin to speak out?

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How many detainees need be tortured and locked away without due process, before the Men In Black start looking your way as well? How many young American soldiers must 'Die for Lies' before each American parent sees them as our child?

Cindy Sheehan realized this a few years ago, and stands for justice not just in her late son Casey's name. Cindy Sheehan, and other 'Gold Star Mothers,' stand for all who died for the lies and the illegal and immoral preemptive extensions of empire. Yet, on the day symbolically called Independence Day, Americans raise and wear the stars and stripes, never realizing they have been..... Hijacked!

What to do? You are not one of those 90% of Americans who cannot see past their own credit cards. What to do? It's easy. Protest. Stand with neighbors who oppose foreign interventions, occupations, torture, illegal wiretapping, $ 600 billion for the war industries, money dominating electoral politics.

You get my drift.

Stand on the street corners of your towns, proudly, with protest sign in one hand and flag in the other. Our flag, the flag of decency and truth and justice for all. Let the fools curse you and mock you. Let the others, the dumbed down majority, let them see what you stand for.

Perhaps, just perhaps, something one day will click in their media induced trance like minds. Miss Liberty will be with you on that corner. If you look really carefully, you may be able to see a few little tears flowing down her cheeks. For we who value liberty seem to be the ones who always care the most..... And tear the most.

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Philip A Farruggio [send him email] is a free lance columnist, small businessman and activist. Since the 2000 elections, he has written over 80 op ed columns- few if any get published or posted. to review some which have been shown, just google his name.

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