(From a talk given by Vassar Bushmills to a north Georgia business group in mid-August)

     Maybe it's time to re-think the term "Civil War" in light of current events. One of my Russian associates mentioned to me last year that the term seemed not to fit. She said, "If born in Georgia, you fight with Georgia. If Indiana, you fight with Indiana. To me it seems War With States fit better."
     It does seems to me a civil war involves more of a choice about sides, and in 1860, most people had their choice made for them simply by where they were born. So, there's something to what Ivana Belusova's said, especially when you consider the reasons a farm boy from north Georgia signed up to fight and the reasons a farm boy from Indiana signed up to fight didn't quite gibe. They weren't quite fighting for or against the same things.
     The real civil war, as I see it, was our Revolution, when neighbors, the friend sitting with you at the tavern, the merchant down the street, the farmer down the lane, all had to make a choice. It's a gut-wrenching thing to have to sit down and choose between deeply held beliefs on the one hand and friends, public station, and financial interests on the other. But as Steve McQueen once said, "You've never played the game until you've played for more than you can afford to lose."

    Without knowing your personal predilections, tonight I am here to tell you the Thunder is about to be called down and you need to consider some of your choices in this current Rebellion. There is more than one.
    But first I want to put you in mind of the choices those men and women had to make back in 1776. They enjoyed a luxury I'm afraid the American professional and business community won't be allowed this time around, for you are not just a potential player, you are also an objective, a pawn in at least one side's strategy.
    For a little history, try to recall that part of the Declaration of Independence almost no one reads, where Thomas Jefferson laid out a bill of particulars, an indictment, against King George in July, 1776. He was calling down the thunder on the British Crown for a war that had actually begun a year earlier at Lexington and Concord. The Continental Congress was giving the Rebellion a legal license.
    That's where we are now...the year before, for in like manner, millions of Americans, ordinary citizens, perhaps even a few here tonight, have already made an irrevocable choice, just like those men at Bunker Hill. What those American rebels are waiting for are leaders to step forward, and scribes to set it all down, so as to give a keener direction and form to what they are doing. They'd like your leadership, and they need your money, for no one yet seems to know what shape this Rebellion will take. Some of you want to, but can't. Some of you aren't sure, so want to wait. And some of you just plain don't want to, just as few of you have already signed up.
      You see, this "thunder" is like a rolling peal, not a sudden clap, that goes away as quickly as it got here. Most of us look to the national elections of 2010 as when that bolt of lightning will strike, that turning point, where a few senators, and every congressman will stand election, and hopefully, the worst ones will be thrown out. Then things will turn around, that's what I'm hearing. This explains the small business sector's unwillingness to get actively involved now.
     Let's hope you are right.
     But also let's hope this is not wishful thinking, for the other side also knows our hopes, and has their own plans to deny us. Let's hope they are thinking inside the box, just like we are, and this is just a very political atmosphere rather than a coup, as some call it, or a socialist take-over as others call it...for each, if true...carry a logic which, whether you like it or not, is way, way outside the box.
    And let's not forget whatever this is, politics-gone-bad, socialism, it cannot be cured by a single election, or even a string of them, for we also know the enemies of liberty in this country have been at work in extra-legal ways, well outside the political sphere for years, and will continue to do so, no matter who runs Congress, the state house, or sits in the White House. Today they move and act as if there is nothing we can do to stop them. They fell they are holding all the aces. They have hundreds of millions of dollars and are wiling to spend them. And while we may have a few million, we seem less willing to spend it...and worse, don't seem to know how, because we can't really agree on the size, scope, or seriousness of the threat.
    Trust me, those rebels who have already declared themselves, and hit the streets, they know.
    I belong to a group of analysts who see this fight progressing in a similar way to 1776, at least for a few months. There may be a quickening, which we are not prepared to do anything about, I'm afraid. And that is also why I am talking to you here.
    When there's a fight, even in a saloon, the inclination is for most people to hold their counsel quietly and move off to the side to see how the more vocal holders of those positions fare, slugging it out. In truth, Good sense and prudence generally dictates this is the best policy until the way is more clearly lit. And many of you, over cocktails, have already voiced an opinion that it's best to wait to see not only how the 2010 elections turn out, but also how and when the economy turns around. When that turns around, everything will be all right. That seems to be the conventional wisdom.
