Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was a highly accomplished American poet, playwright and author. I’ve borrowed from her many quotes before. My favorite is; “It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.” I’m feeling that (one damn thing-thing) now when I write. Most every time the voice inside my head pushes my buttons and I start fretting over things I don’t control, like Edna’s one damn thing. So I throw a few words at the page in self defense. Then, sensing a dead end ahead I hit delete and walk away, do something I do control.
In 1776 the Founding Fathers had no idea how their struggle against England would turn out. They didn’t want to start a revolution but with no tangible rights and oppressive conditions in the colonies, they felt compelled to push back. Long story short; bullets were fired, England responded with bullets and more Red Coats and we had a revolution that dragged out for 8 years. The battles are well known but the process of creating a government gets largely overlooked.
All 13 colonies sent representatives to the Continental Congress from which the Declaration of Independence emerged. To be sure, they were not common folk, all influential white men of means with much to lose if they failed. Every colony considered itself more of a micro-nation rather than an integrated state in a grater body. Freedom from British oppression was their common cause but they didn’t trust and didn’t like each other. The difference in both the culture and economy between North & South created a stumbling block for a united nation to emerge. The cold, rocky North was suited for small farms, industry and lumber while the South had large tracts of tillable land and a warm climate suited for plantation agriculture. The resulting dichotomy explains the distrust. They all wanted freedom from England but they couldn’t agree on what freedom should look like.
In the North, Freedom was measured out primarily to men of means with land or property and a pathway for upward mobility. In the South, Freedom would be reserved for white men who owned land or property. There would be a path for upward mobility but it would be observed within a tightly structured, elite, white aristocracy. Without slave labor the plantation system would collapse under its own weight. African slaves transported to the colonies had for over a century been considered to be subhuman, the property of white men, not unlike domesticated animals.
In order to frame a constitution that could be approved in congress the language had to be vague and indirect. They kicked the can down the road for the next 80 years until it wouldn’t kick and we fought the Civil War. So far this piece draws from common knowledge but I do have a bias and opinion that will spill through.
Reconstruction was meant to emancipate former slaves but it failed. Vigilante intimidation and violence (Jim Crow justice) was measured out against newly freed blacks with little or no effort to find perpetrators. Jim Crow ruled in the South for the next century until the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 but even now, racist policies and practice have been systematically normalized in public actions.
I am disturbed but not surprised that after two & a half centuries our national government is still divided in a two party system where counterparts neither trust nor like each other. While their issues may have changed the math is the same; we all love America but we don’t want to live together in the same country. Slavery has taken a back seat to competing systems of government. The controversy is framed by whether or not or to what degree we preserve a a self-righteous tradition of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor. I’m not saying that the South’s slavery driven culture has evolved into conservative politics but if it quacks and looks like a duck; just sayin’. The underlying truth prevails; Everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught, the legal system protects the wealthy from the poor and poverty is the reward for stupid, lazy people. Times change but the fundamental snag is the gap between healthy ambition and unmitigated greed. Power and material wealth are after all, interchangeable; one begets the other.
Liberal ideology recognizes the group’s interdependence. Individuals need willingly sacrifice some of their own Best Interests for the sake of the collective (Culture). Conservatives do not like that idea; they say, “I got mine, you get your own!” They believe one must take care of meeting their own needs. If they cannot, then they suffer the brutal consequences, sacrificed to the god of greed. Most people demonstrate both behaviors and things usually find a working balance. But not everyone can live with balance and the rub comes determining where to draw the line between winners and losers.
Of the Founding Fathers the names that pop out are Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. After they won the war their greatest fear was that the new nation’s government would reinvent the British monarchy or some other form of fascism where power was concentrated in a ‘Strong Man’ authoritarian who would concede to ego and greed. They created checks and balances in the constitution; two different bodies of legislators, three branches of government Executive, Legislative & Judicial, so power was divided. Still, the Later Greeks (Plato) perceived a fundamental flaw in democracy (self rule). “ . . . it allows people to elect poor or dangerous leaders.”
As I see it Plato’s fears were shared by Thomas Jefferson in particular and they are being realize in America now. I share those fears but I don’t control anything. I am concerned but my voice doesn’t raise even a tiny ripple in a minuscule puddle. Like many others of my generation I take comfort in the fact that my life story is approaching its conclusion and even the super-rich narcissist who’s calling the shots cannot undo my backstory. From Bunker Hill in 1775 to 2021 and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Americans have been using poor judgement or no judgment at all choosing leaders. Adolph Hitler was a hero until he wasn’t and his collaborators either perished with him or found a rock somewhere to hide under.
I’m too old to immigrate, nobody wants poor old foreigners tapping into their economy. At this stage abandoning my family and network of friends would be nothing more than spite on my part. So I can’t run away and denial doesn’t solve anything. I still want to take the high road which, as I see it, models an old axiom that I take to heart; Be the change you want to see. I can’t change the world but I can leave some fingerprints behind. My writing may suffer but then again, maybe not. If I can dwell on possibility instead of the ugly side of human nature, then the words might come easier. Edna was clever but she gave up too soon.
