Rest, and a plan. The Continental Army of 1776 needed both, and quickly. Britain had spent the better part of the sweltering summer amassing her troops just south of Brooklyn—in staggering numbers; General George Washington had approximately 10,000 troops, while British Generals Cornwallis and Clinton had three times as many, around 30,000. The fledgling Continental Army was largely untrained, with the exception of some leadership with prior military experience.
As far as the Brits were concerned, the initial assault on Long Island was intended to be decisive. King George III had had enough of the upstart colonies and wasn’t going to stand for their recent treasonous act of declaring independence. They would go to New York and make the loss a painful one—and they almost succeeded. In late August they came at the Continentals full bore, and exacted a heavy toll. As the Continental Army began its retreat back towards Brooklyn Heights it looked like the revolution might come to a swift end. Come night fall the Continental Army set up camp since the British, having called off the assault for the time being, were preparing for siege.
The British failed to press their advantage, opting to wait for the Americans inevitable surrender.
Under cloak of night, the Continentals mustered every possible water-borne craft they could, deserting their encampment and slipping across the East River into Manhattan. Some 9,000 troops and all their supplies had to make the crossing though, and there weren’t enough hours of darkness to protect them all. Dawn came and the crossing still hadn’t been completed. The weather, however, conspired in favor of the Americans, something which George Washington would later describe as an event which “some would attribute to chance, but which clearly came from the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men.”
A thick fog, apparently highly uncommon for that time of year, settled in over the entire area, allowing the entire Continental Army to slip across the river and into Manhattan, out of Britain’s grasp. The Redcoats did arrive at the American encampment later that morning, only to find it completely empty.
The Americans had simply vanished.
A New Revolution or A Step Towards Socialized Democracy?
Explain it away as you wish or prefer, but there was unarguably something far more powerful than man at work that morning. There was a higher reason why thick fog silently settled in and helped to conceal the Americans retreat that morning. Part of that reason is written in Latin on the back of our one dollar bill: Annuit Coeptis . . . He favors our undertaking. Surely we were meant to be a country of great things, bestowed with blessings unequaled elsewhere.
So now we’ve elected a man who’s tied to people who don’t approve of the American ideal. People who have tried everything from violence to corruption to destabilize and undo what our fore bearers set out to accomplsh—to set asunder what Providence so graciously granted us.
He extols the virtues of socialized medicine, medical coverage for everyone! In theory it sure sounds nice, and certainly sounds like the right thing to do. But has anyone taken a look at, say, Canada’s health care system, or France’s, or Great Britain’s. You think you have to wait a long time in a doctors office now, wait until everyone can get an appointment when they have a sniffle, or a tummy ache, or bump their head when they pass out from drinking. The best part . . . you and I get to subsidize it! Doesn’t that sound great! Oh, and once the ball gets rolling, forget about seeing an OB/GYN if you suspect your wife is pregnant—that could mean a wait of almost half of her term (if not more) before she ever makes her first appointment. And that’s just the beginning.
His plan to “spread the wealth” involves taxing anyone making more than $250,000 a year, then handing that money down to those who pay no taxes at all. That means, in large part, those too damned lazy to get a job in the first place. He says this will help the struggling middle class. Well, I’m part of that middle class, and I sure as hell make nothing close to $250k a year, but I won’t see any of that money—because I work for a living. But that extra help “for those who need it” I’m sure secured a substantial number of votes. And yes, I absolutely understand that a lot of people have been put out of work because of our struggling/anemic economy. I say we start with all those CEO’s and other executives making obscene salaries—let’s spread some of their wealth around, or better yet, take some of that largess and create a dozen well-paying jobs with benefits.
The wealthy do shoulder (believe it or not) a larger tax burden than the average Joe. Short of tales like Robin Hood, when was the last time you actually saw money taken from the rich and truly given to the needy or less privileged, at least by the government? Yes, there are plenty of bona fide organizations who do excellent work in extending a helping hand to those in need. But when Mr. Employer begins to see his bottom line shrink, well the only way to keep that bottom line in some shape is to reduce your labor cost—at least that’s the traditional view. Screw doing away with expensive junkets, controlling costs, or focusing on your business’s core strengths . . . go right for the head count. So when businesses get hit with the extra tax burden, don’t be surprised when unemployment creeps up. Ooooh, and that’s going to mean even more unemployment tax too. Nice!
And what of America’s military? Pfft, apparently our military just isn’t good enough anymore. He wants to create a “civilian military”. He stated “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” Cool! Umm, but where is all this extra money going to come from? We’re already giving away the extra money scraped from the higher-earning bracket to the “middle class”. You want to cut funding to the current military, which will weaken it. And what about protecting our borders—I don’t recall a whole lot of discourse about protecting our borders during the campaign, much less anything about retaining our national sovereignty.
Here’s a related thought to his proposed civilian military: Wouldn’t that constitute a sort of police state? You know what, he’s going to need it if the government completely tanks our monetary system. They’ve spent so much, and owe so much, we are rapidly approaching the point where we can no longer service the debt—we won’t be able to repay just the interest on the debt we owe. When that happens, you watch what “we the people” do.
It Bothers Me, And Yet . . .
I watched Obama way back, I’m guessing close to a couple years ago, during a speech he was making while feeling out whether or not to run for the presidency. I distinctly remember thinking “this man will be president someday.” I’ve watched him on and off during the campaign and debates, and he’s a hell of an orator. He speaks of “change” and “hope,” both things we desperately need in this country. We need a man in charge who can put those words into motion, who can take an illusionary ideal and before our eyes deliver something concrete and beneficial to the country.
Deep down my heart says he can do it. It urges me to give him a chance. The little bit of his election victory speech that I heard was incredible. I so very much want to believe in him, as much as I believe in America, but I have little belief or trust in politicians. Did everybody forget that they work for us, WE THE PEOPLE?
Maybe, I pray with all my heart that maybe our ‘leaders’ will finally quit screwing around with our country and Constitution and get back to doing what WE are asking them to do. Take care of our nation’s business . . . not yours, not your family’s, not your political party’s . . . our nation’s. Or it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that like the Continental Army on that late August night in 1776, everything we’ve worked for, everything our fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters have fought and died for, could simply vanish.
And by the time we wake up and go looking for it, it will be gone.
Providence be with us.
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Mythology is rich with allusion to the bond men and women share. Many cultures have myths depicting an initial male/female pairing which produced mankind. In others, such as some Hindu myths, man and woman are initially one entity, not so much human as an essence, which eventually splits in two—those two halves wind up in a life long search for one another to attain the completeness they once shared. 
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