One of my peeves is that our kids have such a lousy handle on history – hell, most of us have a lousy handle on it – and we don’t recognize that history "doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme" because human nature doesn’t change. In its own way, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are simply two sides of the same nickel that’s been reminted from it’s original design 200 years ago. It’s apparent from reading multiple sources – and hearing others, like Hannity, LImbaugh, etc – that the work is on to paint these protestors as wackos, malcontents and screwups who can’t get or hold a job, conspiracy theorists who blame others for their own predicament, or professional political activists who’ve now latched onto a new cause that sucks in all of the unwitting dupes just mentioned above.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
That said, feel free to see if you can correctly identify who stated each of the quotes or passages that follow.
1. "There are never wanting some persons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may have power and business, will take it at any cost."
(a) Friedrich Engel
(b) Sir Francis Bacon
(c) Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(d) Theodore Roosevelt
2. "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy the invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship of the day."
(a) Theodore Roosevelt
(b) Karl Marx
(c) Michael Moore, director/activist
(d) Gov. Jerry Brown
3. "A great industrial nation is controlled by it’s system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world – no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
(a) Rep. Ron Paul (TX)
(b) Matt Taibbi, journalist
(c) Arianna Huffington
(d) Woodrow Wilson
4. "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all commerce and industry."
(a) Robert Reich
(b) Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
(c) Financier George Soros
(d) James Garfield, US President (1880 – 1882)
5. "History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance."
(a) James Madison
(b) Senator Bernie Sanders (VT)
(c) Vladimir Ilych Lenin
(d) Bill Maher, comedian
And the answers are…
1. (b) Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
2. (a) Theodore Roosevelt, US President who was the first to actively wield the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to gain control over the industrial combines of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
3. (d) Woodrow Wilson, US President who promoted the adoption of the legislation establishing the Federal Reserve System in 1913. He later rued his actions for this legislation.
4. (d) James Garfield, US President (1881), who was heavily involved in the debates over the nature of the American currency after the Civil War.
5. (a) James Madison, US President and writer of the Constitution, who was engaged in the debate over the establishment of the First Bank of the United States.
Think twice – even three times – when you read, watch or listen to the media. Both OWS and the Tea Party are two sides of the same coin, one minted in dissatisfaction, disaffection and distrust of the corporate and political establishment; an establishment that is really now joined at the hip like a pair of freakishly bloated Siamese twins grabbing food from the plates of others and cramming it into one another’s mouths. The fear and concern is genuine and is a natural occurrence to what’s clearly seen as the usurpation and corruption of the system for the benefit of a very, very select few.
This has happened before and my hope is that it’s corrected so that it can happen again in another hundred or so years. When you see members of Generation Y yelling in the streets and middle class oldsters sitting with tea bags dangling from fishing caps, ask yourself what Madison, Garfield, Roosevelt and Wilson would say and do and while you’re at it, throw in FDR, Jefferson and Jackson as well.