     On that, two observations. In the first civil war, back in 1776, most of the people indeed did sidle off to the side, and wait to see who would win. Almost half, in fact. As you might guess, this sentiment was more prevalent in the north and larger cities, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but also in southern ports like Norfolk, Savannah  and Charleston.
     Why? You guessed it, working for or with the King...called "state jobs" these days...was good business, especially in those places.  Probably no more than a third of the people openly declared for Rebellion, mostly small farmers and small business, while about 20% sided with the King, most of those having a vested financial interest in seeing him stay in power. Unfair you say? Not really, considering the Tories didn't have to fight. The King sent his own armies, while the rebels had to raise an army from their 35%, and couldn't tax a soul to buy rifles or cannons or uniforms.
     The rest? They just waited to see who would win, so they could sidle up to the winner and say "I was always in there pulling for you, George."
      Only which George?
      Betting parlors in London were laying 14 to 1 on King George.
     As good businessmen, you, and me, an old Kentucky football fan, we both know you never gamble with your sentiments. You keep your mouth and your wallet closed, no matter how hard you may want the 'Cats to beat Tennessee....which could happen just any year now.
     There was also in 1776, just like today, a class issue. The colonies had a rich merchant class, but an even older landed gentry, a true aristocracy alongside the many small free farmers. Many with "Sir" in the front of their names. People forget that many of the southern delegates to Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were from this landed aristocracy, and all...all...were roundly chastised, then denounced, then expelled by other members of their class for having taken the side of the common man. Thomas Jefferson, being Virginia aristocracy, was especially berated for this "betrayal of his class".
     So, just remember, those men who signed the Declaration in 1776, really did offer up their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor."
     The second point is a question;  Just when does an economy cease being an economy?
     In my view that occurs when the economy no longer operates according to economic principles, but rather political ones.
     Now in truth, every aspect of our economy has operated under some sort of political umbrella...some free market purists would even say "cloud"...since the days of FDR. But leafing through history it's easy to see that an economy is no longer free when it shows good numbers only when the politicians want it to show good numbers. If you know some old timers who recall the Great Depression, most everyone of them will tell you that FDR saved us, even though the unemployment rate hovered around 17% from 1933, when he took office, to 1939, when they stopped keeping records. It was an illusion of sorts. You can cook the books, or you can simply have the media say the sky is blue when it isn't, or it looks like rain, when it isn't...and people will respond by either believing you or not believing you. They believed FDR, in part because he sounded kindly and gentle on the radio, but also in part because (and there is some history to back this up) his administration intentionally made things worse so that the people would accept almost any policy by the government that would bring back a sense of normalcy.
    After six years, 17% unemployment did in fact seem normal. Six years is a long time. By 1939, an entire generation had moved into adulthood in that period. Do you know how many young adults in America today weren't even alive when the Soviet Union existed, what, just 19 years ago? Add to that the number who were in diapers, or 1st Grade, or even middle school, then you can see what even six years can do for a president with a "grand plan".
     FDR's planners needed several years to set into place the bureaucratic institutions they wanted, so they didn't want any quick fixes in 1933. They had to drag it out, and he had masters in the public affairs to convince us things were better when they were. Making time work to their advantage is a thing our adversaries know, that we seem not to pay too much attention to.
    We still have many of those institutions created in the 1930s, and they have been a cancer on our economy since, for men have long since figured out how to do what they did better, and less expensively. What no one has figured out is how to get rid of them. The feudal system hovered over Europe for a thousand years for the very same reason.
    My business is knowing the minds and arts of  those central planners, and I learned this from the masters in the communist bloc, the old USSR. I can say with certainty that what they want to achieve today is a level of control over our economic comings and goings that was undreamt of even in FDR's day and which only a generation ago would have been viewed as criminal and treasonous.
     For twenty five years I have preached against the cancerous effects of large bureaucracy, and have often called for an across the board reduction of 20%-25% in big business and big government. You may not agree, or think that this is even feasible. Still, I could do it with my eyes closed. I won't argue that here. But what you must know is that on the other side of the table have been men, who for twice as many years as me, have called for a reduction of 20%-25% in the overall size of the US economy, in the private sector, and for that reduction to be stapled to a near no-growth national economic policy. Obviously, this is not something they want to advertise...mainly because of you. They want to keep you, American small business standing on the sidelines...standing on the sidelines, waiting for the economy to turn around.
