January
2006,
Volume 13 Nr. 27, Issue 195
On Father's
Day, Send Your Cards to Tom Instead of George
Jason
Miller
Our history books tell
us that George Washington was the father of the abomination
America has become. Many around the world, including some Americans,
have written off the possibility that the United States is capable
of acting with morality and sanity. Yet hope remains on the horizon
for our country. Harvey Kaye's Thomas
Paine and the Promise of America rekindled my fading
belief in the United States as a potential home to true freedom
and justice. Thomas Paine's spirit burns as an intense beacon
lighting the way toward his envisioned "asylum for
mankind". Paine, in contrast to Washington, is the
intellectual father of an America which does not yet exist, but is
still very possible.
Washington epitomized
the aristocracy which has dominated our nation both socially and
politically since its inception. It is time for the cultural
descendents of Thomas Paine--the poor and the working class---to
awaken from our slumber and lay claim to our share of the
wealth and power in the United States. In so doing, we can remake
this nation in the image that Paine envisaged:
When it
shall be said in any country in the world, "My poor are
happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among
them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged
are not in want,
the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend,
because I am a friend of happiness": when these things can
be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its
government."
Something is
Very Rotten in Denmark
I have written reams
about the social and political ills of our ailing nation, which have
risen to disturbing heights under the Bush Regime. Given the
courageous defiance of tyranny displayed in the American Revolution
and the noble principles embedded in our Constitution, it is
virtually inconceivable that our King George II could make King
George III look like a "Bush-league" tyrant. Yet he
has managed such a feat.
Consider the following:
1. Over 100,000 innocent
Iraqi civilians and over 2,000 US military personnel are dead as a
result of our illegal, imperial occupation of Iraq
2. The "Gulag of
Our Times", including Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib, "secret"
CIA prisons, and the extraordinary rendition program (before
you write the prisoners of the Gulag off as
"terrorists", remember, the crucial issues are due
process and justice....most of those in custody have not even been
charged with a crime, let alone had a trial. You could be next!)
3. The rise of Social
Darwinism which has led to tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare,
and the diversion of our tax dollars from social programs to benefit
humanity to an obscene war machine (which catalyzed the Diaspora
in New Orleans).
4. The frightening
attacks on Habeas
Corpus and Posse Comitatus.
5. Wiretapping and
eavesdropping by "Big Brother"
6. Increasingly
unregulated corporations running roughshod over consumers and the
environment (just keep telling yourself that big corporations have
your best interests "at heart" and that Global Warming is
a myth)
7. Continued unflinching
support for the state terrorists in Israel who are committing a form
of genocide against the Palestinians
8. A widening wealth
gap, an unconscionable concentration of wealth in the hands of
1% of the populace, 45 million Americans without health insurance,
one million homeless Americans, and 13% of Americans living below
poverty level
9. Neocolonial policies
which perpetuate corporate America's capacity to exploit the people
and resources of other nations (i.e. Bolivia)
10. A declared
policy of attaining global domination
11. Flagrant violations
of international law
12. An Orwellian
"Patriot Act" which violates four of the ten Amendments in
the original Bill of Rights
Newsflash: The
American Revolution Is Still Happening
While a fair number of
Americans still suffer from the delusion that we are a benevolent
superpower, painful realities poking us in the eye scream
otherwise. Thankfully, Harvey Kaye's book awoke me to the fact that
the dreams and ideals embodied by some of our Founding Fathers,
particularly Thomas Paine, are not dead. The fact that America has evolved
into a nation ruled by corrupt, bloated plutocrats is not a
reason to despair. Our Constitution is more than "just a
goddamned piece of paper". It is the embodiment of true freedom
and a mechanism for the preservation of the rights of all members of
society. As Kaye's tome chronicles the life and times of Thomas
Paine, and the impact of Paine throughout the history of our nation, Kaye
reveals some powerful aspects of America which transcend the
sewer in which we are mired. The America Paine visualized has been a
work in progress from the beginning. Despite the regression we have
suffered in recent times, the "Promise of America" is not
dead.
Paine's words remind us
that while the ongoing Revolution is daunting, it is well
worth the effort and risk:
"Tyranny,
like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation
with us: That the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. 'Tis
dearness only that gives everything its value."
Kaye's book has inspired
me as I continue my writing and activism on behalf of global
social justice, economic justice, human rights, and intellectual
freedom. The true value of this book is that it is that it serves as
a reminder that America can still rise to Paine's aspirations.
Throughout our history, champions for the down-trodden have
sacrificed their blood, sweat, tears, and even their lives to
progress toward the goal of conquering
the tyranny of America's plutocracy. The Populists,
Progressives, Women's Suffragists, Abolitionists, Anarchists,
Wobblies, Socialists, and members of the civil rights and anti-war
movements were each influenced by Thomas Paine in some fashion.
Who Was Thomas
Paine?
According to Professor
Kaye's depictions, Thomas Paine, a British immigrant to the
American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War, was the
common man incarnate (who happened to have some uncommon gifts).
