Koi fish in my tiny little pond

Every morning, as I drive to work, I listen to NPR and grind my teeth at the insanity that has become the U.S. government. I marvel how it still manages to function and why we, as a people, have just given up and not stemmed this corruption from within. Why? Those of us who constantly rant about it realise that those who don't have allowed the government to slowly filch away the rights of the people, dissolve away the base of the democratic process, for so long that it seems it may never be rebuilt...we may never see those rights again.

Giving up personal freedoms does not ensure overall freedom from terrorism, real or imagined. It just produces even stronger shackles from within, ones that apparently, my countrymen are too willing to ignore for a false sense of security. Wake up everyone! Big Brother is only getting warmed up and we will eventually fall into the trap of 1940s Germany. Let's find our collective conscience before it's too late.

Jackson Browne once reminded us, so very eloquently, how easy it is to lose our way but that we must find it again or risk losing all:

As if I really didn't understand
That I was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the Motherland
And from the comfort of a dreamer's bed
And the safety of my own head
I went on speaking of the future
While other people fought and bled
The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
It's in my blood and in my bones
By the dawn's early light
By all I know is right
We're going to reap what we have sown

As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say it all the time-
"My country wrong or right"
I want to know what that's got to do
With what it takes to find out what's true
With everyone from the President on down
Trying to keep it from you

The thing I wonder about the Dads and Moms
Who send their sons to the Vietnams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected as the next war comes?
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
Her shining dream plays in my mind
By the rockets red glare
A generation's blank stare
We better wake her up this time

The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite a sweet
When the truth was known
I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can't let go till she comes around
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see
And until her conscience has been found