    Now, I don't wish to start a debate here, but simply ask you to go home, pull out a piece of paper and sit down and compute where you and your business will fit into an economy that is reduced by 25%...forever.
    I can tell you tonight, as the great Nez Perce Chief Joseph said, if they have their way, from where the sun now stands, the economy as you knew it will never come back. Instead of a turnaround, what you may actually be waiting for is to get a piece of a pie that has been nearly quartered.
    My point is, those people who hold to that no-growth economic viewpoint now surround our president, and were hired by him as "czars", circumventing the public vetting process before they took their new positions. They can wield a power no Constitution ever permitted. And on that you have to take sides.
    Which takes us back to you and King George, for even under a King, there can be big winners in the private sector, especially those who are waiting for the economy to turn around...as soon as the king wins.

    Why I say these things now, and which you may think is a little premature, is, as I stated earlier, the thunder is about to be called down...with you or without you. The people who are out there are not about to be moved or shaken. They may lose, and if they do, it will not be pretty. As for an electoral victory in 2010, I give it no better than 50-50 now. Sorry, but the arrogance, especially by members of Congress who should be quaking in their boots right now, and the stakes...all the marbles...tells me they have some cards up their sleeve we don't yet know about, and quite frankly, many of us wouldn't believe even if we did know.
    About those stakes, I recall polling some business groups in September 2008, M'Cain versus Obama, and M'Cain won hands down. Me and one other said Obama would win. As a stock market analyst might say, on the technicals, M'Cain was head and shoulders better. But there were invisibles no one accounted for. One was the intense dislike for M'Cain by conservatives versus the (then) uncertainty about Obama, who seemed like a genuinely nice fellow. But the greatest "invisibles", which you may not have your ear tuned to anymore, are 1) the criminal aspect of party politics now, and the willingness and incredible ability of the Democrats today to target specific districts and precincts within a district to turn an election in the way they want, and 2) the general murmur and chaos of what National Review magazine back in the 1980s used to call "alienism" in the popular culture. By that  I mean a genuine hatred for anything even remotely good about the United States, its history, its institutions, its decency, its virtue...I could go on....especially by our young people. You have to admit, kids are easy targets, if the packaging is right.
    For close to twenty years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been pumped in, from people and organizations you have never head of, into virtually every way to get a message out to a young person; advertising, pop music, video games, film, and now computers and the internet, and especially public schools, with a view of having those kids grow up rejecting almost every value taught at home, or contained in the Constitution and an orderly moral society. There are now millions of them, from 6th grade through law school, all with this newly-conditioned hole in their soul.
    This is where I have to challenge your conservatism, since for many of you, it ends at your front gate. In doing so, you are creating an island around yourself, in Churchill's words, trying to insure you are the one the alligator eats last. I've been watching this for twenty years, so I know this is true. This isn't conservatism.
    Now, socialists in-power are not the same as socialists out of power, trying to get in, and much of the things they did to get power will suddenly stop, leaving many of the useful idiots high and dry that opened the doors for them. Watch for it. Were we mere spectators, we might find it amusing, a little justice being dispensed.
    At some point the Left's objective will be to get us to "thank them" for stopping doing to us what they had been doing to us.
    Think about that for a moment. It works. For a generation people nearly worshipped FDR for finally easing a pain he intentionally kept alive for six years. Between 1929 and 1935 Adolf Hitler filled Germany with swarms of thug Storm Troopers, gangs who stood on street corners and threatened and harangued citizens in every town and city. Suddenly, around 1935, Hitler purged them and took the Storm Troopers off the streets and even had some of the leaders taken out and shot.
   And the people loved him even more for it.

    If you think I came here to lure you over, and ask you to stand and announce for the Rebellion now, I do...but I didn't. There are risks involved many of you really can't afford to run. And quite frankly, we may need you elsewhere, doing other things.
    What I came here to do was to ask to think outside the box, and to plan, and to ask you to think in covert ways you probably never thought would ever be necessary in America. An old friend and mentor of mine, now passed, told me some years ago that in almost all the world, except America, including most of Europe, for a man to carry on private business, genuinely free business, he has to treat it as a covert operation. I've been around enough to know this is generally true. Sadly, this will be true even here in the not too distant future.
