Sunday, July 20, 2008. The AROB Group partiers had spent most of Saturday nursing hangovers. Now, it was finally time to 'get back to business'. Jil, Dana, Lynn, and their sizeable enturage boarded an O.U.T.R.A.G.E. plane and returned to the States. It was as if there had been a ten-day void in their lives (in reality, there was a ten-day void because this writer's computer was frozen, and the daily chapters couldn't be written). As it turned out, retired pig farmer Phil Baker - former computer technical consultant for IBM - ascertained that the computer problem was caused by this author's two cats lying on the modem and causing it overheat. A simple flick of a switch, and ten days of computer "outage" was resolved!
Despite what might have seemed liked useless frivolity, the O.U.T.R.A.G.E. volunteers -hundreds of thousands of them across the U.S.A. and thousands more in St. Kitts - were heavily engaged in numerous issues facing the country. What, until very recently, had been the world's largest 'superpower', was now a country going through exhaustive pain and suffering as cities were being rebuilt, survivors were being nourished and cared for, and and the nation's corrupted political system was being revamped.
As with most powerful civilizations throughout world history, America had become a pagan society. High standards, moral integrity, ethical behavior, and the simple duty of being kind to others, were all but erased from the American consciousness as most citizens focused on getting rich, gaining power or status, and taking care of their own creature comforts, regardless of how vile, vulgar, or selfish such pursuits might become. People spent more time pouring over the investment portfolios than they did reading their daily Bible verses. Getting high, getting drunk, and getting laid had been national priorities for decades; getting involved in patriotic or religious activities seemed unimportant. The only real difference between the gradual ruin of the U.S.A. and the decline of the great ancient Roman empire was the manner of dress: contemporary Americans didn't wear togas. It wasn't unusual to hear a sweet little old lady utter the 'f-word' on national television. Society was left with little dignity, and even less commitment to spirituality or wholesomeness. Lust replaced love. Selfishness replaced selflessness. And Ronald Reagan's "All for one...ME" trickle-down theory had pissed all over the lower and middle-classes while adding bloat to the burgeonous upper-crust in American society.
Media and movie producers discovered that "sex sells". After World War II, the giant American military-industrial complex discovered how profitable "war" could be; government recognized how it could operate with sleight-of-hand if it just kept a tight reign over the press and the people. In the late 1990's, the Republican Party spent billions of taxpayers' dollars to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying to Congress about some shabby real estate deals and an extra-marital dalliance with another consenting adult. It wasn't about 'morality', or the Republicans' being fine, upstanding, protectors of purity. It was all about the Republicans not wanting to be the first to "get caught" at such illicit behavior. Twenty years before Bill Clinton, the Republican President Richard Nixon had been "caught" as the country's "First Crook". Despite Nixon's denials, he'd gotten caught with his pants down. Republicans couldn't afford to get caught with their secretaries' panties down, and Clinton's philandering became the easy target. Everyone in Congress knew which senator was screwing his administrative assistant (who was on the government payroll, yet demonstrated few - if any - job skills). It was common knowledge inside the beltway that too many of those unmarked doors in the Capitol Building led to private lairs where lawmakers lingered for 'quickie' liaisons between legislative sessions. Even young pages knew the representatives that kept a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch in their desk drawer, or which elected official would reward handsomely in return for a golden shower.
Government excess.
It had infiltrated every aspect of American society, to a point where society wasn't even outraged by it anymore. Vulgarian, boorish behavior was commonplace in offices, corporate boardrooms, and even in the hallowed halls of Congress. Yes, of course, there had always been banality throughout the history of the world. Lewd, lascivious behavior had always been part of powerful peooples' lives. But it had usually been kept quiet. Ben Franklin was once caught fondling a beautiful young paramour, but no one heard about it until long after his death. Thomas Jefferson had a longlasting affair with one of his slaves, but it remained a private matter for generations. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower both carried on affairs with secret lovers during their presidencies. John F. Kennedy was a prolific womanizer, but even the press chose to ignore it as a personal matter, not for public consumption. Lyndon B. Johnson was a rascally-rabbit whose sexual appetite was voracious, but remained unpublicized until after he died. In her exhaustively credible book, "The Family - The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty", Kitty Kelley makes no less than a dozen references regarding George H.W. Bush's infidelities. In the same book, she documents countless incidents regarding George H.W. Bush's son, George W. Bush. The son's infidelities, alcohol and drug use, rumors of an early girlfriend's abortion, hot temper, DUI arrest, verbal abusiveness and womanizing were rampant during his adolescence and well into his early forties.
One of the reasons the title of this blog is intentionally misspelled is to distinguish it from the real meaning of the word. A "bushwhacker" is one who fights or attacks from the bush; one who clears a path through woods or jungle territory; one who lives or hides out in the woods. From the perspective of these past 181 blog chapters, our "Bushwacker" title was intended to identify the Bush family as among those Rush Limbaugh might have called "wackos". Like most politicians of the twentieth century, the Bush family was legendary only in its own mind. Like most politicians of the twentieth century, the two Bush presidents only looked out after themselves and their personal allies. The Bush family's personal ties to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait, and China were not necessarily in the best interests of the United States; those ties were in the best interests of the Bush dynasty. Along with all other sniveling, egregious, depraved personalities that made up America's upper-crust, the Bush "wacko" family deserved to die out before it did any more damage to the nation or the world. On January 17, 2008, George W. Bush, along with his father and brothers, were among the thousands of wealthy and powerful elitists killed by O.U.T.R.A.G.E.
The Kennedy dynasty was eliminated from American politics with the deaths of Ted Kennedy and many of his nephews and nieces who had political aspirations. The up-and-coming Clinton dynasty was nipped in the bud with the death of up-and-coming Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
Government excess.
Oppressed United Taxpayers Revolting Against Government Excess (aka O.U.T.R.A.G.E.) now was taking the country and returning it to its rightful owners: "we the people".
In less than a month, O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had added another one million members to its roster. Now sixteen million strong, the organization that had planned and executed the 'Rebellion of '08' was stronger than ever as Americans began to recognize that they could actually have a voice in their government again.