These are the times that try men's souls.
~Thomas Paine~
July 7, 2008 (World News Trust) -- Everyone said I must attend a
Fourth of July parade in New England. I yawned and thought of all the
Fourth of July parades with which I'd been familiar while growing up in
the Midwest-you know, the emphasis on God, country, mom, apple pie, and
America right or wrong. I hadn't attended one since I was a very young
child. But my friends assured me that it's different in New England,
and especially in Vermont.
And so I went to what is
traditionally the largest and most popular Fourth of July parade in the
state, the one in Warren. I got up very early in order to get there in
time to find a parking place which I was warned would be daunting. Like
most rural Vermont towns, Warren resembles a small New England village
during the days of the Revolutionary War with its white wooden-frame
town hall, a narrow main street alongside a tiny, gurgling stream, and
a few small shops of colonial architecture.
The Warren parade is traditionally
quite political, especially this year as presidential, gubernatorial,
legislative, and Congressional seats will be hotly contested in
November. But what most impressed me was not the content of the parade,
but the mood of the people participating and watching. Yes, I proudly
marched in the parade with the Vermont Independence folks and handed
out copies of their first-rate, newspaper, Vermont Commons, the
style of which is not unlike those early colonial newspapers that
served up an intellectual feast rather than the vending machine,
mindless junk food of today's corporate tabloids.
In the throes of bands playing,
crowds cheering, and walking alongside a man dressed as Ethan Allen,
for a moment I was transported to 1776. In some towns throughout the
colonies, little attention was paid to independence and the writings of
Thomas Paine, but in Vermont, independence, not only from England but
from other colonies, was always a front-burner issue. Hence this
state's tradition of independent, sometimes iconoclastic, thinking.
Just the night before I had sat in
a meadow between two mountains in Southern Vermont listening to the
Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the grand finale of the concert being
Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" complete with some of the most
spectacular fireworks I've ever witnessed. As the blasts echoed against
the mountains and reverberated in my body, I suddenly realized that
this cacophony was what the Revolutionary War sounded like, ricocheting
across the hills and valleys of New England. Although I abhor war, it's
obvious that on numerous occasions in human history, oppressed peoples
haven't been able to reclaim their independence without it. And so it
was in this part of the world in 1776. Yet one cannot reflect on the
independence gained by the thirteen original colonies without
immediately noticing how it did not apply to people of color or women
and how quickly westward expansion violated the spirit of the
Constitution crafted by the Founders and ratified by the patriots.
The European culture which
decimated the New World on every level was founded on the principles of
an unfinished Enlightenment that touted individual human rights but
only for the privileged few. Estranged as it was from its ancient
indigenous roots, it had no tribal template in which elders initiated
the young and schooled them from birth to be part of, not inimical to,
the earth community. While the Pilgrims lived harmoniously with Native
Americans for a short while in Massachusetts, they soon began mimicking
their Puritan brethren by rejecting Native values of sharing,
cooperation, and the sacredness of the land on which they settled.
Thus, individuals like Paine,
Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Patrick Henry served as the only
"elders" the colonists had. How different the history of United States
may have been had these elders been initiated human beings with the
capacity to open to, rather than resist, the wisdom of their indigenous
neighbors. Franklin did spend time living with the Haudenosaunee
(Iroquois) Confederacy, one of the world's oldest democracies. However,
despite his and his peer's admiration for the confederacy and their
implementation of many of its political concepts in the Constitution,
none were able to empathize with it on an emotional or spiritual level.
Had they been able to do so, they may have intentionally incorporated
indigenous values into American society which might have preserved the
republic and circumvented empire, not to mention rabid consumerism,
maniacal resource plunder, and the abject rape of the ecosystem.
Nevertheless, back here in the
twenty-first century on July 4, 2008, the values of independence and
cooperation that motivated for example, Samuel Adams and the Sons of
Liberty and that permeate the writings of Thomas Paine, surged through
my body while hearing fireworks rebound off New England mountains and
while marching in a Vermont Independence Day parade. Incomplete as the
Enlightenment was, it visited me in a brief but extraordinary epiphany
this past week. Call me hopelessly romantic and idealistic, but the
presence of Tom Paine and the patriots is palpable in Warren, Vermont's
annual Independence Day festivities, and I feel fortunate to have
experienced it.
