Have you ‘herd’ the truth

By Dr. John Hnatio

We have written many times before about the growing corruption within our government.  I am sure that many people who read the sorts of things we have written like to believe that we are nothing but a bunch of disgruntled and hysterical fools.  I can honestly tell you that I wish you were right.  Because if that was true, we would have a lot less to worry about.  But the sad facts of the matter are that the levels of corruption in our government have never been higher and things more out of control (http://www.gallup.com/poll/185759/widespread-government-corruption.aspx).

wyoming_buffaloGovernment is bigger and has more influence on our lives than ever before. But just like a herd of buffalo, those on the outside perimeter of the herd are the most vulnerable to the government’s authoritarian power.  Get too close or dare complain and you can quickly become an enemy of the state.

Many Americans are lucky. They have found a nice comfortable and secure niche in the middle of the herd.  These are people that are the least likely to have a brush with the bad side of their own government.  In the Nixonian era, these “middle of the roaders” were called the silent majority.  President Nixon called upon them to support the war policies of Bob McNamara and the U.S. Government as our troops fought valiantly in Vietnam for what everyone really knew was nothing but a lost cause. But the silent majority did not show up for the show until after the war was over and it was safe to speak the truth.

Today, many of us work hard to keep our heads down to avoid a confrontation with the authoritarian power of our own government.  For example, we all share the burden of paying heavy, unrealistic and unfair taxes in order to avoid the ire of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  We do this not out of respect for a government that takes on average 33% of our wages in taxes.  No, we do this because we are afraid to speak up and demand more from our own government. Because if you don’t just like what an administration has to say, you may find yourself on a special IRS hit list for being too conservative and/or believing that things like our Constitution are still important. For most of us though, it’s better to just keep your mouth shut and remain safely in the middle of the herd.

But for those buffalo on the outer edges of the herd who have dared to think that we live in a free country, a nation under God and that justice will prevail are having a much harder time. For them the government hunters are picking them off one at a time.  For example, a good metaphor would be America’s small businesses.  Small business owners and entrepreneurs risk everything for the safety of the bigger herd to make the lives of others better by sharing the fruits of their genius and hard work.  But in too many cases, these same people are having their entire lives destroyed by their own government.

I have been serving as the Executive Director of the Institute for Complexity Management (ICM) for over a decade now.  Over this time we have seen terrible injustices. We have seen the power of the government grow.  We have also seen new levels of arrogance by the government as they destroy small businesses across America with complete impunity. Like the small business that developed a revolutionary technology that is thinner than a human hair and can be remotely tracked by satellites.  The entrepreneur that developed a new drinking system to protect our warfighters on the battlefield. The small company that created predictive analytics, i.e., a revolutionary technology that gives you a heads up on future events, to make the food we all eat safer.  In every case it was the U.S. Government that stole their intellectual property and never looked back on the lives they destroyed.

So what do you do?  Well many of us standing in the middle of the herd believe that those affected can go to the Congress, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the courts if things get too dangerous for them.  But the sad reality is that they could not be more wrong.  In virtually every case that we have handled over the past decade, when a small business entrepreneur turns to the Congress they are told, “Go away. We don’t get involved in legal matters.” When they go to the FBI to report government corruption the FBI does absolutely nothing, or even worse, actually protects the very same U.S. Government agencies who destroyed the small business in the first place.

But crying about corruption and the injustice that flows from it seldom does anything to change the abuse of power by an arrogant government that sees its own self-preservation as being more important than the people it is supposed to be serving. No, it takes the realization by every buffalo in the herd that we are all in danger and that unless we work together to protect the entire herd all may be lost.  To this end, we created the John Galt Program for Investigative Studies (https://jgpis.org/) that works exclusively to strengthen the power of small business and encourage the participation of all of the people in demanding more from our government.  If you would like to make a difference, we ask that you become an active participant at our web site and contribute whatever you can to save small businesses in America. Remember, the buffalo almost became extinct. Help us to protect small business from the same fate.

 

 

 

 

 

Investigating Complex Issues