    So now it may be time to begin coming up with some personal Plan's B and C, for even if the good guys win in 2010, they still must win again in 2012, for the White House has become its own power center, apart from Congress. Remember, the czars have extraordinary rule-making power.
    As for the Rebels out there, they may have the power to win elections, but they don't yet have the power or means to do what comes next. And without leadership, they are still a mob. Without the tools to understand the nature of the enemy they've come up against, especially after the elections, they all have bulls-eyes on their backs, as they have been very public about their opposition, much like the hippies in the 1960s that Hoover liked to photograph.
   On your plate you found a small handout about what I call the "Ring of Fire" American citizens must confront in beating back this enemy.
    I am here to ask that you join with your neighbors and colleagues to begin providing tools for the citizens out there on the front lines. I am not asking you to declare, for as I said, I know many of you cannot.
    Let me give you a little story. Last year, I met with a small business group, four men, in a small midwestern city. This was just after the election, and they were alarmed by some of the undercurrents in their area, and concerned about the stiffness of their congressman's backbone. Two were corporate officers, both unable to take any public political position. Also, in light of what they wanted to do then...I expect that has changed by now...they didn't want to wake up one morning to find a rent-a-mob with placards protesting in their front yards. They simply wanted to create a "cell" (my term, not theirs) who would serve as watchdogs over local congressional affairs and serve as intelligence-gathering source for what they considered to be anti-American activities there...mainly from a small college. I gave them a little briefing about the history of grass roots left wing political activities...which I now offer on the internet for free...you know, how they're set up, how they get and give marching orders, how they are funded...who goes out and actually hires those goons who show up in your front yard...phone calls have to made, checks have to be cut...and we had a long talk about the chilling effect of what happens to many of these people when you fight back...and they don't know who "you" are, or where you are located, or how you are funded, how many people, etc. In short, I gave them a list of missions that would enable the to become flies in the Left's buttermilk.
    Of course, these were mostly tactics for playing defense. There comes a time when they will want to start playing offense. We discussed using local media, and going after icons of the Left in places conservatives haven't been seen in years, even FM radio. It will surprise you, but when gotten to young enough, the Constitution, George Washington, morality, good manners, you name it, can be affixed in a young person's mind...as cool....without requiring a single lecture from parents. In short, gave them some ideas, which, with good people, they will build on to cover a virtual beehive of activities...all an arm and half's length away from the four men sitting there at the conference table with me.
    And no, I'm not that smart. I simple used the Left's playbook and turned it around, on the simple thesis that when Good and Evil confront one another on level ground, it will always be Evil who blinks. As my dad used to say, "it may require a two-by-four across the nose first, to get their attention", but Evil always tucks and runs. Just don't bring knives to a gun fight. Know your enemy.
    This is the one disability that George Soros, and all his partners in this crime have, and that is we don't have to match him dollar for dollar. But we do have to come up with some money. The operation in the midwest has been going for around nine months now. It was set up for two people at an expected annual cost of $125K-$150K per year. I think they were organized under a non-profit set-up. For a congressional district of 700,000 and an urban area of around 100,000, that doesn't seem like much. I expect they will grow...but through their own networks, I believe they will also have the money to grow.
    I know they are involved in the Tea Parties, and have a couple of web sites, and I know they are involved in gathering intel on local Leftwing groups and are engaged in "Agitprop" (an old Communist term) projects, whihc is nothig more than putting dead flies in people's buttermilk, none of which should ever bear their fingerprints.
    It is about this aspect of fighting back I am speaking to you tonight. I only bring this up, for there is much that will need to be done after the 2010 elections, win or lose. The rebels out there are running basically a political campaign, but without a party banner, or a candidate. Only a platform, sometimes of only one issue. The real war will continue, whether they win or not. There will still be politically correct school teachers, or vice principals stomping on some kid's right to pray, or just voice opposition to Al Qaida. There will still be outrages.
    But if they lose, and are squashed like bugs...and you have to hold that out as a possibility...as one of my partner's on the West Coast says, he smells a "quickening"..these little agitprop groups may be all the community and the people will have. It may come to that.
    So, if prudence tells you to stand on the side and wait, I'm telling you here are some things you can do.