And now call me pessimistic because
even as I tasted the spirit of liberty on July 4, 2008, I could not
help but ask myself what the people who sat in the meadow listening to
the symphony while drinking their wine and eating their picnic snacks
will be doing a year from now. How many will be able to drive to such
an event or afford a ticket? Will the symphony itself be able to travel
throughout the state presenting summer concerts? Likewise, how well
attended will Independence Day parades be next year? Between now and
then, might there be frantic attempts by the hungry, the homeless, the
foreclosed, the bankrupt, the unemployed to craft a new American
revolution? How much famine, starvation, violence, and chaos will this
nation see in the next twelve months? How much backlash from empire
will there be? FEMA camps in place by July 4, 2009? Will the U.S.
government be involved in expanded oil wars in even more parts of the
world? How many American institutions will have totally collapsed by
then? How many airlines will be in business? How many people will be
driving? How many trucks will be delivering food to grocery stores? If
the State of Utah is now shifting to a four-day work week
in order to save money and energy, what will education, healthcare,
government, transportation, and other aspects of American society look
like a year from now?
I'm not psychic, nor do I have a
crystal ball, but everything I'm witnessing in current events tells me
that on July 4, 2009, we may look back on July, 2008 as "the good ole
days." I have to wonder how much "independence" we'll think we have at
that point. Words like "martial law" and "Blackwater" continue to haunt
my imagination.
Although I support the efforts of
the Vermont Independence movement, I am well aware that dramatic earth
changes and the collapse of a rotting U.S. infrastructure in a plethora
of locations may well result in numerous, small, unintended, unimagined
sovereignties throughout the North American continent. How will those
communities live? How will they share, cooperate, function in harmony
with each other and the earth community-or will they?
Thomas Paine's Common Sense
was one of the most powerful instruments in forging the struggle for
independence. The writings of one man, a "nobody" by today's standards
and those of his day, transformed the thinking of the New World and
motivated thousands to look deeply within themselves to assess what
really mattered to them. Soul searching was Paine's forte, and his
writings inspired the masses to do likewise and to weigh heavily the
struggle they were contemplating. Doubtless, he's spinning in his grave
as a result of the fascist empire that the republic has become, but I'm
compelled to believe that his spirit lives on in the hearts and minds
of individuals and communities who are preparing for the collapse of
the empire he would give his life to defeat were he living today.
I see groups and individuals who
are highly conscious of collapse and its ramifications-citizens like
those struggling for Vermont Independence, countless communities across
this nation who are strategizing to create food security, safeguard
clean and accessible water supplies, power down their communities and
implement renewable energy technologies, home school their children or
create alternative schools, and implement affordable healthcare for
everyone. Whether or not their efforts will prevail or be quashed by
empire remains to be seen. Undoubtedly, some of those communities will
survive collapse and live to tell their children about it. As a result,
they will discover firsthand as Thomas Paine said, that "That
which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." I know not who will
survive collapse or how, but I'm quite certain that if they are capable
of doing so, they will know in every cell of their bodies that they
"have it in their power to begin the world over again."
I have written extensively about the futility of voting in
the 2008 presidential election, and I will continue to do so, but I
have also encouraged readers to vote in state and local elections. I
will enthusiastically do the same in the fall in my now-home state of
Vermont. Thus I leave you with a video clip of my taking the Vermont
voter's oath on July 4, 2008. And perhaps, if you look closely, you
might see Tom Paine somewhere over my shoulder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x9Uw2avj1E
***
CAROLYN BAKER, Ph.D., not only manages the Speaking Truth To Power
website, but is a professor of history and author of her latest book,
Coming
Out From Christian Fundamentalism: Affirming Sensuality, Social
Justice, and The Sacred. This book and her previous two books, U.S.
History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You and
The Journey of Forgiveness, may be purchased at this site. she is
available for speaking engagements and author events and can be
contacted at
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