Desmond McGrath
The truckers Convoy to D.C. as another group of road warriors prepare to descend on Washington
Double Nickel (55), three decades later and things have changed for the worse
By Desmond McGrath
It's hard to believe that its 40 years ago this coming month that America was embroiled in oil embargo after the Yom Kippur War that started on Oct 6th 1973. It was that dramatic increase in fuel pricing that led to Washington mandating a national 55 MPH speed limit. The nation's truckers became the vanguards of protest against that lunacy as they organized convoys to keep their speeds up and schedules met on the nation's freeways, immortalized by C.W. McCall's 1976 song and subsequent 1978 movie of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw.
Figure 1 from the movie Convoy
Convoys are not a new idea, as history is replete with examples of men and the transportation mode of the day organizing in disciplined order to present a target too large for the marauders of the day to successfully attack. Whether it was the Knights Templar's protection of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land via ship and horseback, or the convoys that acted as the lifeline during the Battle of Britain against the National Socialists wolf packs, they have generally been organized by those defending freedom against unlawfulness and tyranny. The idea that mankind would unite around a common cause; sparked by common ideals to effect a successful resistance to a common threat is not new either. The founders of this great experiment in Liberty were a diverse group of individuals who united in a common cause that was ignited by the Battles of Lexington and Concord where the first wave of American patriots banded together to thwart the British attempts to disarm them. I would challenge every person reading this article to re-read the Declaration of Independence with respect the grievances of the founders and compare them to the situation in America today where a small coterie of political elite are wearing the cloaks of dictatorial nobility to the detriment of "We the People"; the majority of those grievances are with us again today.
There are many ways to disarm and defeat a free people and lead them into serfdom and slavery, however the most successful is via wars of attrition whereby the ruling elite or enemy of the day will gradually single out smaller subsets or identifiable individuals of the thundering herd and make examples of them to put fear into the many. It also involves mocking those who stand up for their rights by calling them by derisive names like "Tea Baggers" for people trying to uphold the constitution or "Uncle Toms" for black conservatives trying turn around their communities descent into socialist serfdom and never debating substance via calling all those who vocally challenge the current president's agenda as racists or those who legitimately decry the rise in Islamic extremism and violence as islamophobic. The true goal is to divide and conquer a people such that they are broken into small constituencies each with a special interest, magnified out of all proportion, that needs addressing while diverting their attention away from the Judas goats herding them into the box cars of governmental enslavement aka Obama Care.
While the bikers and truckers may at times be at odds with one another due to the relative sizes of their rigs on the Nation's highways and byways, and occasional accidents, it should also be noted that there are bikers who are truckers and visa versa. They embody the rugged individualistic exceptionalism that rescued humanity from two World Wars and lead to the collapse of the former Soviet Union; sharing a common bond in that for many riding one's motorcycle down the road and driving one's rig from state to state is a singular activity exercising ones individual right of freedom of travel. This unalienable right is as old as mankind itself, from crossing the first lakes and waterways on logs or bark boats, walking ice age land bridges that joined now separated continents or riding horseback across the pre-barbed wire American west. In Imperial Rome, Caesar Augustus tried to restrict travel over 2000 years ago to Egypt and in times of famine lifted such restrictions as a privilege for Senators, who were the ruling class, such that they could find ample food Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book LV, 26. Many constitutional documents have reaffirmed freedom of travel such as the Magna Charta, often at the threat of sword point when "We the People" had to "Bear Arms" against the wholesale aggregation of power at the hands of monarch's bent on consolidating power via the raising of taxes and promotion of unsuccessful wars.
So getting back to the general theme of this article, is that little has changed since 1973 or over the years since Imperial Rome when Jesus of Nazareth was tortured and crucified for challenging the status quo, or over 800 years ago when King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta, or when the founders of this great experiment in Liberty wrested power from King George III. There is a perennial battle between "We the People" and the Ruling Elite.
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery." Thomas Jefferson
The current showdown in Washington, where the true patriots in the style, substance and constitutional eloquence of Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Adams et al, in the guise of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert amongst others are called "Waco Birds" and other derisive monikers by not only the Marxist loons in the Democratic party but to add insult to injury; the treasonous likes of John McCain or Lindsey Graham who allegedly are still members of the GOP despite their being further left than John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Democrats. The tireless and principled efforts of these true patriot members have elevated the arguments of "We the People" against the Ruling Elite into the halls of Congress and the Senate despite the efforts of McCain and others.
In the case of John McCain, he feigned a move to the right during his last primary challenge in a performance of Shakespearian proportions against J.D Hayworth, but now he is showing his true colors and should be either recalled by his constituents or replaced by a true GOP/Tea Party candidate the next election. America cannot survive its Manchurian Candidates, Rome certainly didn't.
