Put not thy faith in princes, or anyone?In 1964 I entered Brooklyn Technical High School and its Honor Englishprogram. The English part of the entrance exam contained a very longparagraph of legalese, the slang term for the kind of language lawyersuse in contracts, and I aced it. I was 14 years old and had never reada contract, so I consider this to be my first channeled experience,though it might also be explained as the result of a past lifetime aseither a lawyer, legal secretary, or someone back then who was like Iam today, a layman who does his own legal work.

Thereis a saying about people like me, When you act as your own lawyer youhave a fool for a client. This may be true but so far so good and I'vesaved a lot of money acting as my own lawyer, not to mention the timeI've saved - most lawyers see nothing wrong with running up thebillable hours when another way of approaching a case might take lesstime.

I wish I was a lawyer now because I'd be suing EVERYONEin the government and in these investment firms that have caused somuch ruin to so many. Back in the Honor English program at Tech, westudied the King James version of the Bible as a book, not the revealedword of God, and it was an experience whose value stays with me to thisday. Today, the study of the Bible in a public high school would sendthe lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union to the barricadesto stop that practice, no matter how valuable it might be. Church andstate must be separated, they believe. I am not so sure.

I wassomeone who didn't like saying "Under God" when we stood and said thePledge of Allegiance, so I didn't say it and no one said anything to meabout it because plenty of other boys did (Tech was all boys then, sohow smart were we really for going there? Not very!) The Viet Nam warwas kicking into gear, boys a little older than me were dying, and oneday I didn't stand for the pledge and was hauled to the principlesoffice by none other than my best friend, Jay Abramson, who was anofficer in the hall monitors guard service. I didn't bear him anymalice, he was doing his job and why should both of us get in trouble?This was the turbulent sixties and we were the class that went onstrike to be allowed to wear blue jeans to school. Seems crazy, no?

Today,the whole world seems to have gone crazy. I believe that, too a largedegree, this is the result of separating the morality that is a bigpart of religion from the schools of this country. How else can weexplain the thousands of otherwise good men and women who could not seehow wrong it was to make business decisions that, if they were notstrickly illegal, were most certainly immoral in that they were puttingat risk not just the savings, but the very jobs and lives of countlesspeople who had put their trust in them in one way or another. I'mtalking about banks, to be sure, but I'm also talking about government,from the President on down through the Senate and House ofRepresentatives - what a bunch of theives! They have sold us out forcampaign contributions and the wrath of the nation should be upon them.If President Bush and Vice President Cheney are to be prosecuted, thenso should be every Senator and Representative, and on and on right ondown to the state and local governments for good measure. They have notserved us well, to be sure, and in many cases they have betrayed ourtrust in them. And throw in almost every big business that peopleinteract with on a daily basis, the banks, the brokers, the utilities,the car companies, the health insurers and all insurers for thatmatter. Today it was revealed that 83 of the biggest 100 corporationshave off shore tax havens!

One saying from the Bible that Itook to heart was "Put not thy faith in princes." What I didn't realizewas that I could not put my faith in practically anyone for the lastfew decades. Anyone who was in a position to be tempted by making easymoney by loosening their morals seems to have done so, using theircreativity not for service but for cooking up schemes, cooking thebooks to hide them, and making up excuses and lies when they werefinally caught. This is a disgusting, demoralizing state of affairs. Ifthis was pre-revolutionary America or other countries in the world,there would be riots in the streets. Though I don't want to see riotsin the streets, there very well may be more than a few once there areenough people out of work and out of hope.

Speaking of hope, Ido hope that President Obama will do his best to live up to thehope/hype he used to get elected. I don't trust anyone now, not evenhim. So far, it seems that he's been blackmailed by the Clintons, he'sput so many of their cronies in major positions of power and publictrust. Maybe they know he wasn't born in this country or some otherwierdness. I'm telling you, I don't trust anyone now except Amy and ourclose friends - why should I? Every day, crazier stuff comes outabout...everyone! I don't think many people trust the Clintons at thispoint, so that's a no brainer. But take the fact that Obama came out ofthe Chicago currupt political machine. Are we supposed to believe thathe arose from that stinking mud without any of it sticking to him, likea lotus flowering from the mud? Sorry if I offend anyone's fairy talesensibiliteis, it's just that I don't know what to believe any more andI'm a professional psychic. He seems like a nice guy but I'm sureBernie Madoff seemed like a nice guy. Time will tell, I know. It's justthat I'm afraid of what it will tell.

