The United States has just had an almost 50-50 split on the concept of what our country is, of what our country should be, but, more than that, of who our country should be.
It caused me to take my coffee time this morning to take a read of the Declaration of Independence, because so many Americans like to say that they know the original intent of the Founding Fathers. I do not claim to know their original intent at all, but I did find the Declaration of Independence to be beautifully written, and to me, very clear.
First, I want to share this image of one of my favorite national monuments with you, because, just like when you see it in Washington DC, it is surprising, and takes my breath away:
I want to use part of this post to call on us all to remember what has been given so that we can continue this experiment in democracy, this experiement of liberty and justice for all, this government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and though it is maybe too easy to get behind one man, and too hard, too abstract, to try to get behind 334 million humans, never was this grand experiement to be for only one man.
And so I read the Declaration of Independence today, and of course there is this part that almost all Americans know:
“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.–“
But what I found interesting this morning, in this beautifully-written document, were these sections:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
That’s not the entire document, just the parts I found interesting this morning as I think back over the last 100 or so days. Are things so different now than they were then? Have we gone forward to go back?
You can read the whole transcript at the National Archives.
In times like these we can experience anger that can feel overwhelming.
Or we can experience hopelessness that can take all our breath away.
For myself, as my daughter is an immigrant, these times are making me nervous. Many people legally adopted from foreign countries into the United States have been unjustly deported, so you can imagine how a mother would fret when she senses a taste for blood in the crowd.
In times like these we need something unexpected to come along and lift us from our sticky mood, because we have work to do! We have to get back to the business of trying to create a world we’re proud to live in.
So to this I say, “America, I’m with you!”
Because I have my doubts you’ll read the whole thing, here is the third section of the mighty
“Howl” by (the wonderous) Allen Ginsberg:
III
Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland
where you’re madder than I am
I’m with you in Rockland
where you must feel very strange
I’m with you in Rockland
where you imitate the shade of my mother
I’m with you in Rockland
where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries
I’m with you in Rockland
where you laugh at this invisible humor
I’m with you in Rockland
where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I’m with you in Rockland
where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio
I’m with you in Rockland
where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses
I’m with you in Rockland
where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
I’m with you in Rockland
where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx
I’m with you in Rockland
where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss
I’m with you in Rockland
where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse
I’m with you in Rockland
where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void
I’m with you in Rockland
where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha
I’m with you in Rockland
where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb
I’m with you in Rockland
where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I’m with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep
I’m with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re free
I’m with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night
My fellow Americans (if I can be so bold to type those words) we will, I believe, endure, as we have for so long. And we will be here for each other, as ever we have been.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Much love to all~ Dianne
OLD SCRATCH PRESS 