We Sail The Course We Set

We had a storage problem at the Alamo.

The amigos and I powwowed at Pedro's pickup, which had assumed the position — hood raised with an amigo under it and five standing around.

At issue? Where to hide the stash.

Observing the economic horizon — the clouds onrushing, the air thick and worried, the coming monstrous blow of Al Gore proportions — we had dumped the bonds and blue chips and gone to the mattresses with gold and cash.

We had gold because the cheats and imbeciles ruining the country continued their savage assault on the U.S. dollar, known at the Alamo as the Yanqui Peso, headed for induction into the Banana Republic Hall of Fame.

As the dollar tanked, gold rose. We expect this to continue until our fiat currency system implodes, as they always do.

Think Weimar Republic, Argentina, Zimbabwe. We are not smarter. We just had more riches to plunder, so it has taken a bit longer.

The boys and I held cash against another scenario, a devaluation of the dollar, a depression, a possibility that sent shivers through the yellow-bellied, lily-livered oligarchy and its politician lapdogs.

So fearful are they that we will turn over the rock and find the cockroaches of their economic scam, that when their latest financial bubble deflated a tad, Wall Street required another gutless and tired assault upon our currency and pocketbooks — massive infusions of counterfeit loot to maintain the illusion of control.

Definition: Oligarchy — Greedy and insatiable financial interests who loot the country.

Definition: Politician — Owned by oligarchy, initiated into gang in secret ceremony marked by screams and searing flesh, as hooded man applies fiery cattle brand to bulbous rump, Abu Ghraib style. Ceremony conducted by Grim Reaper of Fatherland Security.

Sworn to secrecy, Skull and Bones style, the initiates hide their brands.

They are under orders to keep their pants on except when patronizing Washington brothels, seducing teenage interns and conducting private probes in airport toilet stalls.

A public servant's work is never done. They stay the course — wrecking the nation with the rising prices of monetary inflation, condemning our progeny to debtor's prison.

When the president took office, the federal debt stood at $5.7 trillion. The legislative arm of the ruling mob just raised the debt limit to $9.8 trillion. This does not count the $59 trillion in liabilities for the Ponzi schemes of Social Security and Medicare.

One of the nitwits who favor this madness will become president. Will it be the Bolshevik in a skirt or a Stalinist in Levis?

As Lee Iacocca put it, concerning another of our wars, "Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic."

Iacocca is correct. America is not the Titanic. It is the Hindenburg. It is the Charge of the Light Brigade. It is Pharaoh crossing the Red Sea.

Can you see the arrogance and folly? The blinding fireball? The flames of hell? The wails of doom and despair?

Oh, the humanity!

"Wake up, Capitano! Wake up!"

I came to with Pedro slapping my face — slap-slap-slap-slap-slap — grinning, with a couple of teeth in there, and the boys lined up behind him eager to help, gripping tire irons and crowbars.

A couple of shots in the air dispersed the ingrates.

We put the gold and cash in the Alamo family Bible. It seemed the best place.

There, we could read about the promise of free will, from which came the Western gift to humanity of personal liberty and responsibility.

Too, we could read of that legacy looted, which we might scarce believe, the final fiery chapter of the governance of evil with a soothing smile — the end of the world as we knew it.

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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