Though there should not beriots in the street - really, what good would that do? - the governmenthas anticipated that there will be. For the first time since the CivilWar, the Posse Commitatus law has been suspended and an active Armycombat brigade quartered in the USA ready to deploy somewhere in theUSA on a moment's notice. Why? Maybe to defend our Southern border ifthe situation with the Mexican drug cartels and their assault on thedecent people of Mexico and our border areas, like Laredo, Texas, getsout of hand. Maybe to deal with a terrorist attack. Maybe to defend theidiots in our government who have gotten all of us into this mess froman aroused populace.

Speaking of past lifetimes, if ThomasJefferson and the rest of our founding fathers were alive today theywould probably call us all a bunch of cowards for not joining them inrising up en masse and throwing the bums out, as they did to KingGeorge III of Britain. To hear people today say that nothing was everaccomplished with violence is to hear people who do not know anythingabout their own history or any other country's history - violence hasaccomplished a lot. We're smarter now and we should be able to get itright and get things done without violence, right?

Jefferson andMadison wrote that every generation should have their own revolution. Ihope with all my heart that the future peaceful revolutions that are sonecessary for the USA, the most important experiment in the history ofthe world, to endure yet another set of growing pains and get back ontrack to being the unequivocal light of the world.

I must saythat I'm disappointed that for way too long now young people haveavoided their civic duty to get out in the street and peacefullyprotest injustice. The protests of the sixties WORKED! Stop making funof older people. Stop making fun of everything, there is a time forseriousness and this is that time. I challenge the young people whohave a beef with us baby boomers - it seems that your revolution was torebel against rebelling - to become quiet to the point of invisibilityin your fashionable sameness. Well, can you afford that anymore? I knowthat I cannot afford to be silent anymore.

I have decided thatit is time for me to get involved with local politics here in EastHampton. My neighbor is the supervisor, a nice guy, a former policelieutenant, and yet he and his budget guy have spent away the surplushe inherited from the previous administration and done it in a way thatmay very well be illegal. Sound familiar? Now the State of NY has comein to audit their cooked books. And taxes are being raised big time. Doyou see a pattern here? Do you see why I'm more than a little concernedand upset?

Amy and I have worked very hard for a very long timeto use our creative energies for the good of all. We never thought wewere that special, just doing what was right. We know that the majorityof people are like us, moral people. We also now know, unfortunately,that cream of our society has risen to the top but stayed their toolong and curdled to the point of being poisonous. Some of the nation'sprivileged trust-afarians, as the trust fund babies of East Hampton areknown locally, and the best and brightest students from all walks oflife have advanced themselves to positions of power and then, ratherthan using their power for the good of all, have made the consciouschoice of abusing their power for their own good. They've sold theirsouls for some gold.

I don't believe in the Devil but I believein the Devil card of the tarot. The Devil card symbolizes "theseduction of the material world." In our "Enchanted Tarot," Amy used amask to make the Devil's face because to make it big in big businessyou have to sometimes wear a mask and play the game. The Devil card isa reminder that you can't play the game all the time or else you'llforget it is a game. And that you have to take the mask off when you'renot playing that game.

Too many people with too much powermade too much money by robbing too many people. This is intolerable andwe must all rise up and get political and make sure that the guilty payand that we don't pay. These crooks in Congress and Henry Paulson aretrying to make sure that their rich friends stay rich even if it makesmillions of us poorer, even to the point of being homeless. Thisoutrage cannot go on. We have to do something about it and quickly.Read up on the current situation and then take action in any legal waythat you can. We can no longer put our faith in princes, real orimagined.