I am continuing to read George Friedman's The Storm Before The Calm-- America's discord, the crisis of the 2020's, and the triumph beyond. He starts off in exactly the same way as Herodotus, analyzing in detail how the geography of the nation explains its culture and history. He also points out the vision of Jefferson and Jackson, as well as giving a rather unusual (and seemingly very valid) account of the interaction between the Europeans and the Native peoples and one another. These days it is nice to have a hopeful prognostication.
I think we are dealing with a whole lot of "apres moi le deluge" people for whom that phrase is not one of resignation but of petty revenge. They can see their influence eroding and, since they cannot stop it, they are going for broke. People having tantrums have to be restrained for their own good. It is disturbing to watch.
Predecessors and evolution of the story of the Iliad [Click] Fascinating! The author makes a very good argument for an active oral tradition of the story and its predecessors. She is able to actually read the Hittite imperial archives; she notes bilingual texts there with the only known examples of certain languages, and also that the Hittites recorded the programs of lots of festivals! One such program lists a presentation of some sort about “High Wilusa,” the exact way “Homer” refers to Troy centuries and centuries later.
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “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.”
For all the fact that the congressmen got around the sticky little problem of Black and Indigenous slavery by defining “men” as “white men,” and for all that it never crossed their minds that women might also have rights, the Declaration of Independence was an astonishingly radical document. In a world that had been dominated by a small class of rich men for so long that most people simply accepted that they should be forever tied to their status at birth, a group of upstart legislators on the edges of a continent declared that no man was born better than any other.
America was founded on the radical idea that all men are created equal.
What the founders declared self-evident was not so clear eighty-seven years later, when southern white men went to war to reshape America into a nation in which African Americans, Indigenous Americans, Chinese, and Irish were locked into a lower status than whites. In that era, equality had become a “proposition,” rather than “self-evident.”
“Four score and seven years ago,” Abraham Lincoln reminded Americans, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1863, Lincoln explained, the Civil War was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
It did, of course. The Confederate rebellion failed. The United States endured, and Americans began to expand the idea that all men are created equal to include Black men, men of color, and eventually to include women.
But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Words to live by in 2022.
—
Note:
I have shared some version of this every year for the last few years. I wrote this quickly— actually running out the door— a few years ago, and no matter how long I sit at the laptop and fiddle, as I did this evening, I still think the original stands. It is a dark Independence Day in many ways this year, but I hope everyone is able to find at least a little respite, and to recall the whole point of what we’re up to in this country.
When those men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor" they knew full well that if they failed their punishment would be hanging, drawing, and quartering.
Army Bases That Honor Confederate Traitors Could Soon Be Renamed for These Heroes [Click] “The names ‘embody the best of the United States Army and America,’ a commission established by Congress wrote in announcing its choices.” I don’t approve of their suggested new name for Fort Bragg. Granted that famous Army artillerists are in relatively short supply, why no Army bases named after Generals Grant, Sherman, Thomas or even Sheridan?
As memory serves me, Robert E. Lee opined in his letters that Grant was the greatest general of all time, and Sherman's army the greatest since Julius Caesar's legions in Gaul.
Via The Guardian: Person of interest arrested after shooting
A person of interest has been arrested after a manhunt that spanned hours following a mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb that left at least six dead and 30 injured. Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, who was identified by authorities as a person of interest, was apprehended on Monday evening not far from the parade route, according to Highland Park police. Reportedly, charges have not yet been filed.
The shooter targeted the Independence Day festivities from a rooftop, and officials believe he used a high-powered rifle, which was later recovered at the scene. Little is known about his motives and police called the tragedy a “random act of violence”.
For the life of me, I can't see any problem with outlawing civilian ownership of such weapons and the ammunition for them. God knows we had more than enough gun deaths without them. And it seems to me that "a random act of terrorism" would be a better description.
CNN: Illinois senator touts new gun legislation, says more needs to be done by Jamiel Lynch Monday's deadly shooting was an American tragedy, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said during a visit to Highland Park.
