The Declaration of Independence Redux

I thought this would be a good time to actually reread and review the actual document American's hold so dear without understanding the full implications of it in the present world. It really could be about right now and not always about King George. "He" means "He" except where it could be "She". It all depends on where you are.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — 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 forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

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 called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

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 obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

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 erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

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.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

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 depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Indians never had a chance with this attitude in mind.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great B

Hilary Clinton-Lessons in Old Commentary

 

Yes, I understand Hilary is old news and maybe even no news, but sometimes there are lessons in going back ( after all isn't that what historians do?) over the lessons of the past to get to the future. I think so.

Hilary Clinton 2016

As I watch a Hilary Clinton clip from 1995 where she passionately expounds on the rights of women being the rights of all, I can hardly contain my skepticism of her.

What I feel about Hilary Clinton is what I feel about all political con men.  A con man will not tell you anything that s(he) does not already know that you know.  When Hilary Clinton or any other politician says what millions before her and contemporaneous with her are saying, she is only saying it because she has the power of wealth to say it. She, like most politicians, has no real philosophy or belief other than an expedient liberal plea and support of those who back her. She does not lead, she follows the shallow interests of her own class and the misinformed chants of her supporters.

Don’t worry about her, she’ll always be able to take care of herself but please don’t pretend she can take care of anyone else.

 Funny, I can imagine her actually being elected as I couldn’t believe Obama would be. There is something to the notion that having an edge, such as race or sex, or wealth does mean something because no matter how rich you are you can make people believe you understand poverty, no matter how little you actually worked to survive, you can make people believe you understand their plight, and no matter how far away from your own race or sex or social status experience you can make people believe you share the same values by appealing to their interests, interests which you've never really had to experience in your own life.

Always remember that when going to the polls. Does this person I'm voting for really understand anything about my kind.

all the many reasons it will only change when we mean it to.

 written in 2008

I always attempt to show why or at least how history shows that whether it is palestine, cuba, vietnam, old or young, rich or poor, nothing ever changes not because it's not meant to, but because its not supposed to. And, of course, thats where we come in, do we mean it to?

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Conquest, War, Famine and Death

Famine, Pestilence, War, Cruelty, Climate Change, Arrogance

There's a stretch between Mexicali and San Felipe between two small mountain ranges that is just a two- lane road with no shoulders and drop offs on each side, about twenty feet almost straight down. At the bottom of the drop off road shoulders is the occasional wreck, someone who went off and depending on the shape of the vehicle, one may be able to safely predict whether or not anyone survived. It's not far down there but depending on what wheels go over first, a rollover is almost certainly guaranteed. I've never been over this stretch of road without thinking about the fates of the previous drivers and their passengers who went over. It's about an hour out of Mexicali, there is no cell phone service, about an hour out of San Felipe, the eventual destination of the road. Help is not immediately on the way if there are any problems at all.

Before I left, my back was hurting from my usual out of the ordinary heavy work I have to do whenever I go to my Arizona straw bale cabin. I took a high dosage ibuprofen in the morning, one a couple of hours later and a third just before I crossed the border. I was feeling a little drowsy but not worse than I've felt before while driving. 

It was that stretch described above, that I've driven dozens of times before, that I fell asleep for the first time ever, drifted over to the other side, and just before I went over, I snapped awake and turned back across into my proper lane. 

Taz, my dog, never knew the difference and was asleep behind my seat. No one was behind me or approaching me. No one saw anything. I drove on but much more awake than a few seconds before.

Being more mortal that moment, i thought about what sociologists say how we're unable to deal with our own mortality we don't have actual policies that relate to those who are going to die. The reality is, politicians don’t make policy for those who are no longer useful. I can hardly wait for the likes of Sarah Palin to reach the point of no return in her own mind. Depending on how much reserve she has in that cache of sarcasm she relies on to put money in the cache, surely, she doesn’t use banks, she seems like an under the mattress kind of gal, letting her guns and Todd speak for her as to security matters. (Yes, I know, Sarah Palin in 2024 is just a memory but remember, she was part of that continuum that brought us the actual election of DT in 2016).

