I Have A Dream

Author Mike Rough

I am sad to speak to you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demoralization and challenge to freedom in the history of our nation.

Eight years ago Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac both Government Sponsored Entities did conspire with Acorn to increase the amount of Sub Prime loans on the financial market. This momentous decision came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of underprivileged but entitled who had been seemingly seared in the flames of withering economic injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their economic captivity.

But eight years later, after the orgy of lending and the collapse of the greedy banking structure, the underprivileged and entitled are no longer free to spend with indiscrimination. Eight years later, the life of the underprivileged but entitled is crippled by the aftershocks of rampant fraud and abuse of financial instruments. Eight years later, the underprivileged but entitled live on a lonely island of state sponsored welfare, food stamps, unemployment, and healthcare, in the midst of a vast ocean of expanding debt. Eight years later, the underprivileged but entitled were shouting from the heights of American society and now find themselves spoiled children who have no discipline of physical, moral, or spiritual self. And so we’ve come here today to perform a postmortem on our current shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to this end do to the persistent need to cash a check that was not earned. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, but not of welfare, foodstamps, and unending government handouts. It is obvious today that America has defaulted through endless promissory notes, written in treasury bonds backed by nothing but the financial future of generations to come. Instead of honoring the sacred obligation to work and gain bread by the sweat of our brow, America has given the underprivileged and entitled a check, so many checks which now are returned by international investors marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of entitlement is insolvent. The underprivileged and entitled refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of social programs and the beauracracy of this nation. And so, they’ve come to attempt to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice, if only upon the terms of the enslavement of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

We have also speak to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of whining about the economy or to take the tranquilizing drug of government handouts. Now is the time to make real the promises of accountability. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of entitlement and waste, to the sunlit path of economic justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of financial injustice to the solid rock of solvency. Now is the time to make financial responsibility a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of this moment. This sweltering summer of the working and financially responsible Americans discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 2010 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the conservatives and financially sane needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the hard working and financially responsible is granted his constitutional rights of free speech, and the right to bear arms. The whirlwinds of increasing discontent will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of regaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the conservative community must not lead us to a distrust of all underprivileged and entitled people, for many of our brothers,are coming to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of limited government and financial reform, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the working man is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of government sponsored financial brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of work, cannot find meaningful representation within the men and women elected to be our voices. We cannot be satisfied as long as the working mans financial mobility is from a lower middle class to poverty due to government sponsored inflation eroding the purchasing power of our hard earned dollar. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their financial future by bills passed in the house named “TARP” and “Universal Healthcare”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a hard the working folks in Mississippi cannot buy healthcare coverage in the state of their choice, and a worker in New York believes that saving for the future is a suckers bet. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have gone through great financial trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from losing your jobs. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for financial freedom through gainful employment have left you battered by the storms of inflation and staggered by the winds of economic brutality. You are the veterans of manufactured and enforced suffering. We must continue to work with the faith that our unearned dollars may yet be redeemed for more than the value of the paper and ink used to rint them. Go back to Los Angeles, go back to Detroit, go back to Miami, go back to New York City go back to Las Vegas, go back to the polls and show by vote and petition to our representatives in our cities, counties, states, and nation that “We The People” can and will be the instrument of meaningful change.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and are willing to work for what they get.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of the working and the sons of former recipients of government handouts will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood in economic prosperity.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of unemployment, sweltering with the heat of financial ruin, will be transformed into an oasis of financial freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my seven children will one day live in a nation where they will not be overburdened by the policies of expanding government, entitlement programs, and financial enslavement to the Federal Reserve.

I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, up on Capitol Hill, with their vicious socialist agenda, with its special interest focused plans and politicians with their lips dripping with the words of “citizen dissarmament” and “stimulus plans” — one day right here in the US of A hard working Americans will rise up and pull their entitled minded brothers with them to see there is no profit in sloth, avarice, or envy.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every man shall be exalted through the honest effort in their labors, and every socially destructive program regulated by the people, and used for the people in the strictest time of need.
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the job with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of financial despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nations political and financial systems into a beautiful symphony of renewed prosperity. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to help each other, to stand up for right together, knowing that we will be a free of the shackles that bind us and disable those evil oppressors who would shackle our children and grand children to insurmountable debt, destruction of freedom, and enslave them to the whim of the state.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to again be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

May God Bless America and The World!

Related posts:

1. Town Hall Meeting
2. A Lesson in Redistribution of Wealth/Healthcare Bill
3. State of Disunion Address 2010 Part 2
4. Expedition to Australia
5. State of Disunion Address 2010 Part 1

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Authors, Economics, History, Mike Rough, Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.