The Old Colony Democrat No. 3

                     The Old Colony Democrat 

                                                                                     Vol. II, No. 3 Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012

                                     A Newspaper for the People, 

                  Published at Old Mattakeesett, in the County of Plymouth

 In the Open at Last: Plutocrat Romney Comes Out for The Money Power

        News comes to this County that our old acquaintance,  His Excellency Mitt Romney, has been exposed as a Prince crown'd by The Money Power, who seek together to reduce the citizens of this lately gain'd republic into a state of absolute SERVITUDE.
        The Boston papers and the New York packet as well report that Mitt Romney, late and regrettably the Governor of this Commonwealth, and today the most despised man therein this side of a convicted war criminal, has lain it open and in the clear that he runs for Chief Magistrate as the greasy Errant Boy of Filthy Lucre, as a Princeling of the Moneyed Aristocracy.
      Indeed, Romney so boldly spoke to his fellows in that cabal of Designing Banksters that, having outraged the kingly Commoners paid a pittance to serve them, these latter Friends to Equality saw fit to record what our would-be Executive had to say.
 Thus did he speak:

    "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. "

     And so, Friends and Citizens, I ask you: did ever you see The Money Power -- that very power which Old Hickory did smite with a righteous VETO -- assert itself so baldly? Have you ever seen Aristocracy assert itself so nakedly? 

    That's why you've all got to go out and assert your rights, and the rights of the People at large, this November 6th. For it is only through the majesty of DEMOCRACY that Aristocracy has ever been turned back from mastering this, or any other, Republic.

Quakers to the Left of Me.....

       NOVANGLUS is privileged to possess many friends on what might be commonly thought of as the decidedly Left end of the political spectrum; and on most days and most matters, he is proud to stand with them. For they assuredly are different from their opposite members on the Right: they are good people and they mean to make the world a better place.

        But on several occasions, over the course of the years, he has had to part ways with them, however personally fondly he may hold them, when their objections retreat into merely monkish rectitude, with no regard for the political currents that swirl about us, and thereby abdicate the dictates of duty to the demands of a Quaker conscience, and shrink from the questions before us, because they should have wished other, and better, questions, to be put to the People.

       This is one of those occasions. 

      For many on the Left today, some of them dear to me, refuse to vote for President Obama -- the People's President -- because he wages a small but nevertheless unjust war abroad: I speak of course of the Drone War. I, as the reader no doubts intuits, do agree with these critics on the unwisdom and injustice of the Drone War as currently waged. Though I am closely agreed with the President that those who would seek to do real harm to the United States (whatever their motivations) must be stopped, and sometimes brutally so, I do not think that this means we have to or ought to countenance the destruction of entire villages by flying robots. This, along with the nonsensical "Surge" in Afghanistan (do you remember, dear Reader, when that word signified merely a hyper-caffeinated soft drink?), are among the policies for which Obama will be judged most harshly.     
       But harsh judgement must also be reserved for those "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots" who hew to a cause only where it is most popular, only where it is unimpeachable, only when it has the common assent of all women and men. For those who, judging a cause solely on its most indefensible aspects, boldly proclaim their political innocence, deigning to dirty their hands in the common struggle against those that would rob All of the People of their ancient and hard-won liberties. For those who would tell you, in 1940, that they would not see this country take up the struggle against Nazism, because the British Empire was in so many places and so many ways a very unjust thing.    
      Friends and fellow citizens: these arguments are the mark of a dilettante, and one who is suited for the religious rather than the political sphere. And I declare as well: that in the Great Class War which now divides this nation, in which the candidate of the People, Barack Obama, does battle with the Prince of the Plutocrats, M. Romney (a dweller of French mansions, if not a sipper of French wines); that those who sit out this fight are as those Philadelphia Quakers, too lofty for this world, who sat it out betwixt America and Britain while WASHINGTON and his army shivered at Valley Forge. 
     Take heed, Citizens, and do not repeat their mistake!

Daisy Buchanans to the Right....

       Meanwhile, because I wish to illustrate the truth of this Maxim: that these friends to my Left are good people; and that so many in Romneystan (see how the Other 10% live!) are not, I shall relate the story shared with me by a good friend to this Paper, a scholar and a Democrat, who, because of her husband's profession, is a good deal wealthier than Novanglus and thereby gains access to some of the salons and dinner parties where such a Swamp Yankee as NOVANGLUS would be summarily tossed out and fed in the kitchen with the Servants and the Dogs. She does not speak her peace, but listens, like an Anthropologist truly.

       Mrs. H_____ told me the following:

      That she and Mr. H____ were invited to a party at a fine McMansion -- if the monstrous issue of unbaptised sloths can be called "fine" -- down the road belonging to a family that, though once, fifteen years ago, were infamous Irish thieves, felons truly and convicted, have now, through the purifying power of Plutocracy, been rendered immaculate in the eyes of those other, unconvicted felons who do occupy the other, lesser McMansions round about them.

     And many things she heard here, wondrous to tell.

     She heard that one of these elfin Principessas of pin-striped Privilege does heartily hate NOVANGLUS, for something he wrote in Josh Cutler's go-along-get-along rag ten years ago, The Duxbury Clipper (getting something of interest out of that sheet is like trying to get something of substance out of Candidate Cutler!). Something to the effect that it was his very great regret that the last piece of woods on Washington Street was cut down to satisfy the vanity of a McMansion-dwelling Aristocratic Junto. Well, it wounded her so! 

    Madam, NOVANGLUS would like to have replied: if it wounded you so, my mere words: what think you and your reckless actions these last three decades, your Marie Antoinette pride in taking MORE THAN YOUR FAIR SHARE of the Common Weal -- what harm think you they have rendered to the Body Politick? And of course, as the Scripture saith, she would answer not a word....
      But the very worst thing of the evening, Mrs. H______ reported, was a statement that shows you just what these blond mavens of towering Mammon say behind closed doors. For, in the midst of a long, strange line of braggery -- about how little she read, and how little she does remember, from her College years -- Mrs. Isabel, whose poor friend's feelings were made tender by the criticisms of NOVANGLUS; this Mrs. Isabel described how she once took a class on Eastern Orthodoxy, that oldest of the Christian churches.

      And then she said this: "It was weird and -- igh! -- and there were all these swarthy and hairy guys there in the classroom; there were no blondes like me...." And at this, her fellow Reichsleiters of McMansion Kingdoms did gloat and laugh.....

      Friends, if ever you forget what this election is about, come back to that quote from Mrs. Isabel. For we all know that one side wants "to finish the Temple of Freedom," and "to make it capacious within", as the old Lincoln campaign song has it. We want to make a place "for whoever seeks shelter, whatever the Hue of their Skin!" The other side -- well, just see what Lady Isabel had to say.

   Remember, all of you neither deliriously wealthy nor self-content in thine blondness: Vote Your Interests, Vote Your Conscience, and Vote the Straight Democratic Ticket!

Voting for Obama with You!