Well, my friends, there is a reason for this and it isn't because we're unable to deal with the idea of dying. It's because there is only one group of people who understand dying and its those who are getting closer by day to the end of their life, the terminally ill, the chronically ill, and most of all, the elderly. I say elderly most of all because they are the ones who live on, in relative health, as the end creeps slowly toward them. These moral groups are not asked about what services they need to make living in old age more compatible mainly because society doesn't want to deal with the end when it rather wants to deal in dreams and the future, not the end of life which can be excruciatingly long for those who do not do well.

There comes a time when we turn our bodies control over to the scientists from the State. If you are unfortunate enough to begin the long road of dementia, you will be kept alive no matter how long you reject the necessary, basic survival needs, such as eating and sleeping. If you are solely dependent on drugs to sustain yourself, prevent pain, and eventually, become drug dependent, which you most certainly will be, quality of life is not only diminished but is non-existent.

It's not longevity that's the issue. Women stop reproduction by the forties. 

Leftist would say that the proclivity to reproduce is worker related, thus capitalism is to blame. It's as if we were made for it. 

Life is so much more than that.

Coming down off the Grade into the Central Valley, it looks as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have already been here. I read a couple of articles the ranchers, farmers, if they can be called that, complaining they are being starved out of business by the environmentalists who have shut down the Big Pumps up in the Sacramento Delta because of salmon and small fry fish, the delta smelt. I drive past miles of empty, dusty, and barren land that I suppose is the example of what them "farmers" are talking about. This is the land the Okies came to, once upon a time when the Midwest looked like this. It's obvious those Okies who came as workers didn't all buy huge tracts of land and become the owners whereas they were the migrants back a mess of decades ago. Are these the same guys who left Oklahoma after they laid that to waste too?  Let the historians’ figure that, but it's obvious that somewhere out here lies a bigger problem than the one that big Farms want to lay at the feet of liberals and environmentalists. It's hard to believe that the water they say they aren't getting would be enough. The wind is blowing and the dirt peels off in huge clouds. Topsoil and bottom soil, looks like to me. Why is it that when it comes to socialism, the rich money boys want everyone to share what they don't have but need, in this case, water, but when it comes to them looking at the way they've made a lot of money with wasteful and destructive growing. These are the same folks who, over in Delano, didn't want to pay migrant workers shit or want to provide decent working conditions. Another group of liberals. What little I know about growing, just looking around here, seems to verify what I do know, that people since time immemorial have stripped the earth in every way imaginable, sometimes to eke out a living and sometimes to just take what they can.

There are big environmental problems. Water is one of the biggest. It's never been equally distributed around the globe, either too much, too little. What's wrong though isn't the unequal distribution but the inegalitarian way in which, not only water, but food and resources are shared throughout the globe. 

The problem is, it isn't shared. It's all about ownership. It's all about Human profit. Give the water to the Big Water Farms of Kern County and within a few years, especially if drought doesn't change, salmon and small fry fish will disappear, along with all the fish and fowl that rely on them, in addition, the farms themselves we be desolate because when time marches on without water, it’s like heading out across the Mojave relying on luck and God to keep you fed and watered. It's more than just about us.

We, meaning all of us, rich and poor have to make the adjustment. If we let Big Ag make all the decisions, we'll end up resource poor and environmentally destitute. We'll have barren land and NO salmon or small fry fish.

 

Reality vs TV

We live in a world of make believe. Religion and the false promise of security.

 God or the nation state relieve us from our responsibility. to control ourselves.

 Even though most of us would never kill, even under dire circumstances or only by accident defending our real selves and not the mental state we create around us like a security blanket, a real boundary.

If we look at TV listings, we see that there is a creativity by writers to provide us just enough "reality" to believe that even if the world isn't that perfect it could be under the right fantasy,

Men and women work together to rid the highly creative and deceptive serial killers or "human monstrosity" which, according to somebody, may actually exist. Very similar to the "terrorists" that we believe who will, if not now, someday look for the reason to harm us even though we are thousands of miles away.

We forget that in the last century, which is the century that most of us lived in longer than this one, the most horrible conflicts on earth were created by the workings of western civilization, and in fact, since those horrible conflicts, what's come after, is not the logical outcome of those conflicts but the created, man- made illusion of trying to make sure those conflicts never happen again, yet they continue to prepare for the next one.

