"The bigger any organization, corporation or government gets, the less manageable it becomes, and the fewer people benefit from it." That had been Ron Oetting's motto for years, and he was no less persuaded today. "Big is not necessarily best," he would preach to anyone who would listen. "In fact, 'big' is dangerous because it eventually destroys everything in its path."
WalMart was one prime example: Sam Walton had started a chain of small discount stores designed to locate in rural communities ignored by the 'big box stores' like K-Mart and Target. His surviving family members had turned WalMart into one of the largest corporations in the world, a feat that had made many of them multi-billionaires. Yet WalMart forced thousands of small business owners out of business; forced many of its own suppliers into bankruptcy; and entangled local municipalities into snarled legal battles whenever they stood up and said, "We don't want WalMart to come to town!"
The United States government was another example: as its tentacles reached further into American citizens' lifestyles and pocketbooks, it became a gluttonous giant of inefficiency, mismanagement, and uncontrolled mayhem. In addition to its unpopular war in Iraq (and its just-as-unpopular recent invasion of Iran), the Bush administration had its hands full with other scandals, investigations and incompetencies. George W. Bush's attorney general had been embroiled in a scandal involving the unprecedented - and politically motivated - firing of more than a dozen federal prosecutors who failed to "tow the line" with Bush administration policies. The Tom DeLay matter was a scandal that rocked the very pinions of the Bush administration. One of George W. Bush's closest friends, "Scooter" Libby, went to jail on charges that implicated - or, at least, insinuated - the President's personal involvement.
In the spring of 2007, television comedian David Letterman gleefully remarked, "The Bush administration announced today that it was 'surprised' how unpopular the Iraqi was is with the American people." Recent anti-war demonstrations had inflamed the nation, causing the populace and politicians alike to call for an end to the atrocities. "I guess I'm not 'surprised' that the Bush administration was 'surprised'," Letterman quipped, to the applause of his audience. It was apparent to anyone that the Bush administration's incompetency and inability to listen to the pulse of the people were paramount to what had become an unmanageable, out-of-control, incommodius organization.
By the time O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had implemented its "revolution" on January 17, 2008, the Bush administration was in shambles, trying to dodge bullets from every direction, and incapable of rescuing itself from the sea of graft and corruption in which it was drowning. The 'Rebellion of '08' - in actuality - became the life preserver the Bush administration needed to resolve its troubles. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, and most members of the U.S. Congress - yet another organization infected with graft, corruption, incompetency, hubris, greed, and arrogance - had all been killed, thanks to the skillful placement of small incendiary devices detonated by cell phones across the U.S.A.
No one saw this rebellion coming. The O.U.T.R.A.G.E. organization had worked, cloaked in complete secrecy, from its headquarters on the island of St. Kitts. This 'second American Revolution' had effectively disarmed the rich, the powerful, the exploiters, the 'deciders', and the corrupt from America's society. While many people abhorred what had happened, many millions more came to agree that what O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had done was "the only way" to return America back to a decent, moral, civilized nation "of the people, for the people, and by the people". No more would the insane, egoistic politicians, greedy business leaders, crazed celebrities, and other assorted misfits in America's decayed culture, rule the roosts. People of genuine honor, integrity, morality, humanity, respectability and compassion would now take over the reigns of government and society. On Tuesday, October 14, 2008, the new national elections were only 21 days away.
Seventy-five million O.U.T.R.A.G.E. members were determined to participate in what could be a turning point in American history.