Title of tonight’s essay is taken from the Declaration of Independence, to-wit:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, 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.
I imagine the revolutionaries of the 1700s were equally dismayed to see their countrymen willing to accept despotism rather than declare independence. Human nature, and all, we’ve seen it so many times — and seen it many times in the history of the United States of America.
After World War II we were the victors, the conquerors, we began our time of Empire. We had a nice villain to fight in the Soviet Union, a nice villain where we could justify the most egregious acts by saying we were “keeping the world safe for democracy.” Remember that saying? Sounds quaint today.
Decade after decade we consolidated our power in the world and decade after decade industries arose which consolidated their power as well, industries headed by wealthy folks who had no interest in democracy and a great interest in empire.
And today we see that our government is owned by those interests. It is no secret any more.
I have no magic crystal ball, but I feel very strongly that we are entering into a new phase of our struggle to hold our government accountable for its crimes and take back our democracy and rights as individual citizens. The rotted forms to which we are accustomed stink to high heaven, the long train of abuses and usurpations grow more intolerable by the day and can no longer be avoided by the distractions of bread and circuses.
It is our right. It is our duty to abolish the forms to which we are accustomed, seeing the tragic ends to which they have led.
*****
Didn’t rain much today in the Big Apple … it’s early evening and the sun is still glowing on the bricks of the brownstones across the street. Lovely. Happy 4th to all.
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… a summer to remember, I do believe.
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play…
🙂
not just me, I read stuff and the people who wrote it were saying it!
And I think you’re right, we are entering a new phase because Obama and the Congress and Senate have presented the evidence that it’s “no secret anymore” on a great big silver platter, or maybe gold, for all to see.
I think so too.
Unfortunately, some people seem to think we have the right to purfue it, but not the right to obtain it.
America, was really, a much better place, when “Civics”
was required part of diploma, lol.
We stand on the shoulders of patriots, who went before us, only to risk toppling, by forces, no one can reign in …
Daylight Again / Find the Cost of Freedom – CS&N
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
[the annotations continue …]
A Declaration … of the People’s Plight
real change is inevitable, some day …
Found this today: The Coming Insurrection
I think one of the misfortunes of our culture war is that the Right has appropriated so much of our history under the banner of unconsidered nationalism, when in fact so much of our founding thought comes from a more radical enlightenment philosophy. That’s a great quote you pulled from the Declaration, and under-read document that we’re usually content to read in grade school, then let sit in a box in a monument.