Happy Independence Day

July 4th, 2008

… which, this year, will also go down in history as the day we learned that Bozo the Clown died. Somehow, that feels appropriate.

It’s a low key affair, this 4th — it reflects the mood of the country. This eight year ‘incident’ we’ve had with the rabid Right has left us in a kind of post-coital depression, pensively pulling on a cigarette and considering how we want to express our despair — get a gun or find a therapist. The results of the rape kit are still pending; we know lasting trauma was done, we just don’t know how much … yet. And it doesn’t help that their little front man is still wandering around, shooting off his mouth and pretending he’s a lover, not a predator.

If you want to know what the Dubby’s up to, the odds on an Iran strike, the latest on Rove and more, Froomkin put together a good summation here:

Pumping Up the Anxiety
WaPo
Thursday, July 3, 2008

I prefer to think about the Declaration, today — about the original intent of the Founders, the patriots that put all on the line to birth a new government. Eric wrote about that today in the weekly, looking at the astrology behind our national vision. Astrology always defines potential, but the octave of expression we choose tells the tale … we’ve taken the low road lately; now, getting back to the high road is going to take all the wisdom we’ve got and a level of trust we haven’t fostered for a very long time. I wrote about it here: The Discomfort Zone.

Revolutions are messy business; required, but messy. We can get lost in them, if we’re not careful; and they can create a hard edge in us that becomes our only narrative. We’re in a Revolutionary phase right now, even if it doesn’t appear similar to that birthing process so long ago — what’s bubbling below the surface will be put to boil in the coming months as the economy shows its true face; so today, it’s worth pondering the actual event that we celebrate, rather than the hype. Finding a balance between the outrage with all that’s wrong and the possibility of restoring all that’s right is challenging internal work.

An excellent myth-breaker of a movie [which explains why it was under-appreciated, I expect] was Revolution, [1985] with Al Pacino. It surpasses Mel Gibson’s The Patriot in grit and grime, confusion and emotional conflict, class differences and questions of idealism — more realism than romance, in other words. It’s worth renting, to see how far we’ve come … and how far we haven’t.

This thing called ‘liberty’ is synonymous with America; and lately, the assault on our freedoms has been legion. But liberty is an idea … it’s what defines the American persona, even when its expression has become cracked and warped by political circumstance. If this country was turned into a gulag, the reverence for and expectation of liberty would not have leeched out into the soil, gone forever — it’s what we’re made of. Self-determination in encoded in our DNA. In the long run, nothing so small as a George Bush can kill it, or even dilute it; all he can do is make us notice that we’re not living in its promise. All he HAS DONE is run his party into the ground and put a socio-political revolution in place, begun a process of reconfiguring a country that had gone to sleep to the responsibility of its privilege and the transcendence of it’s highest ideals.

Here’s a collection — Muppets for fun, and the Declaration for inspiration [and notice, as you read, how little separates the George that was King and the George who WOULD BE King.] You’ll find a couple of pieces after that — and the one on the flag raises an important point, I think; the Left has been pushed into a corner and forced to defend itself without its rightful ownership of things inherently American — faith, flag, patriotism and more. Our understanding of those things is extremely nuanced — not simplistic; which is why the governing body refuses to acknowledge them as part of our territory.

The “fight for hearts and minds” never did happen in Iraq, but it sure as hell played out here at home. It’s seems to me that American hearts are just fine, it’s their minds that are under assault — and in order to come to some balance there, we have to take back what’s ours!

[Warning: in doing that, we might look like we're "them." That's the REAL fight for minds, at the moment, in all its complex glory. But we can never turn our intention to peace until we've come to some sense of balance with one another.]

Happy Fourth — be safe, be hopeful.

Jude

The Muppets on the Constitutional Convention

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
In Congress, July 4, 1776
Boston Globe
July 4, 2008

WHEN IN the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience heth shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the People.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. ++

Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Friday, July 4, 2008

Your Fourth of July is blood for oil.
My Fourth of July is the pure sunbeam of peace.

