The Hammer of Justice

..........seems to be missing from our toolbox.

Wally's post on his Soapbox this past Sunday really got my attention. It was a video of an old Pete Seeger song, If I Had A Hammer (the Hammer Song), performed by Peter, Paul, and Mary. The thing that grabbed me, was his astute observation, "It's sucha (sic) simple solution to all that ails America today."

I thought about that comment for awhile, and have to admit, I believe he's right.

If we were to have diligently used the 'hammer of justice', we would not be facing the myriad problems we are encountering today.

We would not be at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We would not be paying exorbitant oil/gas prices, which in turn, drives up the prices for everything from soup to nuts. There would be no massive foreclosure problems, and most definitely no sub-prime mortgage debacle. High-paying manufacturing jobs would not have been shipped overseas, and offshore tax-havens for tax-evading corporations would be virtually non-existent. Our Constitution would still be intact, instead of the shredded condition done by the Bush Administration. The 9-11 Commission would have done the job it was formed to do, and brought the real perpetrators to the dock. America would still be enjoying the respect of the world, as the beacon of justice, and a country to be emulated.

The 'Hammer of Justice' is only used to pound the lower classes into subjugation. When it comes to the wealthy, connected, and powerful, the hammer is nowhere to be found. Examples of this are abundant.

Insurance companies refuse to honor their obligations, or drag them out for years, to pay the claims of victims of hurricanes like Ivan, Katrina, Rita, et al, and the government is silent.

CEOs of large corporations such as Enron, Hewlett-Packard, and Wall Street Banking firms fiscally rape the companies and the consumers; and then are rewarded with government bail-outs, and 'Golden Parachutes' worth tens of millions of dollars for their illegal behavior.

Administration cronyism funnels billions more in no-bid contracts into the coffers of companies such as Halliburton, Blackwater, Triple Canopy, et al. To add insult to injury, hundreds of millions are billed for overpayment or work never completed, and hundreds of millions more that just can't be accounted for. This is both ludicrous and farcical. The government can always find the small taxpayer who owes a couple thousand, and make him cough it up (or seize all his assets), but they can't find, or recoup, hundreds of millions stolen by corporate cronies of the Bush Administration?

And then we have the Bush Administration deciding that subpoenas are good only for *ss-wiping, and now the Palin Administration is following their lead. What would happen to us 'commoners' if we were to try that? Can you say, 'IMPRISONMENT'?

Alors, Wally was right! If we had a hammer, 95% of what ails this once-great nation of ours would have never occurred.

It's The Hammer of Justice,
Brother Tim