Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun
Showing posts with label Fourth of July. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fourth of July. Show all posts

Sunday, July 4, 2021

An American Lamentation and A Toast!

 



        (California Central Coast) Here's a view from the western edge of this old democratic republic as it rounds 245 years.

      Demanding and challenging times are ahead. 

      After the exile of the pandemic we arrive at this anniversary of our noble and declared aspirations only to be confronted by who we have become, or a recognition of who we have always been. Proportion and public acceptance has changed. 

       In the light of freedom from monkhood and the glow of returning to friends and work and life in a nation under a steady hand, we see the enemy amongst us.  

 

        It is telling the vaccinated can live with assurance, but 30% of the nation will continue to die and suffer because they remain unvaccinated. 

        Two and half centuries of commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, following our revolution against despotism, finds us divided and challenged by a fifth column that no longer hides.


        We have become more divided and more ignorant. 



         A bastion of the nation has been split from our constitutional bedrock. The Republican party, has turned against America, rejecting democracy and republic to become agents of autocracy and authoritarianism. 

        Gaining power is the sole principle of Republicans and they employ lies, insurrection, voter suppression and the abandonment of oaths. 

        We can thank the "Natures God" affirmed in the Declaration, and sworn to in oaths of office, there are more Americans committed to democracy. The majority has the capacity to limit the rise of the aggressive fascist, but "they" have become adept at minority "rule."



        They are under attack. 
        A select House Committee, despite Republican opposition, will draw blood on the insurrection investigation.
        Biden's mastery of foreign policy and his decades of Senate law making, though challenged, are serving him and the nation well. He has bi-partisan support among the electorate. His performance with NATO and especially with Putin boosted his standing and served national interests while exposing what a fraud the previous administration amateur hour had been. 
        House and Senate Republicans represent a minority of American voters, but Congressional apportionment and Senate representation give the minority a big stick. That makes the mid-terms crucial. Recruiting and funding good House and State Legislative candidates is a Democrat must, as is another successful massive vote turn out.
        Trump legal issues will mount. There is likely more coming. 
        The Department of Justice is gearing up to enforce election law, even as a rightist Supreme Court attacks the voting rights act.
        The Biden and Democrat plan for gun control and funding of police, co-opts and shuts up Republican carping about crime.
        Democrats have given Republicans the gallows and the noose on voting rights. They may not carry the legislation because of racist and fascist Republicans including Mitch McConnell and his use of blocking tactics, but Democrats and former real Republicans are betting the majority of American voters favor extending voting rights. Polls validate the belief the fascist Republicans are likely to pay at the ballot box. Despite efforts to making voting more difficult, voting activists say the way is still clear for a large turn out. 
        Expect to see our US Capitol begin to resemble a "green zone," a reflection of the troubled times. It's easy to say this national split can be blamed on the rise of Trump, and he certainly contributed by pandering to our worst strain. But the truth at this passage of another year of "independence" is that it has been ever such.
        Nativisim, nationalism, racism, retrograde simple minded ignorance, demagoguery, and the damage they do have been with us from the beginning. Every inch of progress, every law expanding liberty, guaranteeing human dignity and rights has been a battle. 
        Picket lines, demonstrations, voter drives, confrontations, jail, street fights, political deal making, compromises, and pragmatism have been behind every advance toward our noble declarations and aspirations. Some of us are older, hoping it would not require such hard work, but the truth is independence is a fight, a democratic republic is a struggle. The fight is revolutionary against the totality of deception, manipulation, the power of wealth, the politics of favor and greed. 

        The nation has endured dark clouds repeatedly, finding a way to preserve and even repair and improve the union. It may be necessary for the power of the federal government to be brought against those who seek to destroy the republic, even public officials who seek to countermand what has prevailed since 1776, though war, rebellion, assassination, disaster, struggle for equality, and time. 


        Enough politics. Time to toast summer, good cheer and the truth.
         Here's an unexpected summer scene-
     

        I was surprised to see a hybrid electric truck, especially one wearing a famed American logo, on Cambria's main street. Progress?
        

      Here's another piece of Americana-summer gardening. 

