Patriots

I remember back 10 years ago just a few weeks after the September 11th attacks sitting on the steps of the Federal Hall Memorial looking at the big flag over the front of the Stock Exchange. I remember thinking, "How patriotic is it really to maintain overseas tax shelters in a time of national crisis?"

Now that extortion appears to have won the day, and that the federal budget will be balanced on the backs of all the rest of us, with not one single penny demanded from the people and corporations who effectively own the United States, I have to ask, is it legitimate anymore to consider our owners to be fellow citizens?

A friend of mine who is no hippy, but a retired executive vice president from a major international advertising firm, looked at this same flag on the Stock Exchange and exclaimed in disgust, "Well of course they fly the flag, they bought it."


Patriots? or parvenus?