In 1776 the Founding Fathers had no idea how their struggle against England would turn out. They didn’t want to start a revolution but with no tangible rights and oppressive conditions in the colonies, they felt compelled to push back. Long story short; bullets were fired, England responded with bullets and more Red Coats and we had a revolution that dragged out for 8 years. The battles are well known but the process of creating a government gets largely overlooked.
All 13 colonies sent representatives to the Continental Congress from which the Declaration of Independence emerged. To be sure, they were not common folk, all influential white men of means with much to lose if they failed. Every colony considered itself more of a micro-nation rather than an integrated state in a grater body. Freedom from British oppression was their common cause but they didn’t trust and didn’t like each other. The difference in both the culture and economy between North & South created a stumbling block for a united nation to emerge. The cold, rocky North was suited for small farms, industry and lumber while the South had large tracts of tillable land and a warm climate suited for plantation agriculture. The resulting dichotomy explains the distrust. They all wanted freedom from England but they couldn’t agree on what freedom should look like.
In the North, Freedom was measured out primarily to men of means with land or property and a pathway for upward mobility. In the South, Freedom would be reserved for white men who owned land or property. There would be a path for upward mobility but it would be observed within a tightly structured, elite, white aristocracy. Without slave labor the plantation system would collapse under its own weight. African slaves transported to the colonies had for over a century been considered to be subhuman, the property of white men, not unlike domesticated animals.
In order to frame a constitution that could be approved in congress the language had to be vague and indirect. They kicked the can down the road for the next 80 years until it wouldn’t kick and we fought the Civil War. So far this piece draws from common knowledge but I do have a bias and opinion that will spill through.
Reconstruction was meant to emancipate former slaves but it failed. Vigilante intimidation and violence (Jim Crow justice) was measured out against newly freed blacks with little or no effort to find perpetrators. Jim Crow ruled in the South for the next century until the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 but even now, racist policies and practice have been systematically normalized in public actions.
I am disturbed but not surprised that after two & a half centuries our national government is still divided in a two party system where counterparts neither trust nor like each other. While their issues may have changed the math is the same; we all love America but we don’t want to live together in the same country. Slavery has taken a back seat to competing systems of government. The controversy is framed by whether or not or to what degree we preserve a a self-righteous tradition of the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor. I’m not saying that the South’s slavery driven culture has evolved into conservative politics but if it quacks and looks like a duck; just sayin’. The underlying truth prevails; Everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught, the legal system protects the wealthy from the poor and poverty is the reward for stupid, lazy people. Times change but the fundamental snag is the gap between healthy ambition and unmitigated greed. Power and material wealth are after all, interchangeable; one begets the other.
Liberal ideology recognizes the group’s interdependence. Individuals need willingly sacrifice some of their own Best Interests for the sake of the collective (Culture). Conservatives do not like that idea; they say, “I got mine, you get your own!” They believe one must take care of meeting their own needs. If they cannot, then they suffer the brutal consequences, sacrificed to the god of greed. Most people demonstrate both behaviors and things usually find a working balance. But not everyone can live with balance and the rub comes determining where to draw the line between winners and losers.
Of the Founding Fathers the names that pop out are Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. After they won the war their greatest fear was that the new nation’s government would reinvent the British monarchy or some other form of fascism where power was concentrated in a ‘Strong Man’ authoritarian who would concede to ego and greed. They created checks and balances in the constitution; two different bodies of legislators, three branches of government Executive, Legislative & Judicial, so power was divided. Still, the Later Greeks (Plato) perceived a fundamental flaw in democracy (self rule). “ . . . it allows people to elect poor or dangerous leaders.”
As I see it Plato’s fears were shared by Thomas Jefferson in particular and they are being realize in America now. I share those fears but I don’t control anything. I am concerned but my voice doesn’t raise even a tiny ripple in a minuscule puddle. Like many others of my generation I take comfort in the fact that my life story is approaching its conclusion and even the super-rich narcissist who’s calling the shots cannot undo my backstory. From Bunker Hill in 1775 to 2021 and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Americans have been using poor judgement or no judgment at all choosing leaders. Adolph Hitler was a hero until he wasn’t and his collaborators either perished with him or found a rock somewhere to hide under.
I’m too old to immigrate, nobody wants poor old foreigners tapping into their economy. At this stage abandoning my family and network of friends would be nothing more than spite on my part. So I can’t run away and denial doesn’t solve anything. I still want to take the high road which, as I see it, models an old axiom that I take to heart; Be the change you want to see. I can’t change the world but I can leave some fingerprints behind. My writing may suffer but then again, maybe not. If I can dwell on possibility instead of the ugly side of human nature, then the words might come easier. Edna was clever but she gave up too soon.