Born in Thetford, England in 1837 to a Quaker father and an Anglican
mother, Paine grew up in an environment of severe social and
economic inequality. His Quaker father forged young Paine's deep
suspicion of state and religious authority. At thirteen, his parents
withdrew him from school so that he could learn his father's trade
of corset or stay making. The local economy prevented him from
making his living in this field, so in 1756 Paine became a privateer
on a mercenary vessel called the King of Prussia. An avid reader and
student, two years later he found himself in London where he often
attended lectures by self taught, working class dissidents. In
London, he learned the philosophy of John Locke and the art of
rhetoric. He opened his own business as a stay maker and was married
in 1759. Sadly, his wife and baby died in child-birth shortly
thereafter.
Over time, Paine
developed a reputation as a formidable debater and
"wordsmith". Thomas Clio Rickman, Paine's long-time
friend, said of Paine:
He was
tenacious of his opinions, which were bold, acute, and independent,
and which he maintained with ardour, elegance, and argument.
After a second marriage,
which did not last, and a stint as an excise officer, Paine utilized
his friendship with Benjamin Franklin to emigrate to the American
colonies in 1774. Fortunately for the colonists, according to Kaye, "he
had acquired skills and knowledge, tested his courage and intellect,
made friends and contacts, and developed an intolerance of
hypocrisy, injustice, and inequality along with a budding sense of
working people's political potential."
January 10, 1776 marks
an intellectual watershed for the American Revolution. It was
on that day that Paine's unsigned pamphlet called Common
Sense began circulating the streets of Philadelphia.
His scathing critique of Great Britain's government and
compelling argument for the colonies to break ties with their
imperial master ignited a revolutionary flame throughout the
fledgling nation.
By December 4,
1776, the colonies had declared their independence and the American
army was dogged by defeat and hopelessness. Thomas Paine
responded with another powerful dose of writing. The
American Crisis buoyed sagging spirits and
reinvigorated the colonists as they fought to forge a sovereign
nation. Paine spurred on his fellow revolutionaries with this
opening line:
THESE are
the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine
patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country
but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman.
Having done his part to
spark and perpetuate the American Revolution, remaining true to the
way he defined himself ("my country is the world,
and my religion is to do good..."), Paine left
America in 1782 to return to England. There he continued to wage the
battle for the common man by publishing The
Rights of Man, which supported the French Revolution
and decried monarchy. Charged by the British government with
seditious libel, Paine fled to Paris. He became a French citizen and
became involved in politics. When he opposed the execution of Louis
XVI, he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. It was from his
cell that he penned The
Age of Reason, which incurred the wrath of many
Christians because of its exposure of the contradictions, untruths,
and immoralities contained in the Bible. Despite his professed
Deism, Paine's memory is dogged to this day with charges of atheism.
James Monroe managed to
secure a stay of execution and freedom for Paine. In 1802 he
returned to America to discover that The Age of Reason
had ruined his reputation with many Americans. Paine's stubborn
commitment to the working class, human rights, spiritual freedom, and
reason had cost him dearly. He died in New York in 1809,
poverty-stricken and a pariah.
Which Father
Knew Best? The Answer Depends on Your "Pedigree"
Thomas Paine and
the Promise of America by Harvey Kaye (a professor of
history at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay), serves as
a powerful reminder that the American Revolution may not have
started without Common Sense or may have failed
without The American Crisis. It also
reminds us that the ongoing American social and political revolution
(which has advanced the rights of women, minorities, workers, the
poor, farmers, and consumers) embodies the spirit of Thomas Paine
rather than that of those Founding Fathers who were wealthy
aristocrats, owned slaves, opposed the Bill of Rights, and
limited the inclusion of the "common people" in the
nation's power structure.
With the advent of the
Bush Regimes (both I and II), an amoral plutocracy (or Miscreant
Dynasty) has seized virtually absolute power in our nation.
While most of our presidents have represented America's aristocracy
first and foremost, virtually all of them advanced the cause of the
poor and working class to some degree. Bush I and II and their
myriad criminal accomplices, including Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Rice and a host of plutocrats quietly working behind the
scenes, have hijacked the America that Thomas Paine had foreseen.
Meanwhile, a majority of Americans (largely pacified by
consumerism, popular culture, and propaganda) have stood idly by as
unwitting victims and accomplices.
A nation is an
abstraction, a complex and intricate set of dynamics involving many
people and processes. It is in a constant state of flux and is not
easily definable. However, in recent history, generally speaking,
the United States has morphed into a social and political cesspool
viewed contemptuously by most of the world. We have strayed woefully
far from the "Promise of America", but as Kaye's powerful
analysis of Thomas Paine and his impact on the evolution of our
nation reveals, it is not too late to fulfill that promise. George
Washington is the father of a country ruled by the wealthy elite.
The spirit of Thomas Paine is poised to become the father of a
nation ruled by all Americans. It is time that "We the
People" adopt a new father and wrest the power away from a
group of narcissistic, avaricious malefactors who are the
enemies of humanity.
As Sinclair Lewis warned
in It
Can't Happen Here, tyranny can arise in highly
unexpected places. And it has. If enough of us join together,
exhibit fortitude and patience, and take
action, we can put an end to this nightmare. For a motivational
jump-start and an awakening to what America was meant to be (and
still can be), I highly recommend Thomas Paine and the
Promise of America by Harvey Kaye.
Jason Miller is a 39
year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. When he
is not spending time with his wife and three sons, researching, or
writing, he is working as a loan counselor. He
is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter of Oxfam
International. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's
Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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