It well might be that those conflicts never happen again because now we seem to have "progressed" to the point that the next one will be less western oriented and origin based because white western philosophy now seems to have focused on the brown, non- Christian populations that western societies have dominated and controlled for centuries. 

The overthrow of apartheid in South Africa and the rise of non- Christian based, conservative philosophies and practices makes our examples, such as Cuba and Venezuela, in our hemisphere small meat and potatoes seem even more lean indeed.

Yet we, as a nation state, continue to try and hold everything together like a giant glue made from weapons and preposterous notions of world economics, economies based in the very system that created the worst conflicts of the last century.

I guess they believe they have it all under control now.

Ebola is a good example of our ignorance of how ideologies and diseases spread. We're so ignorant that our policies almost demand total compliance(meaning understanding) to principals that were outdated a long time ago. We've given ourselves free rein- a cowboy term- demonstrating that a horse, like any natural animal will wander away if left to their own devices. And that's where we are today.

We've wandered away from our basic principles which were never that strong within us anyway. We don't have the democracy in us because we've let corporations run the supposed free political cycle. In this case, the word “free"

is a misnomer. We no longer have a coherent foreign policy

because we've let the military commandeer all our strategies for change be up to weapons and corporate profit policies. "Intelligence" in this case is another misnomer. 

Where TV comes into it is the maintenance of our institutional structures through our imagination doesn't bother filling in real facts with anything we see.

Everything runs smoothly in the TV world and when it doesn't because we have to have some tension or conflict, right, then the resolution is at least promising in reflecting our core values. "Core values" is also a misnomer here.

 

Cuba, Another reason why I won't vote for anybody's ticket.

Being an anarchist, allows me to run in the middle of the two disparate philosophies regarding Cuba. The dominant US policy

of sanctions and isolation of Cuba always weighs in at being the most unforgiving and perfect example of the way US foreign policy works. The US policy in Cuba has been passed down from president to president, from generation to generation for so long most people no longer understand or even have any knowledge of why we continue to sanction Cuba. It's almost as if it is in the constitution. There are two basic reasons, one, the Florida Cuban exile community holds Florida politics and  maybe even more so, national electoral politics in its fist and the other reason as stated by many of our politicians, The Castro brothers were dictators, as if these dictators were different than any other dictators we have not only supported but actually brought to power through our own dictatorial methods such as election manipulation, assassination, or military coup. So, even if we use reason to try and determine this policy, reason, our great white forefather engendered philosophy doesn't pan out. Basically, it is a military decision based on the premise of why give up control once you got control? This philosophy is more understandable to the patriot and the politician and is the culture upon which our foreign policy originates.

Never give back what you’ve taken by force or control by domination.

On the other side of the coin on which I stand there is the fact that Cuba is politically speaking, a communist/socialist country and possibly has evolved into an autocratic state, when it comes down to decision making. To tell you the truth, not being Cuban and having only visited there several times, I cannot really say how their political system works. I am familiar with the medical side of Cuban politics and what I see there seems genuinely progressive.

But I come not to praise Cuba but to bury the USA. 

I will not vote for anybody in the two-party system. I made this vow a while ago. I don't believe things have gotten better, in fact, social/political policy in the US has gotten worse for most of the people, here and worldwide, and we can hold the policies of the US Government responsible for much of what is happening in the world today. World leaders can have all the photo ops shaking hands with the devil but it doesn't have anything to do with the whitewash we are being inundated with by the media, etc.

When I made that vow, I used Cuba policy as my guideline. If our system of determining presidents cannot produce one that can shift the future course of America in any way whatsoever, then why vote? If the election of Obama and the real possibility of Hilary being elected president based on her weak and corrupted views but asserting that if elected having first a black president and then a woman president reinvents the American myth of "anyone can be president", it's something we already knew when the unique and stupidly arrogant George Bush was elected. Obama has reproved what Bill Clinton already proved

and that is popular culture presidents, like Hillary will be, just goes to show you what a black hole America has turned into.

