Tag: 4th of July

Self-evident or reserved for the power elite? Part 1.

Posted on by kathiemm

 

A depiction of the Second Continental Congress voting on the United States Declaration of Independence Date between 1784 and 1801. Source: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that “faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain” and therefore also in the public domain in the United States.

“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.”

Yup, that is an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, the lofty document presumed to have legitimized and legalized the separation of 13 British colonies from Great Britain back in 1776.

So, we might well ask, as we celebrate the achievements heralded in that document, have subsequent generations of Americans honored and promulgated those principles?

Uh, oh. The answer seems to be: Not unless it suited the interests of the ruling powers within the nation to do so.

On July 5, 1852, 76 years after the Declaration of Independence, the great American Frederick Douglass gave a speech that rings all too true today.  Here are some excerpts:

“The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony….

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them….

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world….

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! ‘I will not equivocate – I will not excuse.’”

And what about us, 240 years since that historic 4th of July? Will we excuse the racists, the elitists, and the deniers of liberty and democracy within our own country, or will we SPEAK OUT, will we ADVOCATE for ALTERNATIVES to HATRED and AUTHORITARIANISM (AHA!)?

Seeking War No More

Posted on by kathiemm

By Edward Agro

Given that an antiwar movement in the U.S., where rampant militarism is the norm, must cast its nets impossibly wide, it’s no wonder that the nonviolent struggle to build a world without war draws proponents from every class and predisposition of American Life.  But what glues together all of us who resist?  Is there a tradition which can give us strength?

Professor Lawrence Rosenwald’s ambitious book ”War No More” helps us find that tradition. It’s not your standard history, focused on well-recognized heroes – usually military – who purportedly single-handedly “make peace” – usually by military means.  Instead it’s a picaresque ramble through three centuries of efforts by individuals, in many cases unknown to history, to celebrate in writing, song, and graphics and often putting their peace and quiet, if not more, on the line to defeat The Juggernaut of militarism that affects and stains all that is good in the American experiment.  Reading these stories will be a great encouragement to modern day activists in the antiwar cause.  And, somewhat like Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” it will encourage citizens just awakening to their need to resist.

But if the cause is ponderous, the book is not; I found these 800-plus pages a joy to read.  The thing is so rich that gulping it down all at once is not the only way to extract its treasures.  Rosenwald’s prefatory notes to the selections are a great read in themselves;  they give a good deal of the historical contexts, and though the author refrains from haranguing the reader, they give a  sense of his own passionate conviction.

The selections themselves bring many surprises. Reading the selection “Wailing Shall Be in All Streets” shows the early attempt that finally after many years gave birth to “Slaughterhouse-Five.” There are a number of such discoveries; I’ll let the reader of “War No More” have the pleasure of discovering others.

Even the unknown indexer of this book deserves credit: one can profitably read the index to get another overview of the history of antiwar and nonviolent action.

Of course, no one volume can encompass the totality of the antiwar tradition of America – there’s just too much, and it comes from too many directions, conservative as well as liberal, radically passionate as well as logically argued.

Which brings up the question “War No More” begs us to answer: there has been so much effort and attention given to the struggle against militarism throughout American history, yet where is a generally recognized tradition within which we can find our home?  Perhaps reading “War No More” will be one of the ways conscientious citizens can find or build such a tradition; maybe the tradition will come to be what we celebrate the 4th of July.  One can only hope, and work.

The foregoing is a condensation of a longer review of “War No More,” which appears on Amazon.com