CPT Twit - Things to remember in Pictures - Visual Education 101

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Eric Cantor loses House Leadership & Seat in Congress - Why?

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It is rare when a Majority Leader in Congress loses his Congressional seat in any election, but when he loses in the primary it might just be the first time in our nation's history.  Add to that the fact he was 34 points ahead in the polls the week of the election, so far ahead he scheduled a national fund raiser on election day in downtown Washington, D.C. when most candidates are busy trying to rally supporters to vote, and it gets real bizarre.

Of course that is just the tip of the iceberg.  The Republican leader, second ranking to only John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is one of the most powerful party positions in the nation.  So powerful he was able to raise 25 times more money than his primary opponent.

The opponent in Cantor's seventh congressional district of Virginia was Dave Brat, an economics and ethics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, and political unknown who enjoyed support among some tea party activists.    

House Republicans, who are certain to vote a loser out of office, will drive Cantor to resign from the leadership position as well as the Congress because no one reaches the highest levels of a political party in the center of the hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and wants to return as a defeated candidate for the rest of the year.  Look for this change to happen by July.

Cantor was highly publicized as one of the Republican "young guns", the future leaders of the party, and it was generally recognized he was the only one who might defeat the current Speaker Boehner.  Guess he was firing blanks.

Now the White House, Democrats and national political pundits in the media are having a field day trying to explain how all of them could have been sooo wrong about the election.  They are spinning opinions about how this will invigorate the Tea Party and threaten other senior Republican elected officials.

 A few even mentioned the truth, that no major Tea Party organization even endorsed the winner.  How could the Tea Party get credit for electing someone they did not even support?  Only Laura Ingraham, a political talk show host, successful author and real conservative openly supported the challenger out of all the political mouthpieces in America, she even campaigned with him, and she graduated from the University of Virginia.

The truth is the politicians are afraid to address the real truth so they continue to  misread the electorate just like they misread this race.

Professional politicians have lost touch with the invisible Americans.  Just like Obama did, they are spending billions and billions of special interest dollars to get elected or re-elected, much of it to going professional political pundits.  Obama spent $2 billion in just two elections thanks to Wall Street, specifically Goldman Sachs, trial lawyers, health care companies, banks, insurance, pharmaceutical and a laundry list of other special interests.

So who are the "invisible Americans"?

At least one third of all registered voters are registered Independents.  They don't trust either political party.  Probably one third of the members of each party feels alienated by their own party judging by the weakness of the party polls and collapse of credibility in our elected officials.  Add to that a massive amount of people, millions, who are so disgusted or disinterested by political gridlock they won't even register to vote and you have a massive, maybe even lethal formula for political chaos.

Look at it this way.  Of the eligible voters in America, 51 million are not even registered to vote.  But they could register and vote if they are motivated.  That means nearly one of every four eligible voters does not even register.  There are over 180 million registered voters but over 40%, over 72 million, do not typically vote, especially in non-presidential elections like this year .

That means 159 million eligible voters will not vote this year while about 129 million will vote.  A majority of eligible voters refuse to participate in the current two-party system.  So what does that tell you about our democracy?  Like all other institutions in America, it is broken.

Eric Cantor did not lose because of the Tea Party or because of any party, he lost because he is one of the Washington professional politicians who worked the system and there are those people in both parties working the system throughout the house and senate.

Virginia was the leader in the first American revolution and it may just be the leader in the second American revolution to throw out the establishment, the professional politicians, and anyone associated with the special interests that now control congress, the White House and our government.

Don't believe the media, pundits and spin masters who say this is a Republican revolt or an isolated incident, this is the beginning of the people's cure to our political problems, throw the rascals out, all of them, no matter which party has their loyalty because neither party serves the best interests of the people, just their own interest of concentration of power and hijacking of our government.

It was 57 years ago in 1957 that Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, a stunning novel of the collapse of capitalism because of greed, corruption and runaway technology.  The hero of her last novel was a mysterious stranger named John Galt.  I expect Who is John Galt signs to be popping up all over America just like in her novel and one day we will discover John Galt is the 159 million disenfranchised voters waiting in the wings to fix the mess we are in.

Perhaps Virginia was the beginning....

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"Carry on Carry on - cause nothing really matters..."

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"Carry on Carry on - cause nothing really matters..."
                        Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

Can you believe I'm starting a story with the lyrics from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody?  Of course I always loved this "Rock Opera" and the legendary performance by writer and lead singer Freddie Mercury and the boys.

In the music and entertainment world the word "evergreen" has a powerful meaning and this song is truly ever green.  According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary it means:

Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Definition of EVERGREEN

1.  having foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season

2.  retaining freshness or interest

Examples of EVERGREEN
Most pines are evergreen trees.

First Known Use of EVERGREEN - 1574

For purposes of this story we rely on the 2. definition, the one that goes beyond mere biology or botany.  In the entertainment world this means something that is not dated or has the ability to capture the minds, souls and pocketbooks of the public.

The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, The Ten Commandments and Grease all meet that standard in terms of motion pictures.  Okay, so maybe Grease has not met the standard but it still has Olivia Newton John.

In music there are examples like; This Land is my Land, Blown in the Wind, America the Beautiful, God Bless America, Over the Rainbow, the Notre Dame Fight Song and Zip a Dee Doo Dah from Song of the South.

Freddie Mercury's words are timeless and reflect the age old battle between wanting to change the world or leaving things as they might be.  One of my favorite authors, Ayn Rand wrote a book called Atlas Shrugged released back in my favorite year of all time, 1957.

A philosophical masterpiece in my opinion, it was the last and longest fiction novel by Ayn.  Her book expresses the advocacy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and the failures of governmental coercion.

All seem rather important, even to this day.

The virtually unseen hero is John Galt who "rescues" prominent members of industry and hides them while the government collapses from greed.

The rather sarcastic attitude expressed by Freddie Mercury that nothing really matters is a call to arms much like the mysterious "Who Is John Galt" signs that appeared throughout Atlas Shrugged.

America has lost all her heroes and for the first time in my memory not a one stands on the stage or sidelines waiting for the chance to make a difference because we seem to have forgotten our mission in life as Americans.

Our ancestors came here to America to fix what was wrong with the world they left behind.  When we embrace the notion that nothing really matters anymore we have embraced the dangerous concept that this is as good as it gets.

Today things are at best okay.  Some things are way out of balance and some are not.  Most certainly "the failures of governmental coercion" are obvious.

So far our government intelligence and not so intelligent agencies have stripped us of any semblance of privacy by invading our phone conversations, our Internet email and social web files, and monitoring our conventional mail.

Edward Snowden

It only took a high school dropout with our nation's highest security clearance and an English newspaper to spill the beans on what Uncle Sam has been doing to our own citizens as well as about every other sovereign nation, friend and foe alike.

For a while it actually looked like nothing really matters when it comes to a government attack on our liberty and freedom.  Of course there has still been no real backlash here in the colonies but countries like England, Germany, Russia and China have all had quite serious private conversations with Obama so we probably have not heard the last.

Complacency, apathy and ignorance are the dark side trump cards in this game of high stakes poker, again echoing the sentiments of Freddie Mercury, nothing really matters.

It better matter!  We are either on the precipice of catastrophe or the cusp of salvation as mankind prepares to transition into the next and fifth cycle of civilization as told by the Hopi Indian elders and prophecies.

Either nothing really matters or everything really matters - the choice is ours.

Editors note: My fascination with John Galt is not just a literary thing but I also have a band called John Galt.  Check them out at:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=629449
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