Perhaps the most common cause for the bikers and truckers outside Obamacare and the overwhelming public disdain for Congress in general is the cost of fuel and the fact that we are still as beholding to the machinations of OPEC as we were in 1973. We are perhaps more vulnerable to an oil shortage or embargo as we were in 1973, hydrocarbon exploration on Public (We the People's) land has been increasingly prohibited under President Obama's watch while gasoline and diesel prices have doubled since his inauguration. I documented much of this in the article Flea Circuses, Energy Starvation and declining quality of life.
With our just in time distribution system riding on the back of truckers, who are increasingly marginalized by fuel costs, taxes and bureaucratic largesse of the desk captain's in Washington, there is little margin for error. There could be windmills on every horizon and not a single one of them could help the truckers bring food to market should there be a major calamity that affected the fuel supply in this country. Perhaps more so than 1973, after 5 years of disastrous Obamanomics, we are dangerously closer to a "Zombie Apocalypse" not unlike that portrayed in the movie "Road Warrior" where the remnants of mankind are reduced to the most base and animalistic of behavior for "Juice" for their machines.
Figure 2 Mad Max 2 -Road Warrior
The ruling elite in government and the media are doing everything in their power to criticize those who would dare protest their imperious rule, even going so far as to put the Washington DC traffic cameras in a prerecorded loop during the 2 Million bikers to D.C. protest, or for example, on Sept. 22, Facebook removed the truckers' Facebook page, "truckers to Shutdown America," which had accumulated 86,000 "likes" within days of its launch. In response to this, we the people should support the protestor's cause of action in every manner possible.
I'm sure that the bikers who mustered the estimated 1.2 Million into D.C. will be supporting the truckers in their own indomitable manner. Everybody else should find their own way to support the truckers and the efforts of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others in the defunding of Obamacare. It would be sad indeed that the only truly free nation the world has ever known, that was born out of protest against the monarch's malevolent machinations, should die with barely an apathetic whimper from the enslaved masses as we are nearing the ending of George Orwell's Animal farm where the enslaved animals are unable to see the difference between the ruling class of pigs and the former farmers.
Despite "Old Major" Obama's promises regarding Obamacare, unless it is stopped by the efforts of Cruz and gang to defund it, there will be many loyal "Boxers" sent to the glue factories. Where 200 years ago Congress and the Senate was still thriving on the vitality of the framers, today it is wallowing with the farmers of sheople who consider "We the People" a herd to be managed, culled and subjected to the veterinary aspects of Obamacare, hopefully the truckers following the bikers lead will help build momentum towards the fundamental restoration of America. Perhaps where C.W. McCall's song Convoy was the anthem of the 70's perhaps a lesser known song of his "Kidnap America" will become the theme of the next protest to roll in to Washington DC.
© Desmond McGrath
September 30, 2013
It's hard to believe that its 40 years ago this coming month that America was embroiled in oil embargo after the Yom Kippur War that started on Oct 6th 1973. It was that dramatic increase in fuel pricing that led to Washington mandating a national 55 MPH speed limit. The nation's truckers became the vanguards of protest against that lunacy as they organized convoys to keep their speeds up and schedules met on the nation's freeways, immortalized by C.W. McCall's 1976 song and subsequent 1978 movie of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw.
Figure 1 from the movie Convoy
Convoys are not a new idea, as history is replete with examples of men and the transportation mode of the day organizing in disciplined order to present a target too large for the marauders of the day to successfully attack. Whether it was the Knights Templar's protection of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land via ship and horseback, or the convoys that acted as the lifeline during the Battle of Britain against the National Socialists wolf packs, they have generally been organized by those defending freedom against unlawfulness and tyranny. The idea that mankind would unite around a common cause; sparked by common ideals to effect a successful resistance to a common threat is not new either. The founders of this great experiment in Liberty were a diverse group of individuals who united in a common cause that was ignited by the Battles of Lexington and Concord where the first wave of American patriots banded together to thwart the British attempts to disarm them. I would challenge every person reading this article to re-read the Declaration of Independence with respect the grievances of the founders and compare them to the situation in America today where a small coterie of political elite are wearing the cloaks of dictatorial nobility to the detriment of "We the People"; the majority of those grievances are with us again today.
There are many ways to disarm and defeat a free people and lead them into serfdom and slavery, however the most successful is via wars of attrition whereby the ruling elite or enemy of the day will gradually single out smaller subsets or identifiable individuals of the thundering herd and make examples of them to put fear into the many. It also involves mocking those who stand up for their rights by calling them by derisive names like "Tea Baggers" for people trying to uphold the constitution or "Uncle Toms" for black conservatives trying turn around their communities descent into socialist serfdom and never debating substance via calling all those who vocally challenge the current president's agenda as racists or those who legitimately decry the rise in Islamic extremism and violence as islamophobic. The true goal is to divide and conquer a people such that they are broken into small constituencies each with a special interest, magnified out of all proportion, that needs addressing while diverting their attention away from the Judas goats herding them into the box cars of governmental enslavement aka Obama Care.
