Questions...

What happens when you lose faith in your government? What happens when you start asking questions, and the answers you receive stun you to your very core? What happens when you realize that the People haven’t been running the show, but it’s Big Money and Big Corporations which are in charge, and have been for a long, long time? What happens when you realize that those elected officials you thought were there to serve the People are, instead, pawns for a powerful force which does not care about citizens or their rights, but only cares what those citizens can do to help advance their cause and add to their wealth?

What do you do?

Do you ignore the truth, and go about your business? Do you assume that the revelation, while disturbing, won’t affect you? Or do you hope that someone else will take charge, and step up to the plate to correct the problem? Someone more qualified than you, or who isn’t as busy? Do you feel a twinge of dismay, or sadness or hopelessness, but think to yourself, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it!”? Do you flounder at the immensity of the problem, convinced that your one voice will be ineffective, thereby persuading yourself to remain silent?

Or do you start to speak out? Do you talk to your neighbors and family members? Do you read and research and investigate so that you are as informed as possible, and then take that knowledge that you’ve acquired and try to educate the public?

And if you do take a stand, for how long will you hold your ground? Will you remain constant if your livelihood is threatened? If your reputation is damaged? Will you stay in the game once you find out that you have been “profiled”—your movements tracked, your “tone” evaluated? Will it disturb you when you are approached by strangers from these corporations who seem to know you intimately?

Will you speak out as often and as publicly as possible when you know you are angering the opposition? Will you be intimidated when you testify before Legislative Committees and discover that the corporate lobby has paid dozens of people to come to oppose you and your position? Will you lose hope when you discover that some of the very people you depend on to help you have been paid off, or have personal and financial interests which create obstacles to their ability or willingness to help?

What will you do when well-meaning insiders sympathetically caution you to “give up”? When they tell you that you don’t stand a chance, and that the entities you are opposing are too well-entrenched and powerful to ever be disrupted by someone as inconsequential as you? How will you act or respond when people who’ve promised to support your cause suddenly back off? When you find out they’ve accepted money in exchange for dropping their opposition, or that they’ve been indirectly threatened in some way?

How far will you go? How long can you hold out? Is the battle worth the sacrifice?

Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

I have.