Imagine a horrendously overloaded locomotive slowly climbing a steep mountain grade. The engine has been called upon to perform a task that it was never designed to accomplish; and as a result, it is overheating and manifesting symptoms that augur an imminent breakdown or failure. The passengers inside who sip coffee while reading their books and chatting amongst themselves are not privy to what the Engineer knows: that behind the passengers are twenty cars filled to the rafters with cement. Furthermore, upon reaching the apex of this brutal grade, the "dead weight" being hauled will create an inexorable inertia that will send the locomotive and its occupants down to their most certain doom. The haughty Engineer and his Conductor who have abused it so are in an untenable position where they will not stop their advance and are instead content to whistle a half-hearted tune and order a last round of drinks for the unwitting passengers as they approach the inevitable. Indeed, in his arrogant madness, the Engineer and his men have set their jaws and will stay the course; all the while maintaining that glib smile of faux-authority and competence: hoping against all earthly reason that somehow magically, they can deliver the goods.

Such parables are instructive only if they are rooted in truth and experience, and this one is no exception. The passengers in the cars -- you and I -- while not as fully informed of the circumstances as we would like to be, are nevertheless able to inductively piece two and two together to diagnose what is occurring economically. Despite the virtual lockdown in the Main Stream Media on truth, the average sober citizen who travels to his office or to the market for a can of coffee knows instinctively that something bad is brewing for America.

These same citizens know from the cost of beans and everything else in their shopping carts that prices have skyrocketed upwards, even if the concept of hyperinflation and its causal tie to the government's printing of currency through political fiat is an intellectually opaque concept. They see taxes, special fees, and the quantity of government jobs growing inexorably; yet they do not see a reduction in our collective debt or a qualitative increase in goods and services as a result of that added revenue. They can sense that Leviathan is waxing more robust and brazen in its movements and impinging upon their freedom of action; but they do not necessarily believe this anymore to be such a salutary thing. Even the most dense and credulous in regards to the ideological beneficence of state intervention in their lives are now calling those articles of faith into question; even as constitutional restraints are unabashedly being reviled by politicos who have become accustomed to the free rein of unmixed power over their "little people."

Indeed, despite the State-Approved Media parroting State-manipulated statistics, these average people have grown quite cognizant of the businesses in their communities going dark. I am not referring to fly-by-night affairs, but shops and chains that have existed since beyond memory boarding shut their doors forever. We see our friends and neighbors being pink-slipped from jobs they have held nearly all of their adult lives or having their hours cut back as the first turn of an irresistible death spiral. Moreover, the stigma of purchasing our goods at flea-markets or at the Dollar Tree has disappeared as the necessity of survival has hit home. Generic brands are now a mainstay as we can no longer afford the items the television would have us purchase. Standing at the check-out, we spy from the corner of our eye the familiar debit card being used by needy families for their sustenance. The unemployment rate, we are told, has sunk below 8% for a long succession of months; but our gut tells us that the truth is otherwise. In our heart of hearts, we know that rate to be much, much higher and we can smell in the air that the great machine is sputtering and winding down as 90 million people are no longer even looking for employment.

But despite the stench of putrefaction in our lungs that comes from a colossal body in its terminal arc, the Great Media Harlot, our gold-plated looking glass to the world, sees, hears and speaks no evil of those she calls her own. Having in her youth been renowned for her virtue, her fading modesty drew attention as she was found consorting in the company of riff-raff in indecent circumstances and at odd hours. But now that the bloom is off the rose, her wantonness for her favorites is for all to see as she cocks her heels behind her ears to her own shame without bothering any longer to pull the drapes. While still of a mind to scream at the top of her lungs at every misstep committed by her ideological rivals, her utility now lies in her affectation of silence as hard and ancient structures lie crumbling about her feet. Any duty she once felt to justice has been supplanted by reckless love: not the love that comes from contemplating the beautiful and the just, but the helpless debased sort that older women feel: having thrown their evaporating charms at young rogues leading ultimately to no happy end.

Despite what we can discern happening about us vibrating in the marrow of our bones, those on the receiving end of our Great Knave's material largesse have taken up the Media Harlot's carefully groomed mantra: a subtle variation of Emile Coue's psychological auto-suggestion that: "Everyday and in every way, things are getting better and better." Having imbibed these imbecilic political "Laws of Attraction," the faithful have learned that every negative thought can be checked and countered by a smiling and trim happy-go-lucky young face on the tube selling us on the lie that the American Dream is alive and well under Obama. Furthermore, as long as we think and vote in fidelity to "The One," grandmother will never have to resort to eating food reserved for Fifi's dish. Treacherous wraiths have calculated that as long as the checks keep rolling in and the clodhoppers' gaze can be redirected to the government's noble advocacy for the helpless children, the remaining scraps of our American liberties can be bartered away under the aegis that a hip black President identifies and cares for the little guy -- despite an asteroid-sized quantity of evidence amassing to the contrary.

The Engineer of this great locomotive indeed seems to believe that his historical mandate of America's transformation will be the grand legacy liberalism will bequeath to the earth. In hoarding powers and prerogatives to himself that no president has ever wielded so capriciously without regard to sacred Constitutional limits, Obama is taking us down the garden path to a place of his own choosing: a utopia that more closely resembles Golgotha. When the massive wheels come off this train -- and they will do so most certainly -- he will cast the onus on those American people who fought him "tooth and claw" and on the previous engineer, because that is just the sort of shallow creature he is.

From the security of their well-heeled digs, the Engineer and the Harlot will share amongst themselves a bottle of the finest. And high above the smoking ruins of America, they will gaze lovingly in each other's eyes while clinking their glasses as they toast: "Everyday and in every way......

Glenn Fairman writes from Highland, Ca. He blogs as The Eloquent Professor at http://www.palookavillepost.com/and can be reached at arete5000@dslextreme.com.