You've read here before of our love of fava beans and Lana's considerable labor with them. Case in point..the bowl on the left are the pods, the middle bowl, the inner husk or shell* and on the far right, the bean.  The artichokes are from one of our raised beds and another early summer crop.

            *It's a matter of test about getting rid of the inner husk. I think they add a little flavor. Lana prefers them gone. Here's a secret, I used them, still in the husk, in a recent dish, and she didn't notice, or at least object! 


        We welcome a new member to the blog staff here at world headquarters.
        His name is Sunny. He's been here less than a week and continues to "terrorize" his seniors, Hemingway and Joy. The old cats are learning to accommodate the never ending energy and appetite of the little guy.

        He's got some ears to grow into. Needless to say the grands Addie and Henry, have a new buddy. We all do.

        Cheers.
        Slainte'.

        See you down the trail. 

 

 


        

 

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Which is it?


July 4, 1912- Huntington Indiana
Photo Courtesy of Indiana Historical Society

   Our session on non-violence veered into the topic of patriotism vs jingoism. An interesting conversation followed, probing, defining, and, I thought, a conversation appropriate for this nation at this time. 
     At the least people could afford themselves time to think about the difference between patriotism and jingoism, in light of their own attitudes. It would be a patriotic thing to do.
    Patriotism, a pride in what this nation has done that is honorable and good and an acknowledgement of errors and wrongs is healthy. One sided patriotism is not healthy. Both the good and the bad need to be measured. 
    Jingoism is dangerous and is the province of the stupid.
    The current president is a jingoist. Dangerous because he suffers a mental illness that distorts reality. But he is also dangerous because he is ill informed and dangerous too because he lies almost all then time. 
     His desire for a military parade is not without precedent, but it is jingoistic, as he is, and it is stupid because he has no concept of the context. Veteran analyst and political correspondent Jeff Greenfield observed this on Politico:  

      "...history also suggests there's a good reason that his plan is rubbing people the wrong way. For one, it really is rare; it; far more common for presidents to vacate Washington on the Fourth of July, or to remain at the White House, than to insert themselves into the proceedings.
            And on a more troubling level, what Trump is doing is wreathing himself in the most potent symbols of American history-delivering a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, site of the 1963 March on Washington, looking across at a landscape of monuments-without any appreciation for the history that made that whole landscape possible. Perhaps uniquely among American presidents, he sees himself without any connection to the American story, any link to presidents past, other than his manifest superiority to any of them."
         
         Greenfield notes the sure sign we are dealing with 
an unbalanced man who acts as if he aspires to be a dictator, like those he embraces;

         "Trump prefers to think of himself as the lone, overarching figure who can bend history to his will. "I alone can fix it," he said..."

           He offends sensibility and decency which explains the undeniable fact that a majority of Americans voted for someone else, despite the Russian interference. 
         The American pageant has its sordid and despicable chapters and this is the latest. We have survived our past sins and we have worked over the centuries to improve, to broaden human dignity and to extend liberty. We have been courageous and generous and we will be again. But we came upon this continent as terrorists, invaders, practitioners of genocide and ethnic cleansing. We were slavers, chauvinists, sexists, classists, drunks, racists, xenophobes, cheaters and liars. But some two centuries has refined us and forced us into a stream of history where we are bending toward a better nature, a more civilized and decent nation. We will survive and overcome regressives and new racists like Trump and McConnell. 
           As much as we might desire to be like Moses and call down a plague on the house of the Pharaoh, that is not for us.
        We are the heirs of Democratic Republicans who have battled on philosophy, policy, politics and who have changed positions and minds, but have since the beginning been combined in a hatred of tyrants, kings and dictators. That is a common creed we share. The president we see is not "American," his behavior is anathema to our history, he is not us. We are not his minions and not his subjects. We are his employer and we will not forget that, despite what may be seen on TV or read on twitter.
          The Fourth of July reminds of throwing off a tyrant, of declaring Independence, of being ready to stand in the breech to combat evil oppression. In this season, think about patriotism and jingoism and maybe read the Declaration. Happy Fourth!

blooming for the 4th
     






         Cheers!

         See you down the trail.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

"SATURDAY IN THE PARK, I THINK IT WAS THE FOURTH OF JULY…"*






















   * Thanks to Chicago for the tune and to the American Legion Post in Cambria for putting on the party.

