object lesson #1  released to the internet in the middle of June 2003, as

an experiment in the Art of Celebration and Theater  (some versions may vary)

This very much wants to be read aloud.  It ought to be read by several people, each one reading just one or two paragraphs.  The pauses in between will let the previous paragraph sink in better.  The last two paragraphs should be read by all who can - those who have been reading and all in the audience who have a copy.  So as to make this easier, the last two paragraphs should be read slowly and carefully, a sentence at a time - in this way We speak together, as One Voice.

A People's State of the Republic Address

We have the habit of our political leaders telling us once a year the State of the Union.  Perhaps, on this July 4th, in honor of the Revolution that founded this Country, we should offer our own considerations of the State of our democratic Republic - a People's view.

It certainly seems that we are in grave danger.  Money pretty much rules our electoral processes, and the votes of our legislatures are frequently bought and sold like so much property in a Monopoly game.  From the extremes of the Right come some people who tend to treat world events like a game of Risk, and with the apparent mental sophistication of a ten year old.  Self proclaimed masters of fantasy and illusion frequently build fake political images, and bring about the election of men who have no real stature or substance or any business serving our nation in its highest offices.

These civic children fool millions of our fellows with lies and vain promises, and work the ruination of the increasingly rare vision of America as a home and beacon of liberty.   They attack the very foundations of our Constitutional Republic from within, by promoting fear and gathering more and more power over our civil liberties to themselves.  Our great Economy is also headed into ruins, overrun by corporate greed, impoverished by the dishonoring of the labor force, and burdened with an impossible debt for our children's children's children, through the spending of moneys we don't have on the enrichment of a single tiny class, who already has too much.

It would seem on the surface, that the State of the Republic is not well.

We believe the reality, however, to be otherwise.

This Nation was founded on certain principles, that were recognized right in the beginning as self-evident truths.   Truths about equality and Rights, and central to this was the idea that the Just powers of a government are dependent upon the Consent of the People.

It is a vanity of the ambitious and power hungry that causes them to think that they have won our Consent from a manipulated election, filled with voter fraud, and in which the deluded winner has only been able to fool less than 25 percent of those eligible to vote.  This is not Consent, it is its opposite.

Our government does not belong then to any part of the political spectrum, to any group with a narrow religious conviction, nor to any association of wielders of unconscionable wealth.  Nor can any temporary seizure of imaginary power change this.   The Republic is ours, and it will never belong to thieves and wolves and pirates.  They have, as all those who want to rule us find out, with their excesses only woken up the sleeping dreaming Giant that is the True American Spirit.  We come now, and the quite temporary tyranny of excess wealth is about to run into the hard rock of our truth.

How do we know this?  We know this because heart and conscience and reason are superior to lies, and wealth and the abuses of power.  We know this because we are here today, gathered all over this land, celebrating the struggle by which a newly born but destined to be great hearted People once before disciplined and removed their foolish and vain oppressors.  Now we are called upon to do this again, but in a new way - to create a second, and different, Revolution.

But most of all we know this because we know ourselves, and we know we will not ignore our children and their children, or our brothers and sisters throughout the world.  Only the most insane fool would assume such a People can be so easily put down and ruled.

We also know that our spiritual nature is always maturing, and is full of hope and faith, and especially love.  We are basically a Peaceful People now, and have been for a long time - slow to anger, but deadly in a just cause.   We also know the value of reason, and the worthiness of the examples of such as Gandhi or Martin Luther King.  We are, truth to tell, smarter than those who seek to rule us - and not just smarter, but in point of fact wiser.  Moreover, we have a secret that they have forgotten.

America is not just the United States, but something larger, much much larger.   We have called it a dream, and poets sing its nature, such as is done in the song America the Beautiful.  But the real America is vast and wide and envelopes all on this Earth who love and seek freedom and brotherhood.  Even in the far reaches of the East this so very human power of Consent stood up for a time in Tiananmen Square, where a single free man placed his life in front of a tank and said no to oppression and tyranny.

We travel with him, and all others like him, toward greatness, because we pursue the good.  That is our essence and our truth.  Even more we understand humility, for we do not seek to rule but to cooperate.   We want unity, not division.  We have not forgotten what is our motto - e pluribus unum - out of many, one.

Let us speak the next - together.

On this day then let us remember, not just our struggles but the power of our dream and the inviolability of our right of Consent.  We proclaim now to those who seek to rule with dark arts, with money and lies, - we come, we are here, we will not be defeated.  We are Citizens, and it is we who Govern, not you.  Stand aside, give way.  Listen and learn.  We - are America.

Let's do this one more time.

The pirates of power, the wolves of Wall Street - all those who think to take America by thievery,
not one of them speaks for the True Spirit of America.  Not one of them.   Only the Citizens, only We govern.  Not those who act by themselves and for their own benefit, such as the owners of great wealth and their servant politicians, they do not govern.  Only We the Citizens Govern.  And, before we are done everyone in the world will be reminded of that.  We - Are - America!

What's the point you say?