While the bikers and truckers may at times be at odds with one another due to the relative sizes of their rigs on the Nation's highways and byways, and occasional accidents, it should also be noted that there are bikers who are truckers and visa versa. They embody the rugged individualistic exceptionalism that rescued humanity from two World Wars and lead to the collapse of the former Soviet Union; sharing a common bond in that for many riding one's motorcycle down the road and driving one's rig from state to state is a singular activity exercising ones individual right of freedom of travel. This unalienable right is as old as mankind itself, from crossing the first lakes and waterways on logs or bark boats, walking ice age land bridges that joined now separated continents or riding horseback across the pre-barbed wire American west. In Imperial Rome, Caesar Augustus tried to restrict travel over 2000 years ago to Egypt and in times of famine lifted such restrictions as a privilege for Senators, who were the ruling class, such that they could find ample food Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book LV, 26. Many constitutional documents have reaffirmed freedom of travel such as the Magna Charta, often at the threat of sword point when "We the People" had to "Bear Arms" against the wholesale aggregation of power at the hands of monarch's bent on consolidating power via the raising of taxes and promotion of unsuccessful wars.
So getting back to the general theme of this article, is that little has changed since 1973 or over the years since Imperial Rome when Jesus of Nazareth was tortured and crucified for challenging the status quo, or over 800 years ago when King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta, or when the founders of this great experiment in Liberty wrested power from King George III. There is a perennial battle between "We the People" and the Ruling Elite.
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery." Thomas Jefferson
The current showdown in Washington, where the true patriots in the style, substance and constitutional eloquence of Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Adams et al, in the guise of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Louie Gohmert amongst others are called "Waco Birds" and other derisive monikers by not only the Marxist loons in the Democratic party but to add insult to injury; the treasonous likes of John McCain or Lindsey Graham who allegedly are still members of the GOP despite their being further left than John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Democrats. The tireless and principled efforts of these true patriot members have elevated the arguments of "We the People" against the Ruling Elite into the halls of Congress and the Senate despite the efforts of McCain and others.
In the case of John McCain, he feigned a move to the right during his last primary challenge in a performance of Shakespearian proportions against J.D Hayworth, but now he is showing his true colors and should be either recalled by his constituents or replaced by a true GOP/Tea Party candidate the next election. America cannot survive its Manchurian Candidates, Rome certainly didn't.
-
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." ¯ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Perhaps the most common cause for the bikers and truckers outside Obamacare and the overwhelming public disdain for Congress in general is the cost of fuel and the fact that we are still as beholding to the machinations of OPEC as we were in 1973. We are perhaps more vulnerable to an oil shortage or embargo as we were in 1973, hydrocarbon exploration on Public (We the People's) land has been increasingly prohibited under President Obama's watch while gasoline and diesel prices have doubled since his inauguration. I documented much of this in the article Flea Circuses, Energy Starvation and declining quality of life.
With our just in time distribution system riding on the back of truckers, who are increasingly marginalized by fuel costs, taxes and bureaucratic largesse of the desk captain's in Washington, there is little margin for error. There could be windmills on every horizon and not a single one of them could help the truckers bring food to market should there be a major calamity that affected the fuel supply in this country. Perhaps more so than 1973, after 5 years of disastrous Obamanomics, we are dangerously closer to a "Zombie Apocalypse" not unlike that portrayed in the movie "Road Warrior" where the remnants of mankind are reduced to the most base and animalistic of behavior for "Juice" for their machines.
Figure 2 Mad Max 2 -Road Warrior
The ruling elite in government and the media are doing everything in their power to criticize those who would dare protest their imperious rule, even going so far as to put the Washington DC traffic cameras in a prerecorded loop during the 2 Million bikers to D.C. protest, or for example, on Sept. 22, Facebook removed the truckers' Facebook page, "truckers to Shutdown America," which had accumulated 86,000 "likes" within days of its launch. In response to this, we the people should support the protestor's cause of action in every manner possible.
I'm sure that the bikers who mustered the estimated 1.2 Million into D.C. will be supporting the truckers in their own indomitable manner. Everybody else should find their own way to support the truckers and the efforts of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others in the defunding of Obamacare. It would be sad indeed that the only truly free nation the world has ever known, that was born out of protest against the monarch's malevolent machinations, should die with barely an apathetic whimper from the enslaved masses as we are nearing the ending of George Orwell's Animal farm where the enslaved animals are unable to see the difference between the ruling class of pigs and the former farmers.
Despite "Old Major" Obama's promises regarding Obamacare, unless it is stopped by the efforts of Cruz and gang to defund it, there will be many loyal "Boxers" sent to the glue factories. Where 200 years ago Congress and the Senate was still thriving on the vitality of the framers, today it is wallowing with the farmers of sheople who consider "We the People" a herd to be managed, culled and subjected to the veterinary aspects of Obamacare, hopefully the truckers following the bikers lead will help build momentum towards the fundamental restoration of America. Perhaps where C.W. McCall's song Convoy was the anthem of the 70's perhaps a lesser known song of his "Kidnap America" will become the theme of the next protest to roll in to Washington DC.
© Desmond McGrath
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