“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. . . . You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

The above statement was made by Elizabeth Warren who is running for the Senate from the state of Massachusetts. When one reads Ms. Warren’s remarks they do not appear particularly shocking, they read as a plain statement of common sense relating to the expected conditions of a Republic. However correct and nobel the above passage seems it is being stated, sadly, in a vacuum created by the oligarchy that is in control of this country. The centers of power and wealth, namely the banks, Wall Street, organized religion and our very own government have created this vacuum to suck the air out of any organized protest against the ruling class. Ms. Warren is not a wealthy woman yet to run against the Tea Party’s favored son, Scott Brown, she will have to raise millions of dollars. Money that will come from the pockets of the lower and middle classes, those that really cannot afford the luxury of donating money to a political cause. Set aside the fact that Warren is completely qualified for the position and maintains a history of standing for the protection and betterment of the “common man,” she will have to become and “uncommon” woman, that is she will have to preside over the allocation of millions of dollars in campaign funds, to achieve the office of Senator. That, in an of itself, is a breach of the social contract. The concept that this country was founded on “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” clearly implies that all those who are governed by these conventions are entitled to equal representation, “unalienable Rights.” That core of the social contract, the ablility of all citizens to have their voice heard, either directly or through representation, has been attacked and rendered useless by the rise of the corporate government. We, the people, no longer have control, or even free access, to our own government. We have humbly accepted the fact that to be heard, even on the fringes of the power base, one must have access to sums of money that seem obscene to men of conscience. For all the good that Ms. Warren stands for and would, almost certainly, bring to the position of Senator, she still must take part in the breech of social contract that is our faux representative government. She must beat the oligarchy using their rules. Rules that are so corrupt that they have eliminated all but one percent of the country in the ability to have their voices heard

As with any contract, when the agreement is broken by one party the other party is no longer held to the original terms. To my mind we no longer have a binding contract with our own government. Washington, D.C. no longer speaks for we, the people. The “unalienable Rights” that were guaranteed by the authors of our founding documents have been surreptitiously taken from us by the centers of power and wealth that were mentioned earlier. The social contract has become the social war and the battlelines could not be more clear. On one side we have we, the people, and on the other we have the troika that is the locus of power in the country, namely the large banks, Wall Street and organized religion. All domestic and foreign policy is dictated by these three dark forces. Until we eliminate or negate their control we will remain the scrawny hounds that we have become, surviving on the few scraps of fetid meat that our owners toss us from their banquet table.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Maring Luther King, Jr., a man who recognized long ago that the social contract had been broken. He realized that the millions of people who were the generations of slaves and the offspring of slaves, were not included in the “we, the people” clause of the contract. He recognized that for too long people of color in America were forced, as we all are now, to seek favors from the ruling class merely to survive. His answer was to confront the ruling class and demand they either honor the contract or step aside. These were not favors that Dr. King sought, these were the demands of a people. The King doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience in the confrontation of a corrupt power base is one that could be applied to the present conditions that exist in this country. The truth be told, Dr. King had with him people who were willing to risk harm or death in their effort to secure that which was assured them by the social contract. Today it is doubtful that we can get our citizenry off their iPhones or away from their Twitter accounts long enough to instill any fear in the oligarchy. Occupy Wall Street is a start, but as could be predicted, the main stream media is giving less and less coverage to the cause and is allowing it to be trivilized by its enemies. To affect real change in this country we must, as a people, confront and resist big banking,Wall Street, and organized religion. Yes, more people like Ms. Warren are important, but to truly threaten and eventually tumble the oligarchy we must attack the enemy in the only seeming area of vulnerability…economically. Start at the bottom with your local elected officials. Mayors, selectmen, town council members all must be held accountable. Educate yourselves before confronting and demanding that these officials serve the will of the people. They are handling your money, don’t you feel you have the right to an accounting? If they fail to fulfill their end of the social contract then ratchet up the mode of confrontation…occupy their offices, picket, withold a percentage of your taxes…do what you must to distrupt the status quo and reinstall the social contact as a viable, working concept. Dr. King’s movement saw many men and women spend time in dirty jail cells before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, lives were lost. Don’t you feel that you can simply spare some time to have your voice heard in an effort to secure your right, and the right of future generations, to the pursuit of happiness?

Unlike the character Jimmy Stewart portrayed in “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” there is no Senator Paine who will suddenly, in a moment of remorse over a career filled with corruption and dishonesty, declare the obscenities of the inner workings of government and save the naïve, set upon Mr. Smith form the wolves of government. Frank Capra is not the scriptwriter for America’s social contract…we are. We cannot expect and individual, or even a group of individuals, to right the ship of state. We are the ocean that she sails upon and it is up to us to keep her on an even keel. For too long the winds of big business and big religion have been pounding us broadside. We cannot ride out this storm beam to, we must steer directly into it if we have any chance of survival. The latest gusts have been in the form of attacks on collective bargaining, a seeming acceptance of Christianity as the religion of State, and the elimination of our right to privacy. Bit by bit the three headed monster nibbles at our core and with each ounce of flesh that they tear we become weaker. As Whitman stated, we are the body electric.

“I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.”

Before the body dies and rigor renders it hollow and brittle, we must consolidate our energy and attack the problem. Time is not on our side.