by

It is a problem I had mulled over for a few months. I decided it had to be done. Lilly has just turned fifteen. Could she shoulder the burden?

I have to find out, my way, before she finds out on her own. She is noticing her brother and I spend more and more time together and she is starting to ask questions. I sense she is a bit jealous. Her mother would probably not approve but they live with me now. Their mom has been conscripted to work up north in what use to be Washington State, where there is a shortage of people in her field. There is no safe way to discuss this with her, so I have to do what I think is best for us all.

Braxton, Lilly’s brother and my grandson, had an interest in politics since he was ten years old. Even as a child, he understood more than you would think a ten or twelve year old could. He saw the direction we were headed as a country, and as he grew, so did his understanding and instincts. At the tender age of fourteen, he saw things turn for the worst and has been my right hand and confidant for the past ten years.

Yes, it has been ten years since Obama was elected to his second term. He is now in his fourth term. They took a page out of Hugo Chavez’s book on that one. How did we get here? How did we lose America, home of the free and the brave? Many things came together at the wrong time, much like a “perfect storm.” In part, we had a large portion of an electorate that was lazy and asleep. They preferred to watch a mind numbing TV show, rather than read a book and learn something, or get involved in something important – important like poll watching, to prevent the massive amounts of cheating that went on during the elections. History text books were gradually rewritten, to suit the narrative of the progressive agenda. Unions controlled the teachers, government workers, manufacturing, service industries, and the media, including the entertainment industry. TV was a huge influence on our culture and they came to control it. The unions funneled their money into an ultra liberal Democratic Party. When I say Democrat, I really mean Marxist. This was not my grandfather’s Democratic Party. They managed to crash our once vibrant economy, create great poverty, and get many people on government subsidies, thereby creating votes for their party.

Years ago, cunning men of great power set up non-profit foundations disguised as charitable organizations with credibility, to push the liberal agenda, and create bogus, biased studies, published and touted by the media as truth. The media! It was supposed to be the watchdog. It was intended to be a “free press” to protect the people.

Those are a few of the things that happened. There is much more, but I do not see that it adds to this story. I blame the media the most. They outright lied and hid truth. In short, they became the enemy of freedom and the people. They are the reason I do what I do today.

Lilly was only five when Obama was reelected, so she does not have the background experiences and knowledge her brother does, plus she has gone to the state schools all of this time. She knows I do not agree with the regime, but I have kept her in the dark about our activities, until now. She is surrounded by patriots at home, but we are very careful what is said, to whom. The government has recruited children to rat on their families now. It is rewarded. It is sick. Those caught speaking against the government are taken for reeducation. If they come back, they are very different. We suspect they have undergone something akin to hypnosis and brainwashing techniques.

“Lilly come for a walk with me”

“Where are we going Grandma?”

“Mostly just to talk, but I want to show you something too. It is a beautiful fall day, let’s go enjoy it”

We walk in silence for twenty minutes. The woods are still, the path desolate. The silence is comfortable and I am at peace with my decision.

“What do you want to show me Grandma?”

“Well first I want to tell you a story, a history lesson of sorts. I have told you some of it before but the things I will tell you and show you today, you have to promise to never divulge to anyone. You know people that have disappeared when they did not agree with the government plan. You have friends that have lost family members and have not returned or have returned very different. Do you promise?”

“Is it bad? Are you doing something wrong, grandma?”

“No child, what I am doing is something very right, and I need your help. But I will say that what I am doing would be frowned upon by officials. I have to tell you, if you agree to help me, you would get in trouble too if they knew. Before I say more, you have to promise.”

“Oh grandma, now you have me very curious but scared too! I want to know but I do not want to get into trouble”

“Dear, the key to that is to be able to keep a secret. Can you keep a secret? It is that simple”

“Yes I can. I am good at it. Okay, I promise”

“When you were little, life was very different and we lived in a very different country. You might remember a bit of it. We lived in a republic with a mainly, two party system of politics. There were other parties but they were minor. Mostly, there was the liberal party, the democrats, and the conservative party, the republicans. I am a conservative, a Republican. You have been taught some very wrong things about conservatives, but we can discuss that later. The basic, real difference is liberals think government is the answer to everything and want to keep growing it bigger and bigger. Conservatives want limited, small government. I guess you can see, the liberals won.”

“There were fifty states and much of government was initiated at the state level, closer to where the people lived. They had more direct control. We live in an area that was once known as Texas. It was a great state with many resources. We almost became our own country when President Obama got elected for a second term, but many were afraid of blood being spilled.”

“We had the Internet. It was not the same internet we have now. It was glorious! The flow of information! Now we have what the authorities think we should have. The Internet now is more like a censored encyclopedia and a tool of government. Back in the day, anyone could express their opinion on most anything. Now you have to have a license to post anything on the Internet. People sold things on the Internet. They even sold guns on the Internet! Now you cannot even buy one in a store. Yes things are very different.”

“Anyone could start a business, even you. If you had an idea and wanted to start a business, you went and got a business license for a small fee and you were in business. Now you have to be in good favor with the right people to start a business. Everyone else has to work where they are assigned. We are lucky to still have our home here, on the outskirts of town. They are moving more and more people into the inner city into ‘sustainable communities.’ They do not care about us as much because I am old and cannot contribute as much as others, or so they think. We will let them.”

“Grandma, what happened? Why did things change so much?”

“Well the main reason, in my opinion, we had a corrupt media. We were supposed to have a “free press”, meaning that the government could not dictate what they covered or revealed. Mr. Obama and the people who work for him, told many lies and did some evil things. The media did not tell the people about the lies and misdeeds. We had the internet and tools like Twitter and Facebook that were uncensored. Information transferred to millions of people in real time. It was like the internet was alive! We almost won despite the media. I think we really did win, but they cheated. They committed election fraud everywhere. It was rampant.”

“There there were many other ways that things were changed, all by to a strategy that played out for decades right in front of our noses. It all became clear, but too late. Today though, what I am going to show you, this is what matters now.”

I look around to see if anyone one is near. We are alone. I tell Lilly: “Take that small path cut through the trees there. It is going to get more overgrown so don’t switch me in the face with a branch. Keep an eye out for snakes; it is not too cold for them yet.”

The path is much more rugged and hard to navigate. We walk in silence again for a time. I ask Lilly if she has any questions. She says some of what I told her she has figured out herself. Then she confesses that she found my small library. I keep it in a trunk in the back of my closet. It is mostly history about the Constitution, the founding fathers, and the corruption that occurred. She informs me she has been sneaking books to read for several years. That stinker! She can keep a secret! Smart girl!

I tell her to follow the tree line around a clearing so we are not so exposed. Then down another path even more overgrown than the last. Finally we come to a ramshackle cabin. If I did not know it from the inside, I would think it unsafe to enter.

Lilly looks at me and asks “Is this it? What you are going to show me? It looks spooky.”

I move a screen door hanging by one hinge. Then I go through a large heavy door and motion for her to follow. In the middle of the windowless room, with light only from the open door and a lantern, stands Braxton, sweat running down his face. “Hi sister,” he says with a big grin. He is loading a ream of paper into a small, hand cranked printing press. He has already run some of the papers.

The headline reads: The Nation Has a Voice – Freedom is Rising – Truth is Alive.