Liberty Memorial

So I was reading Ron Paul's farewell address to Congress while I had the shutter open on these shots. It seemed somehow appropriate, the setting, the context. Not for the reasons you'd probably think.

Paul's basic thesis is that we cannot afford four more years of the last 100 years. I think he's right on the whole, I see lots of signs that both in public and private spheres, we're spending/consuming wealth far faster than new wealth is being created.

And beyond sustainability, it leads to our being decreasingly free. Giant corporations increasingly spend their money buying elected officials who will protect them from the marketplace (and from regulators) instead of investing it in research and development.

And the Liberty Memorial, being a tribute to the troops of World War I, is symbolic of one of the events that marked the shift where America started to turn its back on freedom, even as we claimed to be championing it. And directly behind me as I set up my tripod was the Kansas City offices of the Federal Reserve, one of the chief agencies of our drift into fascism.