   See you down the trail.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

THE COLORS

A VILLAGE VIEW
   Just about everything is conformed by "village life."
In San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara and elsewhere we still enjoy the urban buzz that connects with our earlier years, but we find a continuing pleasure in how life in a village is personal, intimate, picturesque, eccentric and yes, even a little slow.
    Here Cambria is adorned for the 4th.






So, here's to Jefferson, Adams, the signers all,
 patriots of history and to you! Cheers!

Some time soon find a copy and read it again.
See you down the trail.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

TRULY INDEPENDENT

HOW DO YOU DEFINE RADICAL
   Today's sentiment was launched by thoughtful observations of Jed Duvall and Stephen Hayes who authors the extraordinary blog The Chubby Chatterbox.
   You can read Jed's thoughts in the comments of yesterday's post on the Gettysburg anniversary observations.
    The Chatterbox, which is linked in the column on the right, got my wheels turning.
   This is always a day of melancholy. On the one hand it prompts a childhood sense of joy and delight. On the other it recalls true patriotism, devotion and sacrifice adjoined to how we modern Americans regard the day as little more than a reason to eat, drink, be merry and watch bombs that sparkle instead of those that have more lethal outcomes.
    After all is said, I come down on the thought that more than anything this is a day that should celebrate conviction and principle. John Adam's did not attend 4th of July celebrations, despite his contribution to our birth. He did not because he noted the Declaration was "declared" on July 2nd and he thought that should be the day of observation. The formal declaration was adopted on the 4th, but the actual separation from England occurred on the the 2nd.
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not. (The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, Harvard University Press, 1975, 142).
That is an example of the American spirit. 
JULY 4TH REFERALS
If you have not seen the Gettysburg post
from yesterday,Here is an easy link 
And a true reprise-worth considering again-
A UNIQUELY AMERICAN DAY
Do your self a great favor today.
Take a couple of minutes to read
Here's something to add to your conversation at a barbecue or party today.
Two of the framers and signers of the Declaration
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third 
Presidents of the US, died on July 4th 1826, the 
50th Anniversary of the signing.
Both men had been ill.  Jefferson asked his doctor
"Is it the Fourth yet?"
"It soon will be," Robley Dunglison replied.
Later Jefferson awoke to say,
"I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country."
Adams was asked if he knew what day it was.
"Oh yes.  It is the glorious Fourth of July. It is a great day. It is a good day. God Bless it.  God Bless you all."
He lapsed into unconsciousness. Later he awoke and said
"Thomas Jefferson.  Thomas Jefferson survives."
Actually Jefferson had died a couple of hours earlier.
It remains an amazing coincidence that the two men, infirmed and dying  held on to life until the 50th Anniversary of perhaps America's greatest day.
Happy Independence Day!
See you down the trail.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

THE OTHER WEST COAST & THOUGHTS OF A DEBT CEILING

SUMMER FUN
California friends said "Florida in July?!"
We told them we'll survive just fine.
A visit with our eldest and a family wedding 
brings us to the other west coast, along
the beautiful Gulf of Mexico.
This is where summer fun means the beach.




The gulf also provides a canvass of relaxing scenes.

And as you can note, changing cloudscapes.







A tropical summer offers a vast change from
the central coast.  Stay tuned.


AS THE DEBT CEILING DEBATE CONTINUES
Here's an interesting perspective from
James Surowiecki in the New Yorker
The truth is that the United States doesn’t need, and shouldn’t have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one. There’s no debt limit in the Constitution. And, if Congress really wants to hold down government debt, it already has a way to do so that doesn’t risk economic chaos—namely, the annual budgeting process. The only reason we need to lift the debt ceiling, after all, is to pay for spending that Congress has already authorized. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, we’ll face an absurd scenario in which Congress will have ordered the President to execute two laws that are flatly at odds with each other. If he obeys the debt ceiling, he cannot spend the money that Congress has told him to spend, which is why most government functions will be shut down. Yet if he spends the money as Congress has authorized him to he’ll end up violating the debt ceiling.
Interesting eh?
You can read more of an illuminating article
in the August 2 New Yorker.
 See you down the trail.