So, my next president will not be a military president nor will it be "I am the world leader" president and not the "but you have to make me do it, and if you don't then it's your fault" president. 

I'm telling you all, none of what we have is worth what the future looks like we're making it become.

Give Guatanamo back to the Cubans and let them expand their International medical school to rid that navy base of its bad juju, lift the sanctions so they can try to make progress and we can see if the grand experiment works out.

I know that's like asking the devil who wears the stars on his shoulder to step away from his madness for the sake of humanity. But asking is the only polite way before making revolution.

.

Only a few actual issues

written 2022 There are only a few actual issues in the world which are repeated often enough, over and over, throughout history, it seems to anyone in the present, wherever that present may be, disguised as something new by modern technology and conventional wisdom, it may all seem new. Because History doesnt reflect reality of the historical moment, being built on whoever is in power and managing the interpretation of the moment, reality always seems to contain a strong element of unresolved, complicated nuances. This is, mainly because over the course of centuries, men have controlled the narrative through their religions and insistence that nations, governments are the most ordinate of authority, next to god. In the rare occurrence when a woman or man who understands what limits power inherently has, that it normally corrupts, these have been unable to do little to change the discourse to a more real relationship between government and governed. They are, first, the main elephants in the room being SEX. Then there is FEAR, and the icing is CONTROL... Almost all law, all traditions, all hierarchies, all nation states base their continued existence on the ability to manage the general public's ability or inability to handle basic and universal survival, which governs work, value, economic, both at the simplest exchange level and at the heightened reality of control of resources and principles of ownership set by the authorities managing money, time, and debt. Survival is not just a tv show where people live by their wits off the land, but day to day living in any nation on earth. As modern nation states, all rely on the three themes mentioned above to manage each persons ability to survive. The main aspect of Control is Division. Divide and conquer is an old adage, but true, nevertheless. Its hard for anyone to imagine that at some time in human world history that life in a social, communal environment was far less problematic. This isnt to say that life was problem free. Weather, climate change, and other uncontrollable forces played a part in making life not perfect. All the problems of modern life and the change in perspective are illustrated in all the early stories, mythologies, magical thinking religions, old and new testaments, chronologies, some of which continue today. The gods were humans and have alway contained human personality with all its foibles, strengths, and excessive power. Interestingly, the women gods eventually fell to the wayside as the so-called modern religions and customs focused that power unto men and, and in the case of the main modern gods or their messengers, male personalities. Most of these gods, if not, their followers, are as fucked up as their faithful believers, filled up with hate, revenge, ethnocentric, magical thinking blather about make believe heaven and hells. Punishment is a big thing in religion as it is in all nation's services to the people. Unfortunately, if one is to believe christian belief in the love of jesus christ, few christians rely on their charity to get themselves to heaven or paradise. They're too busy making worldwide mischief, creating irreconcilable notions about women, sex, race, ethnicity, other religions, and their neighbor. One example of all this is the current situation in Old Palestine or New Israel, however you want to call it. Prior to the twentieth century, palestinians and jews lived pretty peacefully together for centuries. Then the british, french and a host of arab princes came and began fostering ideas of liberation or acquiescence to a colonial power. People were forced to take sides, allegiances. Today we might say life was harder then, but that notion is only an evolution of a false claim that authorities new and modern for the times colonialist ideas of capital, resource control, and ownership, the triumvirate of chaos, became the order of the day. They were indispensable in establishing security and safety in the chaotic system they created. The modern age has brought us more and more sophisticated methods of control. No longer the whip nor the sword, control of media and knowledge, has become the subtle weapon of choice. This method of choice is clearly anti-democratic, that is if democratic means the general population shares certain acknowledgement of egalitarian values. Common sense values. Common sense values. Not based in fear. If a mother is fearful of a gay person teaching at her child's school is a fear not based in any real circumstance any more than a belief in the previous centuries that jews kidnapped children and desecrated their bodies in some way, then what is our fear running on. Pure mythology. No one really believes Jews kill and eat children nor should they believe Palestinians hate jews more than they hate the fact everyone, including colonial powers took away their basic need for survival, and made the jews in Israel their captors. It's all about governments and who controls them. Who controls our government, if not us?