Yours is the imperial presidency and “so what?” to public opinion.
Mine is “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Yours is profiling and discrimination.
Mine is “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Yours is “My country right or wrong.”
Mine is avoiding “Offences against the Law of Nations”

Yours is the veto of child health care and rejection of Kyoto,
Mine is an America that cares about the wellbeing of our children.

Yours is a monarchical presidency above the law.
Mine is, with Tom Paine, “in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Yours is aggressive invasions of countries that did not attack us first.
Mine is “and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”

Yours is water-boarding and electrocution.
Mine is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Yours is the stench of a million moldering corpses, military rule over 27 million, and the creation of oceans of misery.
Mine is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Yours is off-shore drilling, coddling polluters, ‘heckuva job Brownie.’
Mine is a stewardship of America the beautiful for succeeding generations.

Yours is the privatization of war and the deployment of whole divisions of “contractors. . .”
Mine is an America where privates do not risk their lives for a tenth of what a mercenary is paid by the Pentagon.

Yours is the erection of protest zones as zoos for citizens.
Mine is, “or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Yours is the swagger of the flight jacket and the bombs raining down.
Mine is the schooling of the next global generation.

Mine is America, the pure sunbeam of peace. ++

The U.S. Is Drowning in Pretend Patriotism
This Fourth of July, let’s remember that it’s not our God-given American right to reorder the world to our liking.
Robert Scheer, Truthdig via Alternet
July 4, 2008

As we head into the Fourth of July weekend of patriotic bluster and beer swilling — but before we are too besotted with ourselves — might we also for once consider our imperfections? Why not take a moment to heed the cautions of our founding father, George Washington, whose true legacy will most likely be ignored during the flag-waving weekend?

Washington’s “Farewell Address” to the new nation was a warning about the threat of American imperial ambitions and a declaration of his high expectations for a republic of free men: “In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. …”

We are drowning in the “impostures of pretended patriotism,” used to cover the lies that got us into Iraq, the defense of torture and the violation of our basic liberties. In the name of patriotism, we presume a God-given American right to reorder the world to our liking, masking the vice of unfettered greed as an obligation of national security.

Any doubts as to this later governing impulse of our imperial ambitions were shattered with the recent news that U.S. advisers to our puppet government in the Green Zone of occupied Iraq have worked out agreements for American oil companies to gain control of Iraqi oil fields. But, then again, what did we expect when we elected a Texas oil hustler, and a failed one at that, to be our president?

Only in an America dumbed down by constant propaganda about our innate moral superiority will anyone any longer believe that we didn’t invade Iraq for the oil, even though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to the Bush administration from the board of directors at Chevron, where they named an oil tanker after her. Like Vice President Dick Cheney with those Halliburton contracts, Rice has stayed true to her corporate sponsors. That’s what the U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished; for the first time in more than three decades after Iraq joined a worldwide trend of formerly colonized nations gaining control of their own resources, Big Oil is getting its black gold back. It was always about the oil — that’s why “we” invaded Iraq — only “we” aren’t getting any, at least not at a reasonable price. The oil companies are.

I know it’s difficult for the corporate media and politicians, both fueled generously by energy money, to grasp the distinction, but we the people and they the oil companies are not one and the same. While we suffer at the pump, they make record profits, which is the way they like it. Don’t think for a second that U.S. oil companies are rushing into Iraq to expand production to help lower world oil prices, thus making their investments less profitable. They just want to be on the winning side, which is why the CEO of Halliburton relocated his office from Texas to the United Arab Emirates, where I am certain he and his fellow corporate expatriates are able to happily celebrate the Fourth of July.

So, take that American flag off your lapel and replace it with a button bearing the Exxon or Chevron logo. C’mon, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, be straight about what it is you are really pushing here. ‘Fess up — it’s not the good old USA as represented by the sucker taxpayers conned by your patriotic blather. No sirree, what you would have Americans paying homage to is the majesty of the big multinational corporations that exploit American military power to rule the world.

