Founding Fathers vs Funding Fathers

The one thing that the founding fathers and funding fathers have in common is that we owe them a lot.

We know most but not all of the founding fathers by name—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton—a veritable who’s who of who’s in our pockets.

We know some but certainly not all of the funding fathers but we do know the names of our political leaders—everyone of them most certainly with their hands in the funding father’s pockets.

The founding fathers are remembered both for what they did and for what they said because back then what you said and what you did was mostly the same thing.

“I regret I have but one life to give for my country,” spoke Nathan Hale as the British put the noose around his neck.

“Give me liberty or give me death,” shouted an angry Patrick Henry to the members of the Second Revolutionary Convention of Virginia.

Back then, when words were words and speeches were speeches and all words and speeches carried consequences, these men set the standard. They had something to say and they were damn well going to say it.

Back then words came in just two forms—spoken and written. There was Benjamin Franklin’s Little Richard’s Almanac of common sense and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense of revolutionary fervor.

The tradition of great men saying great things continued throughout the next two centuries with words from the likes of Davy Crocket, who upon losing his seat in Congress said “You can go to Hell. I’m going to Texas.” And then, true to this word, he went to Texas. Abraham Lincoln’s 270-word masterpiece spoken on the grounds of Gettysburg is the standard by which all other addresses are measured.

The age of excellence continued as Franklin Roosevelt cautioned a nation that, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” and John F Kennedy extolled the people to, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country.”

This was a great age to be a word because words were important and an even better time for a word to be in a speech because speeches were memorable. But then something happened—why and when words began their nosedive from grandeur to gimmicky, uplifting to disparaging is hard to say but it’s worth venturing a guess because after this point, the word would never be the same.

In the fall of 1963, a rock-n-roll group called The Trashmen, who were going nowhere decided that words could be something more than inspiring, more than meaningful, and certainly more than enlightening. If used improperly and nonsensically words could get you to the top—or at least number 4 on the hit parade. And so they gave us the following:

Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a don’t you know about the bird?
Well everybody knows that the bird is the word!
A-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, etc.


Did the changes take place overnight? Probably not but the word was out that humdrum speech was in.

Oh for sure there were still great things to be said. Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” was motivational and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a dream” speech, inspirational.

“You gotta believe” by Tug McGraw from the sports world tugged at everyone’s heartstring.

But political figures slowly began moving away from stunning speech and began nestling up to stupid slogans, 30-second snippets and shit-on-a-stick summaries to describe public policy.

Thus we have been stuck now for over 30 years with “Trickle-down-theory,” the distorted, deceitful, and misleading political jargon used to describe how 99% of Americans should expect their fair share of the American dream to arrive on their doorsteps.

The problem is not the statements, although there is much fault to be found with them, but rather the fact that once they are spoken they never go away. Misinformation and stupidity have a life of their own in our current political environment and one thing and one thing alone sustains this life—the deep pockets of the funding fathers, who can be individuals like George Soros or the Koch brothers or just a guy named Inc.

It is the money of the funding fathers that bring to life and sustain such notions that religion has no place in government, government has no place in our bedrooms, government has no place in religion but under certain circumstances, religion acting through government can have a place in our bedrooms.

They will spend their last dime to tell us making money is good, keeping money is better, sharing money is bad and spending money to tell us how we should vote is the greatest act of democracy the world has ever seen.

In today’s “Everybody knows that the bird is the word!” world, words come in three sizes—spoken, written, and money.

The supreme court of the land has affirmed that money are words, spending money is speech, and that spending more money for fewer words (preferably 30 seconds of words or less, accompanied by pictures equal to a thousand words or more) makes for a better speech. These funding fathers, while silent themselves, will never draw the distinction between dirty words bought with dirty money and memorable words that don’t need money to find a voice. The rest of us are going to have to figure out a way to get the word to them.