Broken Promises

It's fascinating to be reading about the day to day experience of average soldiers in the Continental Army during the American Revolution as our country wages war in the present day. The language may be different, but the humanity is just the same.

The militiamen and soldiers of the era describe wages and rations that never materialize - not so different from the body armor Bush didn't budget for, or veterans' pensions buried in red tape. Rich men, quick to shout about the importance of freedom and liberty, were just as quick to buy their way out of military service, happy to let the poor and uneducated do the dying on behalf of their principles.

Have we come so far from those days? Are the principles we espouse today - 'making the world safe for democracy' - so different? And are the people doing the fighting so far removed from the working class, debt-ridden citizens of 200 years ago?

I'm a privileged man. I can't say I know what it feels like to weigh the shortage of food on my children's plates against the possibility of my own death in a foreign war. But that's why I'm so skeptical of pronouncing our country's 'obligation' to protect 'freedom' - our own, or others'. What kind of freedom leaves some people safe and sends others to their death based on financial wealth?

When I see a bumper sticker that says 'Freedom Isn't Free' I'm not sure what to think. I agree, for one. Clearly, there's a huge cost being paid by families across the country when so many thousands of people, Americans or not, are dying in a war of which no one can clearly explain the cause. Not to mention the $344 billion we've spent to date making it happen. But the shallow implication of that bumper sticker phrase is this: Freedom isn't free... so stop asking questions and act like you love this war, for the sake of our troops.

It's a very sad day indeed when we feel the need to pressure each other into that sort of thinking in this country - a country built on principles, if not practice, that tout the equality of all people, and the right of each of them to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

I take my privilege very seriously. In fact, I consider it my obligation, in defense of those men and women willing to give their lives to protect me and my family, to use the excellent education I've received, the comfort and safety I enjoy, and the peace in my home, my city and my country to ask the questions that will protect them in their choice to protect me.

Is it appropriate to ask my army to sacrifice months or years, if not their very lives, to protect my access to cheap gasoline? Is it right that our fellow citizens are being put in harm's way to prop up the failed policies of another country, Israel, based on simplistic American Christian fundamentalist ideals? Or to ask them to die for the vague promise of strategic military positioning in the Middle East?

I think these are questions that our fellow citizens in the military deserve answers to - even those who aren't asking these questions out loud. If I were in their shoes, I would hope that the people I was protecting cared enough about me to make sure the cause I fought for was worthy of my great service and sacrifice.

War is a class issue. Any politician who won't talk about class because he fears for his next round of campaign contributions is serving too many masters.

I believe in the principles our country is supposed to be about. I believe they should be questioned, debated, refined, celebrated and most of all practiced. That's why when I hear the phrase 'Freedom isn't Free', people like Tatanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull), Martin Luther King, Jr., and Matthew Shepard come to mind - people who have died and contributed to a legacy of freedom that I'm enjoying today. The question is, am I spending my time lounging in that freedom given to me, or am I continuing the work, creating and preserving freedom for my children?

'Rank-and-File Rebels'

The first section of Ray Raphael's A People's History of the American Revolution makes a case that the American Revolution didn't begin with the 'shot heard round the world' at Lexington, as nearly every US history text book claims, but with a broad popular organizing and uprising two summers earlier.

Uneducated, landless common people refused the British monarchy's authority by disallowing the Crown's courts to open all across the state, asserting their rights as free people to determine their own legal and social affairs. Thousands of citizens from all over the countryside gathered numerous times throughout the Massachusetts colony, physically barring the agents of King George III from unilaterally determining their communities' fates. The Crown's influence in Massachusetts remained only on paper. As Raphael puts it,

This was the first major shift of political authority from the British to the Americans. One government was overthrown, another quickly took its place. A new state was born, and eventually a new country.

Why is such a monumental event, this massive rising of the people, not included in the oft-told tale of our nation's beginnings? Such a serious lapse in reporting gives cause to wonder. Without bloodshed, without famous personalities, and without a singular event or unique location, the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 has been neglected by history. (Raphael, 46)

This is one of what I'm sure will be hundreds of similarly forgotten events, and learning about it brings up one of the central questions I have in undertaking this reading project: What role did rich, white men play in creating our country?