But recognize that you have shamed the legacy of our first president. George Washington, who distinguished the promise of the new world from the corruptions of the old by shunning imperial conquest, said: “Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.”

If Barack Obama or John McCain was to offer such words of wisdom this Fourth of July, he would be vilified as “weak,” and that is a fit measure of just how far we have descended from the high hopes of our first president. ++

A Modest Proposal for the 4th: Take Back Old Glory
Paul Slansky, HuffPo
July 3, 2008

In Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches, there were two kinds of these odd beach-dwelling creatures — those with stars on their bellies and those without. The ones with the stars saw themselves as inherently superior:

When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts
Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,
They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.
They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches.

Then along came a stranger, one Sylvester McMonkey McBean, who had a contraption that applied — for a price — stars to the bellies of the decoratively challenged:

Then they yelled at the ones who had stars at the start,
“We’re exactly like you! You can’t tell us apart.
We’re all just the same, now, you snooty old smarties!
And now we can go to your frankfurter parties.”

Then the snobby Sneetches had their stars removed — yes, McBean’s machine could do that, too — and starlessness became the coin of the realm, after which it all descended into on-again-off-again chaos until it was impossible to keep track of who’d been who and they decided to just all get along as equals — albeit impoverished equals, as they’d given all of their money to the con man who’d repeatedly applied and removed their stars.

But enough, for now, about Sneetches.

Of all the stupid things done by the anti-war crowd, the most gratuitously moronic was allowing the sanctimonious hypocrites of the right to co-opt the nation’s most basic icon, its flag. The emblem of the country’s highest aspirations was mindlessly ceded to the holier-than-thou zealots who used it as a bludgeon against the less fanatical.

Having unburdened itself of patriotism, the left proceeded over the years to also give away religion, national security and, finally, the elections themselves, but this devolution, into the pathetic puddle of unprincipled, acquiescent wimpiness that the Democrats have become, started with — or rather, without — the flag. It’s hard to remember a presidential election in which that cavalier surrender hasn’t exacted a serious price.

Eventually the lapel was established as the battlefield, and the degree of one’s patriotic fervor is now presumed based on whether or not said lapel sports a flag pin. The flag pin wearer clearly loves his country — for Christ’s sake, he’s wearing its flag! — and as for the flagless, well, one can only wonder why they hate America so much that they won’t allow its proudest symbol on their persons.

Republicans love to demagogue the flag, and this year that and fear-mongering are all they have. The presence or absence of the mini-Stars ‘N’ Stripes has the potential to erupt into a weeks-long October distraction, with the contemptible castrata of the media not just providing the stage but also trilling in the chorus. But we can prevent it, and so easily that there’s really no excuse not to.

All of the conventional political wisdom of decades is mere rubble in the wake of the Bush-Cheney catastrophes. Whether or not they have health insurance or can afford the gas to drive to their jobs is more important to many past “values” voters than whether or not homosexual couples can call their unions “marriage.”

Significant numbers of previously intolerant evangelicals are now focusing on saving the earth instead of merely hating hordes of its occupants. Formerly dark red states are purple and may well turn blue. The right is reeling, they can’t find a single thing to point to that’s better than it was before Bush, so while they’re busy dealing with issues of basic survival, let’s just slip in there and take back the damn flag. Take it back from the war criminals and their apologists and enablers that have wrapped themselves in it even as they’ve been methodically destroying the republic for which it stands.

Barack Obama, who earlier took some flack for his empty lapel, is on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone with flag pin gleaming. We should follow his lead. Everyone who’s voting for Obama — and especially those who are public figures (i.e. Keith Olbermann, Jack Cafferty, Rachel Maddow) must immediately procure a flag pin and not be seen without it before November 5th. If you can’t do it with pride, do it as an act of subversion.

When everyone’s wearing the flag it will be neutralized. It will cease to provide cover, and then all those with a need to display their moral superiority will have to find a new symbol to set them apart. A new image to mount on a pin and attach to fabric that says, “I am, in my essence, better than you.”

I suggest the Star-Belly Sneetch. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves