About

Captive American Masthead

Lee Brandenburg

I can almost hear some of you out there already. “Who is this guy anyway? Who died and anointed him our nation’s savior?” Well, I don’t pretend to know everything or have every answer. But Edward Abbey once said, “A patriot must always be prepared to protect his country from his government” and I take those words very seriously. This country gave me everything. And now she’s in trouble, deep trouble. Our government is squandering our history, heritage and ideals, not to mention the riches and freedoms we all take for granted. I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I did nothing and simply let that happen.

“A patriot must always be prepared to protect his country from his government.” – Edward Abbey

Mine is a typical American story. After serving two stints in the military, I worked my tail off and built my own real estate development business from scratch. Over the years, I helped build some of what would become Silicon Valley, not to mention ventures in many states and even a few foreign countries – large residential communities, shopping centers, golf courses, even a cemetery. In the process, I befriended a lot of successful people, including some politicians.

Did I get help from my country on my way up? Yes, lots of it. I got 16 years of almost free education and three more years of irreplaceable paid education as a soldier for Uncle Sam. Most importantly, I enjoyed, and still enjoy, the unrestrained freedom to do what I want, go where I want and say what I want, when I want. I was so thankful for this freedom and the success it allowed me to earn that I never took out a GI or FHA loan, even though I was eligible. And when they started sending me Social Security checks a long time ago, I sent them back until Washington finally got the hint and stopped mailing them out to me.

Why I’m Writing

Twenty years ago, I got so fed up with the way our county was being governed, I wrote a book called The Captive American which dealt with the phenomenon of career politicians and other malignancies in our political process. It led, in part, to many of our current term limit laws. But while things were bad then, they’ve grown far worse in recent years. That’s why I sat down and wrote this new book. I hate to sound like one of those codgers yearning for the days of old, but I’m genuinely frightened by the direction our country continues to pursue.

I’ll be the first to admit I was a mediocre student at best in school. But I know how business works and, more importantly, I think I know how life works. And I know enough about history that when I pick up a newspaper, I see instantly how the past is repeating itself in article after article. I was born in the Great Depression and remember FDR well. I lived through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and the oil crisis of the 1970’s. You name it, if it happened to this country in the last three quarters of a century; I watched it closely and with great interest. And let me tell you something, all of those great events and great tragedies will pale in comparison to the troubles ahead of us if we don’t change course now. And quick.

Maybe what disturbs me the most is the complacency and ignorance I see all around me – not just in my peers but in talking with young people too. They take so much for granted and they seem allergic to questioning authority. When I bring up our country’s problems, they shrug and say, “That’s just the way it is.” I want to shake them when I hear that. I want to throw cold water in their faces and scream, “It might be the way it is, but it doesn’t have to be!”

I want this book to shake up the people who read it. I want it to throw cold water on America’s pervasive apathy. Most importantly, I want it to remind people that this is our country. We own it. And we can reclaim our power if we work together.

Party Crashing

You may not agree with everything I say. You may not even agree with any of it. But I hope you see that I’m speaking from the heart and with an independent spirit. I’m not trying to sell an ideology. This is not a partisan book. It’s all over the place just like me. I tend to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But that doesn’t mean I’m locked into one mindset or another. For instance, I’ve always admired Barry Goldwater. Before he passed away, I spent many an hour with the former senator. But that doesn’t make me rightwing. (Besides, Goldwater politics would probably be labeled moderate or even leftwing by today’s conservatives.) On the other hand, Winston Churchill said we get more conservative as we get older, but that hasn’t been the case in my life. I’ve been on this earth seventy-eight years and I find I’m a revolutionary in my old age. But that doesn’t mean I’m some gray-haired Che Guevara follower now. Far from it.

Bottom line, I may weave back and forth between the right and the left, but I always strive to keep the good of the country foremost in my mind. And I want no part of either party. Most Democrats and most Republicans only care about one thing: maintaining the status quo. If I had my way, we would abolish the Donkey and the Elephant (they’re nothing but dinosaurs anyway) and establish two new parties in this country: the Close Minded Party and the Open Minded Party.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
– Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Members of the Open Minded Party would most likely be center-right conservatives and center-left liberals, but they could come from all political persuasions. The only thing that would qualify them for membership would be a willingness to make up their minds based on facts and information, not partisan loyalty, prejudices, or preconceived notions. Former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” The Open Minded Party would make Moynihan’s quote the central plank in its platform.

The Close Minded Party, on the other hand, would be full of ideologues, arch conservatives, far left liberals and other political flamethrowers– the people who make up their minds on what they want the world to be instead of what it is. Closed Minders ignore or repress any information that challenges their rigid ideas. They only accept information that buttresses their butt-headed preconceptions. That way they can defend what they always believed without fear of inconsistency. Oscar Wilde said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of a weak mind.” Well, these days a whole lot of close-minded hobgoblins have got us by the short hairs.

Our Hijacked Government

Before I go any farther, let me make one thing clear: I am an absolute believer in capitalism. When I say I’ve become a revolutionary in my old age, I don’t mean I’m hoping for some Leninist uprising. I’m talking about a revolution to restore the vision for America that our founding fathers had – as a place where ordinary people like me could work hard every day and make the most of their opportunities. I grew up with modest means. But I paid more in taxes last year than some folks will earn in a lifetime. That’s no brag, it’s just a fact. And there’s no doubt about it, I owe my success to American capitalism and the capitalist model. Yet something’s happened in this country since I first went into business. This is not the same America that allowed me to prosper.

When I was a Young Republican at UCLA, I used to debate members of the American Communist Party in Pershing Square in downtown LA. They tried to argue that the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise,” but I knew that was a fantasy. The USSR was nothing but a repressive dictatorship, with communist party bosses hoarding all the goodies while the “workers” beneath them barely got enough to get by. Back in those days I would have never dreamed that we’d wind up in a similar situation here in America. But that nightmare has come true.

We’re facing an almost Soviet-style manipulation of power in Washington now. Only instead of a communist elite stuffing their faces and scratching each others’ backs while their comrades starve, we’ve got professional politicians doling out public resources to their corporate sponsors and rigging our democratic system to hold onto power for life.