Message in a Bottle

The message below was found in a bottle on a New Zealand beach by a Chinese American tourist named Walter Yee.

An open letter to the people of the world

Help.

America has been hijacked. We are prisoners in our own land.

We ask that our allies come to our aide as we have for them in the past so many times.

It is beyond our capacity to make the necessary changes.

My country’s founders in all their wisdom never saw the possibility of this perfect storm hitting our beloved democracy. America has become a theocracy. Millionaire religious fanatics and corporate robber barons control our government. Our once-sacrosanct ability to set our own political destinies at the ballot box no longer exists. Votes and voters are tampered with at every level of our elections. Protests are monitored and restricted. The “news” is government propaganda in the guise of information. Politicians are bought and sold by special interests like cattle at auction. There are no more checks and balances in the American political system to keep extremists from taking over, and they have. Instead of protecting our liberties, they seek to pry into our private sexual, intellectual, and political lives through government surveillance and loyalty tests. They want to tear down our libraries and colleges and universities and replace them with glass cathedrals and monuments extolling the supernatural.

Help us.

Send troops. College professors. Poets and artists. Coffee house intellectuals. French wine.

It might be too late for us. Do it for the children.