Wednesday, September 10, 2008: the upcoming elections were less than two months away, and O.U.T.R.A.G.E. was making considerable progress in forming new political parties. With the help of many progressive states, several of whom had already passed "clean-election" bills in recent years, fresh new political candidates were coming forward with new ideas, novel approaches to smaller and less intrusive government, and a more free and equal society. In the mid-1990's, Maine had taken the lead toward political reform through an organization called Maine Voters for Clean Elections (MVCE). Arizona followed in 1998, after a series of scandals rocked the state's government circles. North Carolina, New Mexico and New Jersey follwed suit. And, at the beginning of 2008, the states of Connecticut and Oregon adopted "clean elections" which prevented greedheads like WalMart, Hallaburton, the American Medical Association, and countless other piggies at the trough, from buying political favors. Recent polls revealed that 85% of American believed that public funding would allow candidates to win on ideas and merit, instead of backdoor deals and corrupt collusion with corporate cultures.
Public support for such reform had been on the rise for years; the O.U.T.RA.G.E. bombings on January 17, 2008, simply helped speed up the process. All the evil politicians, the greedy business leaders, squanderous celebrities, and wealthy elitsts who controlled the government had been slaughtered with the use of strategically-placed hi-tech bombs, detonated by simple cellphones. Unobtrusive, hardly-detectable explosive devises had been placed in buildings, homes, offices, and government headquarters by tens of thousands of O.U.T.R.A.G.E. volunteers. During George W. Bush's final State of the Union address, O.U.T.R.A.G.E. radicals had begun the new American revolution - the 'Rebellion of '08' had initially met with public damnation. However, over eight months, people began to realize that what O.U.T.R.A.G.E. did was the only way the federal government and its bloated buraucracies would ever be changed quickly. What had been done needed to be done.
The Republican and Democratic political parties no longer existed as monopolistic entities that controlled American politics. They now had to compete with new political grassroots movements that advocated moral andbureaucratic change. No longer could the "Republicrats" live inside their little square boxes with rose-colored glasses and say, "Everything's wonderful." Political leaders would now - finally - have to look outside the box, color outside the lines, and brgin painting pictures of political equality and decency for all American citizens.
Family political dynsaties were all but non-existent anymore. Political power brokers had all been annhiliated. Bastardly pigs like Tom DeLay, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney were dead. Greedhead corporate executives who honestly believe it was proper for them to earn 800 times what they average employee earned were no longer alive to continue such disgusting skimming. Lawyers who demanded $300-an-hour, movie stars who commanded $20 million per picture, and professional athletes who signed multi-million-dollar contracts were no longer alive to steal the cream from the top of the economic milk carton. The playing field had been leveled - literally.
Across the country, Jil Adams, Patrick Hamilton, Bob Ryan, Ron Oetting, Phil Baker and other O.U.T.R.A.G.E. reformists, could sense a 'coming together' of the citizenry. Wherever O.U.T.R.A.G.E. volunteers ventured, a new spirit was underway. The United States of America would rise from the ashes and begin anew - but this time the ugliness, disdain, sloth and power that once belonged exclusively to the ultra-rich - would be taken from the equation. Factored in would be a sense of camaraderie, of equality for all, of unity and fair play. Morality would become elevated to a place of honor; sportsmanship would return to the competitive arenas; one's humanity toward others would take precedence over one's own compilation of power and wealth. Utopia? Perhaps. Would it work? Perhaps not. But the effort was certainly worthwhile, even if the evils of the human psyche would return graft, corruption, greed and selfishness in a few decades.