In the 1700s, British political writer Edmund Burke wrote, 

“Having looked to government for bread, on the first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.”

This metaphor about horses sometimes biting you when you feed them refers to people acting against systems that support them. It was an extension of the social contract theory, a political theory that the people should only support their government if they support the population’s natural rights. In 1770, the British government protected the American people from invasion. That same year they opened fire on a crowd of protesters in Boston. In 1802, France reformed their government, strengthening it and garnering a new era of French prosperity. That same year slavery was reintroduced. In 1943, the United Kingdom played an essential role in defeating Nazi Germany. That same year their famine claimed over 3 million Indian lives. 

The point is that the institutions you stand on are imperfect, and they always will be. However, as citizens, we must do all we can to create a more perfect union. Those are just three examples of malevolence in systems with otherwise benevolent actions. Those governments did it, and your government is doing it right now.

On July 16, 1945, the Trinity Bomb was tested in a remote desert in New Mexico. It was mankind’s first Nuclear weapon and its sister bombs would be dropped on Japan later that summer. After the division of Europe in the wake of Hitler’s defeat, it seemed as if a war between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitable, primer Joseph Stalin said it himself. However, that never happened, as the threat of nuclear exchange acted as a gun to the temples of both nation’s heads. A nuclear war is an unwinnable war, such carnage would be suicide, but the battle for influence never stopped, it simply took a new form. The days of stylish uniforms and unabashed tyranny had ended and begun a much more dangerous world order of intelligence and secrecy. With the founding of the CIA and KGB, it was official. It’s been a long time since then, but if you want any more history, only one of those agencies exist in 2024. 

We live in the aftershock of the Cold War. The American Government had made many violations of our sacred truths to fight against communism. From the unjust suppression of the American Communist Party, American meddling in foreign affairs, and most notably the Iran-Contra Affair

Many of the institutions founded for our protection and prosperity have perverted into some of the many parts of the American Imperialist Machine. The America we’ve been told to look up to has been reduced to a shell of its former self, to so much less than its potential. We’ve watched the grueling transition from Democracy to Oligarchy in pure silence. We’re a lost nation that’s lost the soul of who we are and what we stand for. 

I see no other true culprit for our decline besides our overgrown industry. The rich and our powerful corporations are responsible for the perversion of our institutions. Take Pharma for example, who were once regulated by the FDA, which stopped them from making fake and unsafe medicine. In 2024, over ¾ of the FDA’s budget is funded by biopharma. Between 2009 and 2019, 9/10 of the FDA’s commissioners went on to work for a big Pharma company. 

Or take investors buying up single-family homes, only to resell them at unaffordable standards. It’s one of the most basic rules of economics, cornering the market and raising prices. Our Industry is responsible for the deaths of innocent Americans. 

Do you have any fallen Iraq veterans in your family? They died in battle only for the whole war to be a sham. We didn’t find any nukes, but we did find a lot of Iraqi oil. 

Any smoking deaths in your family? Here are 7 major tobacco CEOs testifying as late as 1994 that nicotine was not addictive. 

Do you have Asthma? It didn’t have to be that way. Maybe you have some intellectual disability in the family. It didn’t have to be that way either. 

Here’s a 324-page study on the effects of fluoride, a waste product lobbied by metal manufacturers into our water, on children and how it is directly linked to intellectual disability and lowers your IQ. The effects of corporate tyranny are all around you and you don’t even see them because it’s what always has been normal to you. 

If you’re an Abington student, the Chromebook you’re reading this on was likely paid for directly by one of America’s deregulation gurus, Stephen A. Schwarzman. The CEO of the Blackstone investment group, Schwarzman was essential in Trump’s 2016 forum of major CEOs. Your education is in part funded by the same people we have to fight against.

Use the tools you have to help fight for change in our society. The hand that is feeding you also did the evils stated above. The American people’s enemies aren’t in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, or Pyongyang. They are in Washington DC. A better world is formed when people can be free from corrupt institutions. As citizens, we must make the world around us better; we must remain educated and vigilant, and fight for our freedom.