“What happened at the parade and all the poor victims and those who were killed in the process breaks my heart," he said.
Durbin, the Senate majority whip, touted the recently passed bipartisan gun bill as an important step, but said there are things it didn't address.
“There is no reason for a person to own a military assault weapon. It has no value for hunting, or sports or even self-defense,” he said. "It is a killing machine."
He said he was on vacation and drove seven hours to get to Highland Park as soon as he heard about the shooting.
"The stories already coming out and some of them are just things that we’ll never forget. What happened to these wonderful people who were just simply bringing their families out to watch a Fourth of July parade. What an American day. What an American experience. And what an American tragedy followed," he said. The senator said it was a day people will remember for a long time.
After praising the efforts of first responders, Durbin said: "It was the best of America with those (emergency responders) that I just described, it was the worst of America that a man took a rifle -- a high velocity rifle -- and turned it on innocent people and ruined lives and ruined many families in many ways."
Durbin also urged people to vote in elections.
"If you’re sick and tired of that and think that’s not what America should be all about, elect people who feel like you do,” he said.
On July 4th, Americans divided on what US stands for
ReplyDeleteI am continuing to read George Friedman's The Storm Before The Calm-- America's discord, the crisis of the 2020's, and the triumph beyond. He starts off in exactly the same way as Herodotus, analyzing in detail how the geography of the nation explains its culture and history. He also points out the vision of Jefferson and Jackson, as well as giving a rather unusual (and seemingly very valid) account of the interaction between the Europeans and the Native peoples and one another. These days it is nice to have a hopeful prognostication.
DeleteI think we are dealing with a whole lot of "apres moi le deluge" people for whom that phrase is not one of resignation but of petty revenge. They can see their influence eroding and, since they cannot stop it, they are going for broke. People having tantrums have to be restrained for their own good. It is disturbing to watch.
DeleteCould be.
DeletePredecessors and evolution of the story of the Iliad [Click] Fascinating! The author makes a very good argument for an active oral tradition of the story and its predecessors. She is able to actually read the Hittite imperial archives; she notes bilingual texts there with the only known examples of certain languages, and also that the Hittites recorded the programs of lots of festivals! One such program lists a presentation of some sort about “High Wilusa,” the exact way “Homer” refers to Troy centuries and centuries later.
ReplyDelete{listener quoting HCR}…
ReplyDeleteOn July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “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.”
For all the fact that the congressmen got around the sticky little problem of Black and Indigenous slavery by defining “men” as “white men,” and for all that it never crossed their minds that women might also have rights, the Declaration of Independence was an astonishingly radical document. In a world that had been dominated by a small class of rich men for so long that most people simply accepted that they should be forever tied to their status at birth, a group of upstart legislators on the edges of a continent declared that no man was born better than any other.
America was founded on the radical idea that all men are created equal.
What the founders declared self-evident was not so clear eighty-seven years later, when southern white men went to war to reshape America into a nation in which African Americans, Indigenous Americans, Chinese, and Irish were locked into a lower status than whites. In that era, equality had become a “proposition,” rather than “self-evident.”
“Four score and seven years ago,” Abraham Lincoln reminded Americans, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1863, Lincoln explained, the Civil War was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
It did, of course. The Confederate rebellion failed. The United States endured, and Americans began to expand the idea that all men are created equal to include Black men, men of color, and eventually to include women.
But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.
The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Words to live by in 2022.
—
Note:
I have shared some version of this every year for the last few years. I wrote this quickly— actually running out the door— a few years ago, and no matter how long I sit at the laptop and fiddle, as I did this evening, I still think the original stands. It is a dark Independence Day in many ways this year, but I hope everyone is able to find at least a little respite, and to recall the whole point of what we’re up to in this country.
~ Heather Cox Richardson
When those men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor" they knew full well that if they failed their punishment would be hanging, drawing, and quartering.
