Chapter 217

“Don’t mention your move before you make a move.”
—Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“AMANDA, DID YOU RECORD THAT?” I asked as I stared at the door. I couldn’t believe someone I didn’t know had just walked into my ready room and threatened to have me sent to the agriculture fields if I didn’t change my message in the show. From a conglomerate of interested businesses. RSI. China.

“Yes, Jacob.”

“Send it unedited to Ray Long in Chicago, and to Will Forsythe and Ron Starling in DC. Add a message to Ron’s copy that says, ‘How are you going to protect my family?’ I need to play my guitar for a minute to calm down.”

“Affirmative, Jacob. Messages sent.”

“And, Amanda, post the entire thing to our YouTube channel.” I grabbed my guitar and sat in a corner playing. I was uninterrupted for half an hour when there was a knock on the door.

“Jacob, it’s time to get started,” Donna said. “We’re fifteen minutes from curtain.”

“How does it look?”

“Just like you asked. Sign-carrying proponents of reform. Packed house. A news crew standing by from the local television station.”

I stood and caught Donna around the waist to give her a passionate kiss. Not very professional, but I needed that touch with one of my wives.

“In case I don’t survive this, know that I love you and tell each of my wives that I love her.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. Get out there and make Cindy look good.”

I laughed and headed backstage.

What I wasn’t taught in high school was how broken our government is. The constitution, like the legal code, has become a battlefield for politicians and lawyers to see how they can bend and twist it to their own needs. The laws that are supposed to be applied uniformly to all Americans are somehow exempted for our political leaders.

When we started this campaign, we wanted to recover the dream of what the National Service was intended to be. It was to be filled with opportunity and we allowed it to be turned by greedy politicians and rapacious businesses into a period of forced slavery during which our youth was beaten out of us. The bill to reform the National Service was shuffled aside in the Senate as the Senate Leader refused to put it on the agenda. In the House, it was tabled. So, we launched a drive to elect only pro-reform candidates this year.

I’m here to tell you tonight we were wrong.

We need to elect candidates who are willing to take on the challenge of reforming the government, not just the National Service. Our campaign finance laws are so leaky that political donations find their way directly to the pockets of the candidates. Our representatives and senators are bought and paid for by campaign donations, business deals, and outright bribes. They do not represent we the people. They represent the special interests who bought and paid for them.

Our government officials at every level of local, state, and national government have become a special class of nobility in direct opposition to the constitution. Since they make the laws, they can exempt themselves from them. They live in a bubble of protected status that we must burst! Senators and Congressmen should be nothing more nor less than laborers paid by the people to do a job and held accountable to the people for the quality of work they do.

One of the great flaws in the setup of our congress, our executive branch, and our judicial branch is that they are expected to police each other and themselves. Yet the congressional ethics committee repeatedly covers over infractions by its members in a kind of ‘I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me’ tacit agreement. Corruption stretches into every branch of our government at all levels and we need candidates who are committed to correcting the problem from inside before the people of the United States take it in their own hands to correct.

Part of that power structure of the Senate has seen how one man can control what comes before the Senate for consideration and can distribute wealth and influence to the people who support him. Our slate of candidates is committed to legislative management reform that not only expedites legislation but that holds those in power accountable for their actions.

Article II, Section 2 of the constitution clearly places the armed forces of the United States under the command of the president to show that the military is a servant of the civilians, not the other way around. Yet, as illustrated by the National Service, our military arm has acceded to great authority over civilians who are not part of the military, are not participating in civil unrest or rebellion, and are in no way a threat to the stability of the country other than through their votes on election day. Military authority over civilian matters must be curbed.

And finally, our judicial system has failed to apply the law and constitution equally to all American citizens. Clearly stated costs for violations of the law have been distorted and applied differently based on race, social status, religion, economic condition, and sex. Our nation is due massive judicial reform that focuses on justice for all and not on justice for those who can pay.

I have spoken before of the creation of a Reform Caucus in the United States Legislature and those candidates for office who have committed to it. Tonight, I’m bringing an expansion of that concept to you and am announcing the founding of the Reformist Party. The people running at every level of elected office who have committed to the Reformist Party are committed to the six party reform planks I’ve just mentioned. National Service Reform, Campaign Finance Reform, Congressional Ethics Reform, Legislative Management Reform, Military Management Reform, and Judicial Reform. When election day comes in two weeks, we need to elect Reformist candidates in every race in which they appear. To facilitate that, we have established a website active tonight that lists every recognized Reformist candidate in the country. ReformistParty.com is now open and ready for you to check who to vote for in the upcoming election.

I want to tell you that this is not without cost. You will disagree with some of the non-platform stances of some candidates and I can only ask you to weigh the cost of giving a person who disagrees with you on a single subject a voice, against the cost of failing to make sweeping reforms to our government.

This afternoon as I sat in my ready room preparing for this speech, a man unknown to me entered the room to convince me on behalf of a business conglomerate that would lose money if the service was reformed that I should soften my stance on reform. He did it first through offers of mentorship and later employment after my service. He continued with threats indicating that he could have me assigned to the agricultural fields for the next two years and ruin my hopes of a music career if I failed to comply with his demands. I don’t know who he was. But it happened that I was recording myself practicing this speech when he walked in and you can see the entire recording on our YouTube channel right now. This is why we need Reformist candidates. This person believes he is above the law, above the constitution, and above the people of the United States. Identify him and turn him in!

The United States was founded on the dream of a free and classless society with equal opportunity for all. We will recover the dream.

That was the longest speech I made, but not the only one. Between sets of Morricone music featuring the battling strains of Cindy’s flute and Desi’s voice as Remas and I filled the background and our wives danced, and sets of lively tangos in which I carried the lead on my Flamenco guitar with Sophie and Brittany dancing, we told the crowd exactly what to expect in congress tomorrow morning and how to combat it. And for the first time, I told the general public what had happened to me when I started National Service and why I took the strange man’s threats seriously.

The concert went three hours and we didn’t lose any of the audience. Even the news station stuck around until the end and met with me onstage. I had to repeat almost everything to them in an interview that I’d said during the performance. It was well after midnight when I tucked Amanda under my arm and joined my wives to head for the bus.

I saw familiar faces standing between us and the bus. The SSR stretched out in a line. I heaved a deep sigh. Might know they’d be the ones sent to conduct me to my service in the agricultural fields.

“Well?” I said. “Are you going to drug me this time so I don’t resist?”

“What?” Paul said. “Jake, that was all a big mistake. I was hoping you’d get past that misunderstanding. We thought we were doing what we were supposed to do.”

“And what are you supposed to do tonight?” I asked. “I’m getting tired.”

“We’re supposed to protect you and make sure no one attempts to override your assignment on this deputation team,” Dana said. “It’s a temporary assignment because we were in Indianapolis and Ron said we were the closest people he could send. When he gets a real security force set up for you, we’ll get back to our base and wait for the next disaster.”

“I guess I should be flattered. I’ve advanced from target to disaster. Hey. Really? I’m glad to see you guys. You did an incredible job in Washington. I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”

“You think you’ve trained for everything and then something like this happens,” Derek said. “What a mess. It’s like the state was just sliced in half from Mount Rainier to Puget Sound. Everything in front of the flow was wiped out.”

“And working in and around the lahar was spooky. It was like walking through concrete just before it sets,” Rick said.

“So, are you guys all set? The bus is ready to pull out to take us to our campground about an hour or so east of here.”

“We’ve got our truck and will follow the bus. You know us, we have all we need to camp next to you.”