Patrick Dodd

We have a deep and abiding belief that the powers that be have gotten us used to listening to "them" talking about "us", to keep "us" from getting together and talking about "them." Powerful cultural and political influences have driven wedges between us that would not stand through a single cup of coffee; if we just sat down and had that cup of coffee. We are first and foremost neighbors, all across America and the world. We can work our way through damn near any difference if we realize one simple fact, we are in this together. We need each other if we are to transcend destruction. While it may sound odd on it's face, we are convinced the powers that be do not want us to be nice to one another, because nice people really listen to one another. They do not want us helping each other mend fences, because we may come to see that some fences do not need to stand and some should have never been built at all. They do not want us to comfort each other’s children, because we might hear the sound of children crying in places we cannot see and ask ourselves if those are not our neighbors and feel the need to comfort those children as well. They do not want us to dance together, because dancing people touch, they feel each other, they move together to one rhythm. They do not want us to sing together, because we might behold the majesty of our harmony. They do not want us to walk side by side because we might see that the color of our skins or the gender of our bodies does not change the direction of our steps. They fear most of all that we will begin to help each other over the challenges and the dangers along this mighty and mutual march. They fear we all might remember that at the core of this grand experiment is a path, and that path, that ancient and revered path, a path died for, is worth defending, for at the end of that path grows a tree, a tree we must protect above all others, that is the “tree of Liberty”.
We must remember what our forefathers and mothers knew. We must remember that it is we who ultimately guard, water, and care for that most sacred tree upon which all other forms of justice branch. When we remember, and we will remember, then is when we will raise our fists as one, and pound upon that Iron Gate they have arisen to keep us from feasting upon the fruit of that tree. It will be a sound that will awaken the sleeping ghosts of our better dreams and we will ask - "Why? - Why these years of separation when we were one people all along? - Why this slicing and dicing of the body politic? - Why have you taken what was a sacred trust and burned it on the alter of profit and power?" You see these men, grown fat, insatiable, and mad by their immersion in raw power, know that come the true judgment day, the day when "We the People" come to collect the due on promises made in the blood and sweat of our forefathers and foremothers we will find our national treasurers empty, spent not upon the future of our children but instead looted in the name of nothing more noble than baseless greed. That my friends, my neighbors down the block and around the world is why they will never let us become "We the People" without a struggle, and why no matter how difficult the struggle, we must overcome! Power, as always, to The People!