We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident....Sorta

David Corenswet

Sitting in a movie house, munching popcorn, and wearing 3-D glasses is a perfectly acceptable way to spend an afternoon. The weather was hot and muggy with lousy air quality due to wildfires in Canada so sub-zero temp air conditioning was a plus. SUPERMAN was okay. I really do think Christopher Reeve was the best Superman ever, although Henry Cavill is fun to look at. This new guy who everyone is so happy is Jewish, David Corenswet, may have a Jewish father, but his own admission, does not necessarily track as Jewish having stated:

If I had any religious upbringing, it was probably a Buddhist upbringing.... Not in a religious sense at all, basically just mindfulness meditation. My family went to a mindfulness retreat center every summer for a week.

Not that it matters. But his "Jewishness," like that of Spielberg's Fievel the Christmas Mouse, should only be regarded as a tangential curiosity, not as some claim to Jewish presence in a film, especially one that is somewhat regarded as anti-Israel, despite the refugee origins of the superhero. Never mind Shuster and Siegel gave Superman the Kryptonian name Kal El...which happens to mean Voice of G-d in Hebrew... let's all dump him in the spin-cycle and make him into whatever. He's fiction, people. 

Still, cultural appropriation is cultural appropriation.

As for the movie, the first half was painfully slow, but the second half moved like gangbusters and was pretty exciting. The absolute best line in the entire movie was about the garage door. I won't tell you what it is, but I'm still laughing at the thought. I had the exact same response in my head before the actor said it. 

So, in the twisted way my mind works, I thought a lot about the messages sent in Superman comics, tv shows, and films over the years. There were the anti-racism posters from the 50's, reissued multiple times with visual adjustments to keep it fresh. Superman himself was a refugee, in fact, an undocumented alien who arrived in a spaceship. Would the government at the time deport him? This one would. As American as Superman is, he is not. Does anyone take that into account? I'm guessing not.

And that got me thinking about national origins. There is a logical leap somewhere in there. Stick with me. I'll get to it. 

I was listening to a podcast about British colonialism and whether or not Israel was a colonial entity as a result of the partition. Unlike the Europeans who came to the "New World," we have tons of documentation tying us to Israel and the land itself. That fracture, in turn, got me thinking about the Declaration of Independence. I hadn't read it in a while, so I pulled it up. After the breath was sucked from my body, I realized what I was reading was not an updated version of public grievances against our government, it was the list submitted to King George III. Written by the "Committee of Five, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, it is commonly believed Jefferson wrote the first draft. There are no surviving notes or documents that describe the actual process. 

Everyone knows how it starts:

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.

 

But when was the last time you read the list of grievances that led to the separation of the 13 Colonies from the Crown? Do that now.

He [King George III] 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 meantime 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 harass 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 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 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 Legislatures, 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 & 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.

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.

I had to double check that I wasn't reading some kind of revised version. I was not. Too many statements on that list just sounded too familiar. How do we break away from that which has become abhorrent ? Perhaps not now,  but when health care fails,  when crops rot in the fields, when classrooms no longer teach science and history but replace them with creationism and revisionism will the vox populi demand action? A change? A revolution?

As we all watch the dominos fall, and they are falling right now especially in agriculture, what action is the wisest course? Will the have-nots settle on a scapegoat like Jews or Mexicans to vent their collective spleen? Or will they finally demand the government respond to the needs of all the people? 

We, the People, broke away from England because the needs of the citizens were simply unmet, they were ignored and denied. Right now, we have a government that is actively working to deny food and healthcare to the lower strata of the population. Insurance companies, medical institutions, and universities all put profit ahead of outcome. I'm not suggesting socialism or, G-d forbid communism, I'm thinking the profit margins are much too deep. Yes, reinvest in research et al, but when is too much profit too much?

The fundamental issues of the 18th century have not changed. The economic pillage of our America now is no different from what King George III and Parliament did to us then. The only difference now is that the enemy is not across the sea....it is us...and it's not a good thing.

Meanwhile, back at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson made the most interesting observation about a paragraph that spoke ill of the English people and was subsequently removed.

The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. 

That's a class act. As repugnant as the idea that we had any friends at all, the committee still chose not to piss them off unnecessarily. Our current leaders could learn from this. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Keep your eye on the availability 

of fresh produce in the coming weeks. 

It's likely to become scarcer and increasingly expensive.