Friday, July 4, is Independence Day. I hate when people call it "The Fourth of July". The 4th of July is a date, not a holiday. By that logic, I should celebrate "The Seventh of March"; seems just as valid. Or why not "The Nineteenth of May"? That one sounds good.
But the one coming up is Independence Day. It's a good holiday. About as American a holiday as one could have. We celebrate the day we declared ourselves a nation, we drink beer, we grill beef, we blow shit up. Yup, as American as they come.
I'm not against Independence Day. I'm against Independence... but at this point, I don't think the Queen would have us back. Independence Day should stand to remind us, once annually, that we are a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears punks. This year, it will be 232 whole years, which in Nation terms makes us about 12.
Would you let your twelve year old declare war?
400 years ago, a bunch of disgruntled religious extremists (Yes, don't you remember studying the Puritans in 9th grade history and English Lit?) left England to sail forth to find a new place to practice their stonings and witch-hunting. They came across this great nation -- and the great Nation that inhabited it -- and by their own arrogance, claimed it as their own... but still as a colony of their mother country (they were nuts, but not without a sense of economic prudence).
165 years passed -- we'll skip over the gloomy part about what happened to the native inhabitants -- and (as legend has it) finally got fed up one day about tea. Now in the past 168 years, they had pretty much given up the whole funny-hats, witch-stoning religious odd-ball-ity, and settled for... well basically the same religion they were practicing back home that they were oh so oppressed by (oh, and some had become Quakers... that's an interesting one... but for another time, perhaps).
So, in 1773, the blood of much tea was spilled. 3 years later, they justified their costumed vigilantism (kinda like Batman, less the cape, add Indian feathers, loose the cool gadgets, and add a distaste for tea and taxation) with a documented, ratified, and official declaration, wherein they called the British a bunch of tyrants, and said "we don't have to stand for this."
Sic semper tyrannis!
Actually that's what John Wilkes Booth said after he shot Lincoln, but the message was the same, and we declared war on Britain.
Fast forward another 232 years, and I sit on a beach, watching fireworks, and listening to bad music. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against John Philip Sousa; it's the rest of the dreck... the patriotic "pop" music... that leaves much to be desired. If there's one in particular that makes me want to kick babies, it's "Proud to be an American" by good old Lee Greenwood. "And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free." Listen, Lee, you can be free in Finland... where you can also have Universal Healthcare and the greatest standard of living in the world. Plus, you get the added benefit of having a head of state who isn't the laughing stock of the planet.
"...at least I know I'm free." Yeah, at least you have that. Your country may unlawfully torture non-combat detainees in a secure and secretive base on the shore of an enemy nation we've been in embargo with for greater than 50 years while ignoring all UN requests for meer inspection... but at least you know you're free. It's like saying I'm proud to be complete trailer trash, where at least I know no one will rob me.
OK, but enough bashing of trailer trash.
If it's not Lee Greenwood, maiking me want to move to Bulgaria, or the 6 tone-deaf assholes behind me singing along, or the "Town Band" murdering the 120 year old classics of Mr. Sousa, then its the ignorantly inappropriate "Born in the USA". Yup, Bruce Springsteen's classic rock anthem... you know it, you love it, I love it... I will not disparage The Boss. But apparently no one knows what it means. Maybe when Bruce denied Ronald Reagan the right to campaign, we might have remembered why. No? Well, because it's not a song of nationalism or patriotism, that's why.
I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man
That's patriotic, right? Killing is the name of one's nation is about as nationalist as one can get.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"
Oh, that must be the patriotism... not being hired after coming back from serving his country?
I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms
Patriotic yet?
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
Homeless vets. Yup. Yeah, not so patriotic, I agree. So... back to Independence Day.
Annoying music -- either by lyric, performance, or blatant inappriopriateness -- coupled with drunken yahoos -- any statutes forbidding drinking in public do seem to be ignored on this day -- form the bachground for the true spectacle of the Independence Day celebration: Fireworks.
Thank you to the 9th century Chinese for giving us the telltale expression of our most American holiday. Granted, these days the greatest fireworks in the US come from an Italian-American family in Long Island named Grucci, who have been making American-made firworks since 1850. A typical Grucci fireworks program costs about $100,000. Bear than in mind the next time you pay your city tax bill.
Or, you can go down to your local fireworks store, or drive to New Hampshire, South Carolina, or whatever your closest legal state to buy fireworks and illegally bring them back to your own, crack open a can of your favorite canned beer, fire up your grill, sit the kids on the lawn, and procede to blow your own hand off.