The usual narrative of our country has been told only in terms of the white male personalities. And the post-modern examination of that narrative has brought out all kinds of important stories from history, showing us how much of our country's 'progress' has been possible only due to the obscene abuses of slavery, genocide, and an economics of scarcity that values human beings for their capacity to generate capital, regardless of the impact on the poor, the environment, or the future. The unpleasant underside of the famous 'founding fathers' is an important story to be told and understood by Americans.

But it also seems accurate to say that the myth, however false, of purely virtuous, freedom-loving founders has had a huge impact on how we Americans see ourselves. Real, authentic love of freedom and justice, I would suppose, has been generated based on these stories.

I can speak for myself and say that the things I love most about the United States are rooted in my sense of the idea behind all of this: that all humans are created equal, and have certain inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's consistent with my experience of the world, with my belief of the message of Christ, and has produced all kinds of positive change in the world as oppressed peoples have claimed these ideals for themselves.

And so our country's 'creation myth' can't simply be replaced with a story of awful injustices. What's ironic is that the stories like this one of the Massachusetts Revolution are so much more inspiring, hopeful and relevant to real people than the silly, false stories of Washington and his cherry tree, or Lincoln being born in a log cabin he built with his own two hands. We need heroes, I guess, to help us understand what kind of people we come from. But our heroes are lacking in relevance, breadth, and truthfulness.

I want real heroes who made real stands for justice and love, and who deserve to be venerated. I want heroes who, like me and the rest of America, have incredible short-comings and incredible strengths. I want to give honor and remembrance to people who earned it, despite their weaknesses, whether they look like me, spoke my language, worshiped my God, or shared my political views.

If Washington is a hero who deserves his own holiday, his face on the $1 bill, and our capital named in his honor, I want proof. If he doesn't deserve it in the light of honest, accurate historical examination, then we should take back our veneration and find one of the real heroes who made our country possible.

My suspiscion is that there's a lot more to our famous personalities than is widely known, and that many of them do deserve to be honored, but for very different reasons than our 5th grade teachers knew ho wto explain. My hope is that by reading from multiple sources and taking everything with a grain of salt, I'll uncover the real people who made the United States what it is today, get a better understanding of who's been left out of the story and why, and know better who to thank and who to blame for the complicated, broken and beautiful country I call home.

Background

While it might seem like the reading of 42 books is a big undertaking, the selecting of the books is turning out to be a major challenge in itself. Certainly, for some presidents, I'm expecting to run into a long list of possible biographies to read. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.

But as I began thinking about what sort of Washington biography to start with, I realized that it would make sense to get a little background on how the Presidency was designed, intended, and what the debates were around the time of the Constitutional Convention that created it. So I could start with the Constitution. But even before that is the Revolution, and the colonial period that led up to it.

The questions I'm running into now are how to focus the scope of this project so it doesn't turn into an attempt to understand and review all facets of American history.

I've decided it's worth putting in a little background reading right here at the beginning, to help me define what it is I'm looking for and hoping to get out of this exercise. With that in mind, I've found a few different books to help me get started, which I'll respond to in the next several postings.

First is A Peoples' History of the American Revolution - part of a series edited by Howard Zinn, world-renowned author of the fascinating and essential A Peoples' History of the United States. A few different people I've told about this project have brought up the important point that I could end up frustrated by reading a long and winding tale of the heroes of American history, without touching the surface of the real cultural context of their presidencies. With that in mind, I do plan to contextualize this reading of biographies with books like this that will hopefully give a balance to the all-too-frequent deification of rich white men in our country's historical record. I'm really excited about this book.

I've also checked out 1776 by David McCullough, who's recently had a lot of attention for his biography of John Adams. I like what I've seen of his work, and I think more recent books like this one (written in a context that generally pays more attention to the difference between what really happened and what we'd like to believe about ourselves, good or bad) will probably over a more broad perspective than earlier books.

The Washington biography that's been recommended to me by a few different people is His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis. Looks good, and I can't wait to read it!

Starting Out

I've created a project for myself, and setting up a blog seemed like a good way to hold me accountable to it. I'm going to read a biography of every US president, in chronological order.

I want to understand more about how my country came to be the way it is, in all its complexity, both hopeful and sad.

Send me a note if you have a biography to recommend!