Those of you familiar with this column are no stranger to what I believe is the sometimes criminal misuse and abuse of the Constitution and its rights by Congress and the President (the Ruling Elite) in administrations than span decades.

The preparations for flu season are here. Some local schools, with parental sign-offs, are set to begin administering FluMist. The first shipments of vaccine for the “novel H1N1 flu” are coming in for higher risk people, with more on the way for much of the remainder of the population.

Those of us who cover elected officials for a living sometimes see things that others miss. It’s not because we’re smart. It’s simply due to the exhaustive number of meetings we cover. Numbering in the hundreds, we see the dynamics, the relationships and the various ways the public is treated.

Governments erode as they exert control that sooner or later diminishes human rights.

I think that, unless it is altered, our future will see past governmental/societal models morph into something relatively new and better suited for today’s more technologically-proficient systems of mass control.

“Where is America headed?” and “Who is in control our destiny?” As before in our history, these questions are being asked by some today. Everybody’s got an opinion. Here’s mine in abbreviated form.

I well remember the many street corners in Phoenix and Tucson in the 1980s and 1990s, where thousands of homeless people and others from the Boston-to-Chicago megalopolis were given one-way tickets as part of the social agenda of “Greyhound therapy.”

I’ve been thinking about my comments in this column back in April when I argued for supporting the tea party initiatives across America.

If the mindset of many Americans so prevalent today had been present in 1776 there would have been no American Revolution.

“Just victims of the in-house drive-by. They say jump, you say how high?” Aside from some of their seemingly anarchist lyrics, of which I don’t approve, that line from “Rage Against the Machine” is as close as any I can find to fit the current day and generations-long condition of the American experience existing between “We the people” and the Congressional/Administrative branches and the “financial element” whose will politicians dutifully obey (c.f., Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, Jackson, Garfield and Wilson).

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”

This sickening, but often correct, piece of political wisdom is attributed to Adolph Hitler. But, of course, such words would never have been uttered by the leaders of the American society during its 200-plus-year history. Our revered leaders in whom “We the people” put so much trust could never, would never, regardless their party affiliation, think such things. Or did they?

Putting 20,000 troops on American soil for purposes of domestic (emergency) response would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable prior to 9/11. Those were the words of homeland defense assistant defense secretary Paul McHale in November.

If you have a weak stomach or get offended easily, please don’t read any further.

A premature baby lies alone on a table in a hospital utility room, dying. His heart is beating, his lungs are supplying the air he needs to breathe. Autonomic and central nervous systems are functioning. His arms and legs are moving in the air that is so different from the warm, liquid world of amniotic fluid that has until moments ago defined his world for the past 23 weeks.

Russia. Georgia. A lot has been made on both sides about the reasons why Russia made its move past the South Ossetia breakaway region and continued its march to Gori in the central part of the country and to Poti on the Black Sea coast. The reasons appear to be several, though at least one of those has received virtually no media coverage.

A group of public health and emergency services officials in Fayette and Coweta counties met last week, along with their counterparts in the other counties in Georgia Public Health District 4, to discuss a response to a potential pandemic of avian flu. While not generally on the public radar, the planning by those responsible for addressing such a crisis head-on cannot be underestimated. Here’s why.

You have all heard of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. How many have heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)?

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Director Ronald Herberman set off a flurry of excitement last week when he released a memo to the center’s 3,000 employees advising caution over cell phone use.

Oil over $140 a barrel, with OPEC announcing that it could go to $200 within a couple of years (did they mean months?).

Fayette County Department of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS) Director Mary Davis met her political match last week when she was “reassigned” out of Fayette and into another area of the agency.

This column is a continuation from the one I began last week. It’s meant to address the belief that this nation is in a condition of economic slavery and why apathy is not the answer to that condition.

Local politics is relevant and important. But, sooner rather than later, national and international issues quickly find their way to your front door.

I don’t normally continue a column from one week to the next. But last week’s column on government accountability and transparency and the need to televise or otherwise have a video recording of public meetings with playback capability deserves a bit more elaboration.

I make a it habit to sit on the front row at every public meeting I attend if a seat is available. The reason for this is simple, at least for me.

We have a problem. The problem is local, national and global. Here in America, as elsewhere, we are being held hostage to forces out of our control, forces committed to having us reduced to economic slavery over the control of energy that sits outside the reach of our current thinking.

The results of legal questions on two separate issues directly affecting the physical health of countless Americans were reported late last week.

Peachtree City is truly a fine city. It is one that continues to be heralded as one of the most desirable in the United States in which to live and raise a family.

It is with great difficulty that I must let the readers of the South Fulton Citizen know that this edition will be the last one our company produces.

‘Tis the season. It seems it’s the best of times and the worst of time every couple of years leading up to the time when residents are called on to go to the polls and cast their votes in local elections. Residents casting their votes ensures the continuation of the representative democracy that forms the method of governance adopted by this nation more than 200 years ago. Unfortunately, the majority of citizens rarely ever bother casting a vote. For their part, and being largely forthright and honest, most candidates vying for votes usually get their names, faces and messages to voters through a variety of conventional methods.

There is a type of research beginning to emerge that may, in years to come, trigger a real debate in science and, hopefully, a re-writing of state and federal environmental regulations on a scale that would make what happened with the decades-long research into tobacco look like child’s play.

I was elated a few weeks ago to see that a few of our south Fulton readers made the time to post blogs on our website, both pro and con, in response to a column I wrote advocating the formation of the City of South Fulton. Participation from south Fulton residents by blogging on our website is something I hope will continue and grow in the future. With the website getting about two million hits per month, it is a great way to have your say in a manner that tens of thousands of viewers will see and, perhaps, provide their own response. And whether we all agree or disagree on a given topic, it’s as critical as ever that people make their voice heard. Given the topic of city-hood, it was not overly surprising that the column attracted a few bloggers. And blogger responses to the “Form the City of South Fulton” opinion column weighed in on both sides of the issue.

Residents of the only remaining area of unincorporated Fulton County will decide Sept. 18 whether to become the city of South Fulton or remain unincorporated. Either way, the vote will have an unprecedented bearing on their future, their families, their neighborhoods and communities. Like voters in Chattahoochee Hill Country who in June overwhelmingly approved their new city, voters in the new City of South Fulton area will hopefully do the same.