Happy 4th of July.
Showing posts with label Declaration of Independence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Declaration of Independence. Show all posts
02 July 2008
17 May 2008
One Nation Under God? Not for the first 347 years.
I just finished watching Jesus Camp, a documentary regarding Midwestern Evangelical Christians and the indoctrination of the children through Youth Ministries and Evangelical Summer Camp. It's really fascinating and terrifying stuff. And not to spoil the film for you, but I was particularly amused with the fact that the camp is held in the town of Devil's Lake, ND.
Like any good God-loving organization, these Evangelical Christians love the phrase "One Nation Under God". They use it repetitively to justify not only that Christianity has a place in American politics (at one point they're seen praying to a cut-out of George W. Bush), but that the United States of America is somehow Jesus' chosen country. Personally, I think if Jesus were to have a country, he'd like one that wasn't as crippled and divided as ours; maybe Finland.
But I digress. Upon completion of the film, I was compelled to look into this "One Nation Under God" thing. I was fairly certain it was not one of our founding principles -- not found in the Declaration of Independence, or even the Constitution -- and it was my understanding the phrase first appeared in the Pledge of Allegiance. So I sought to find out where that came from.
22 seconds later -- Wikipedia is a beautiful thing -- I had all the answers I was was looking for. In fact, this elusive phrase was more detached than I had even thought. I'm not going to reprint the entire Wikipedia article -- if you care to, you can read it here -- but let me simply throw out the pertinent facts.
The United States is considered to be founded in 1776. I don't think I need to cite anything here; this is fairly common knowledge. The beginnings of what we may consider "American" Colonial culture start considerably earlier with Jamestown in 1607, and Plymouth in 1620. Even my hometown of Milford was established in 1639. If we consider Jamestown the beginning of "America", then we're a hair over 400 years old.
400 years ago, our forefathers came to this continent seeking religious tolerance; not quite "One Nation Under God" yet. 232 years ago, 13 colonies come together as one Nation, defined by its Declaration of Independence to be "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights". So by 1776, we're acknowledging a Creator, by we're still a far cry from "One Nation Under God". So let's move ahead.
It's not from the Constitution; the words "God" or "Creator" don't even appear. So I guess we have to look to, as I was to understand, the first appearance of the phrase, the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. Bellamy was a Baptist minister and a Christian Socialist. That must explain "One Nation Under God". Nope. When Bellamy's Pledge was printed in it's original form, in the popular children's magazine The Youth's Companion, as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, it read "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. America"
Only 106 years ago, and still, no sight of "One Nation Under God". So when do we find this elusive phrase. Be patient. We know we'll get to it soon.
The Pledge was first used in public schools, by proclamation of President Benjamin Harrison, on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances. Still, no change in the language.
In 1923 the National Flag Conference called for a change in the wording. They changed the words "my Flag" to "the Flag of the United States". They wanted immigrants to know to which flag reference was being made. Apparently the standing and facing the American flag wasn't clarification enough. Still no God.
Later that year, a second edit was made. No God; just "of America".
In 1940 the Pledge of Allegience came before the Supreme Court. In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (a misspelling of Gobitases), the Court ruled that students in public schools could be compelled to recite the Pledge, even Jehovah's Witnesses like the Gobitases, who considered the flag salute to be idolatry. But even at this point, there's no mention of God in the Pledge.
In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed its decision, ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that "compulsory unification of opinion" violated the First Amendment.
In 1945, after the Pledge had twice gone before the United State Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress officially recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge. I guess if we needed an "official national pledge", that would be the one. And still, it bears no reference to God.
In 1951, some 344 years after Jamestown, 175 years after the Declaration of Independence, God shows up in the Pledge... for some people. The Knights of Columbus, in New York City, felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity. Citing language from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, took it upon themselves to add the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, at the beginning of their own meetings.
On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal, and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This urging was ignored.
The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston, on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts failed.
Senator Homer Ferguson, finally brought a resolution before Congress, and in his report on March 10, 1954, said, "The introduction of this joint resolution was suggested to me by a sermon given recently by the Rev. George M. Docherty, of Washington, D.C., who is pastor of the church at which Lincoln worshipped." Congress passed the Oakman-Ferguson resolution, and Eisenhower signed the bill into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.