DeleteFalling Commodity Prices Raise Hopes Inflation Has Peaked [Click] I think those must be leading indicators. And it is my opinion that the WSJ has become far less reliable since Murdoch bought it.
ReplyDeleteDominion and Smartmatic cases against Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and the Murdochs proceed. [Click]
January 6th panel getting more new evidence by the day, says Kinzinger [Click] “Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony inspired more witnesses to come forward, says Republican congressman”
Army Bases That Honor Confederate Traitors Could Soon Be Renamed for These Heroes [Click] “The names ‘embody the best of the United States Army and America,’ a commission established by Congress wrote in announcing its choices.” I don’t approve of their suggested new name for Fort Bragg. Granted that famous Army artillerists are in relatively short supply, why no Army bases named after Generals Grant, Sherman, Thomas or even Sheridan?
As memory serves me, Robert E. Lee opined in his letters that Grant was the greatest general of all time, and Sherman's army the greatest since Julius Caesar's legions in Gaul.
DeleteHow about Fort Davis? [Click] I think I will send the suggestion to my senators.
Delete“It's Like Mass Chaos”: Six Dead, Twenty-Four Hospitalized Following Mass Shooting At July Fourth Parade In Chicago Suburb [of Highland Park] [Click]
ReplyDeleteChicago Tribune story [Click]
DeleteChicago Sun-Times story [Click]
DeleteHighland Park shooting person of interest named [Click] ID, photo, car & license plate
DeleteVia The Guardian: Person of interest arrested after shooting
DeleteA person of interest has been arrested after a manhunt that spanned hours following a mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb that left at least six dead and 30 injured. Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, who was identified by authorities as a person of interest, was apprehended on Monday evening not far from the parade route, according to Highland Park police. Reportedly, charges have not yet been filed.
The shooter targeted the Independence Day festivities from a rooftop, and officials believe he used a high-powered rifle, which was later recovered at the scene. Little is known about his motives and police called the tragedy a “random act of violence”.
(Susan) "a random act of violence" made possible by the easy access to guns. Are politicians EVER going to give up their gun lust?
DeleteFor the life of me, I can't see any problem with outlawing civilian ownership of such weapons and the ammunition for them. God knows we had more than enough gun deaths without them. And it seems to me that "a random act of terrorism" would be a better description.
DeleteCNN: Illinois senator touts new gun legislation, says more needs to be done
Deleteby Jamiel Lynch
Monday's deadly shooting was an American tragedy, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said during a visit to Highland Park.
“What happened at the parade and all the poor victims and those who were killed in the process breaks my heart," he said.
Durbin, the Senate majority whip, touted the recently passed bipartisan gun bill as an important step, but said there are things it didn't address.
“There is no reason for a person to own a military assault weapon. It has no value for hunting, or sports or even self-defense,” he said. "It is a killing machine."
He said he was on vacation and drove seven hours to get to Highland Park as soon as he heard about the shooting.
"The stories already coming out and some of them are just things that we’ll never forget. What happened to these wonderful people who were just simply bringing their families out to watch a Fourth of July parade. What an American day. What an American experience. And what an American tragedy followed," he said.
The senator said it was a day people will remember for a long time.
After praising the efforts of first responders, Durbin said: "It was the best of America with those (emergency responders) that I just described, it was the worst of America that a man took a rifle -- a high velocity rifle -- and turned it on innocent people and ruined lives and ruined many families in many ways."
Durbin also urged people to vote in elections.
"If you’re sick and tired of that and think that’s not what America should be all about, elect people who feel like you do,” he said.
Alexander Vindman On Trump Team Intimidating Jan 6 Witnesses: "This Is How They Operate" [Click] Opines that Jan. 6th insurrection was taken as a signal by Putin that it was time to invade Ukraine. Hmmm… didn’t Ms Hutchinson testify that Trump had an unrecorded phone conversation with Putin around that time?
ReplyDelete