And so, for days short of a mere 54 years, and due to the work of the Knights of Columbus, and a Rev. Dochery inspired Senator Ferguson, we have been "One Nation Under God". And let us not even venture into the idea of even having an oath of Allegiance, or the nazi-esque salute that went along with it for the first 50 years. That rant will have to be saved for a different blog.
Like any good God-loving organization, these Evangelical Christians love the phrase "One Nation Under God". They use it repetitively to justify not only that Christianity has a place in American politics (at one point they're seen praying to a cut-out of George W. Bush), but that the United States of America is somehow Jesus' chosen country. Personally, I think if Jesus were to have a country, he'd like one that wasn't as crippled and divided as ours; maybe Finland.
But I digress. Upon completion of the film, I was compelled to look into this "One Nation Under God" thing. I was fairly certain it was not one of our founding principles -- not found in the Declaration of Independence, or even the Constitution -- and it was my understanding the phrase first appeared in the Pledge of Allegiance. So I sought to find out where that came from.
22 seconds later -- Wikipedia is a beautiful thing -- I had all the answers I was was looking for. In fact, this elusive phrase was more detached than I had even thought. I'm not going to reprint the entire Wikipedia article -- if you care to, you can read it here -- but let me simply throw out the pertinent facts.
The United States is considered to be founded in 1776. I don't think I need to cite anything here; this is fairly common knowledge. The beginnings of what we may consider "American" Colonial culture start considerably earlier with Jamestown in 1607, and Plymouth in 1620. Even my hometown of Milford was established in 1639. If we consider Jamestown the beginning of "America", then we're a hair over 400 years old.
400 years ago, our forefathers came to this continent seeking religious tolerance; not quite "One Nation Under God" yet. 232 years ago, 13 colonies come together as one Nation, defined by its Declaration of Independence to be "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights". So by 1776, we're acknowledging a Creator, by we're still a far cry from "One Nation Under God". So let's move ahead.
It's not from the Constitution; the words "God" or "Creator" don't even appear. So I guess we have to look to, as I was to understand, the first appearance of the phrase, the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. Bellamy was a Baptist minister and a Christian Socialist. That must explain "One Nation Under God". Nope. When Bellamy's Pledge was printed in it's original form, in the popular children's magazine The Youth's Companion, as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, it read "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. America"
Only 106 years ago, and still, no sight of "One Nation Under God". So when do we find this elusive phrase. Be patient. We know we'll get to it soon.
The Pledge was first used in public schools, by proclamation of President Benjamin Harrison, on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances. Still, no change in the language.
In 1923 the National Flag Conference called for a change in the wording. They changed the words "my Flag" to "the Flag of the United States". They wanted immigrants to know to which flag reference was being made. Apparently the standing and facing the American flag wasn't clarification enough. Still no God.
Later that year, a second edit was made. No God; just "of America".
In 1940 the Pledge of Allegience came before the Supreme Court. In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (a misspelling of Gobitases), the Court ruled that students in public schools could be compelled to recite the Pledge, even Jehovah's Witnesses like the Gobitases, who considered the flag salute to be idolatry. But even at this point, there's no mention of God in the Pledge.
In 1943 the Supreme Court reversed its decision, ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that "compulsory unification of opinion" violated the First Amendment.
In 1945, after the Pledge had twice gone before the United State Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress officially recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge. I guess if we needed an "official national pledge", that would be the one. And still, it bears no reference to God.
In 1951, some 344 years after Jamestown, 175 years after the Declaration of Independence, God shows up in the Pledge... for some people. The Knights of Columbus, in New York City, felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity. Citing language from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, took it upon themselves to add the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, at the beginning of their own meetings.
On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal, and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This urging was ignored.
The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston, on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts failed.
Senator Homer Ferguson, finally brought a resolution before Congress, and in his report on March 10, 1954, said, "The introduction of this joint resolution was suggested to me by a sermon given recently by the Rev. George M. Docherty, of Washington, D.C., who is pastor of the church at which Lincoln worshipped." Congress passed the Oakman-Ferguson resolution, and Eisenhower signed the bill into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.
And so, for days short of a mere 54 years, and due to the work of the Knights of Columbus, and a Rev. Dochery inspired Senator Ferguson, we have been "One Nation Under God". And let us not even venture into the idea of even having an oath of Allegiance, or the nazi-esque salute that went along with it for the first 50 years. That rant will have to be saved for a different blog.
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