Here is the transcript of a lecture I delivered for RTF on the subject of Frederick Douglass. It is a pretty heated situation in the United States right now, pretty much likened to a second civil war in the sense of there being a clash as to what is to be the identity of the United States going forward. This of course calls into question, what was the identity of the United States from the past, and what are the reasons we would have of either continuing that legacy or uprooting it moving forward.
That was beautiful. We’re standing at an important crossroads. Or maybe the razor’s edge. Recognizing that even at our worst , we all, everyone, is operating in a system that has never served our humanity, and we are all trapped in it; that’s how we can go forward together. “Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning.”
Thank you for this brilliant analysis and for sharing the important insights offered by Fredrick Douglas and his admiration for the values and principles expressed in the US constitution, even if they have been too often subverted, i.e., the fact that the evil institution of slavery was never condoned by this document.
Have you done an analysis of how Ben Franklin or any other founding fathers who promoted liberty, sovereignty and self-determination may have attempted to integrate these principles in their approach to relations with the nations of indigenous peoples who already inhabited the land that later became the United States? We know about the damage done by colonist and imperialist forces, but were there ever efforts by anyone to ask permission to co-inhabit the land and collaborate with mutual respect on sharing/exhanging resources and cultural assets? What role did the Iroquois confederacy play and what happened to that connection? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz addresses often ignored realities of rampant land theft, ethnic cleansing and genocide in her book "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" that haunt us still today. Addressing this aspect of our history honestly and with humility needs to be a part of figuring out how to identify and build upon the positive and constructive innovations that the US brought forth, doesn't it? I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts and any references to work you or your colleagues have done in this area. Thanks again!
Oh! I'm responding as I'm reading and SO GLAD that you're bringing attention to this. I don't know how far you and Matt have gotten in my book (which you didn't have, of course, when you presented this two years ago) but you'll especially like the chapter on The Short Eventful Life of Sovereign Money that talks about the Constitution as a coup that enshrined slavery along with a debt-economy to the British bankers. I quote NY Judge Robert Yates, who wrote as the 'anti-Federalist' Brutus against the Consitution:
"What adds to the evil is that these states are to be permitted to continue the inhuman traffic of importing slaves until the year 1808--and for every cargo of these unhappy people, which unfeeling, unprincipled, barbarous, and avaricious wretches may tear from their country, friends, and tender connections and bring into those states, they are to be rewarded by having an increase of members in the general assembly."
Your opening question in this lecture is brilliant, Cynthia. It's really what our whole dilemma comes down to. And pride in your ancestors or race is just as unwarranted as guilt or shame. We need, I think, to look at bad behaviors in the past and ask "what would have made me do the same?" If we think we never would have done that thing, we're assuming ourselves to have been born morally superior. Even if that were true, absurd as it is, it's still no cause for pride because we didn't create ourselves. There's only nature and nurture--and nurture means the system. Analyzing the system to see why it creates bad behavior is the most important thing we can do to prevent them in the future.
Once you realize that the U.S. Empire is the biggest terrorist organization on the planet, has cause untold death and destruction in the name of global hegemony and resource exploitation, it becomes hard to be a "proud American." Most people have absolutely clue that the U.S. Empire has been causing so much destruction since the Spanish American War; they need to read their history with a critical eye, and they need to look at how much carnage we have caused in every corner of the world since then. The myth of the "shining city on the hill" is just that, a myth. And TPTB who have perpetuated that myth are perfectly happy to let Americans think they are "exceptional," and not like those sloven hordes in the rest of the world. And I say this as a 35-year veteran. Would that I knew then what a know now.
That was beautiful. We’re standing at an important crossroads. Or maybe the razor’s edge. Recognizing that even at our worst , we all, everyone, is operating in a system that has never served our humanity, and we are all trapped in it; that’s how we can go forward together. “Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning.”
Thank you for this brilliant analysis and for sharing the important insights offered by Fredrick Douglas and his admiration for the values and principles expressed in the US constitution, even if they have been too often subverted, i.e., the fact that the evil institution of slavery was never condoned by this document.
Have you done an analysis of how Ben Franklin or any other founding fathers who promoted liberty, sovereignty and self-determination may have attempted to integrate these principles in their approach to relations with the nations of indigenous peoples who already inhabited the land that later became the United States? We know about the damage done by colonist and imperialist forces, but were there ever efforts by anyone to ask permission to co-inhabit the land and collaborate with mutual respect on sharing/exhanging resources and cultural assets? What role did the Iroquois confederacy play and what happened to that connection? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz addresses often ignored realities of rampant land theft, ethnic cleansing and genocide in her book "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" that haunt us still today. Addressing this aspect of our history honestly and with humility needs to be a part of figuring out how to identify and build upon the positive and constructive innovations that the US brought forth, doesn't it? I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts and any references to work you or your colleagues have done in this area. Thanks again!
A vast article but find it difficult to know what to choose upon to be a fair comment.
So this is what I say.
I don’t accept we are flawed or the concept of perfection as having a bearing on our troubles.
In living we experience , listen and learn by doing so and understand in ways unlike the stone on the beach washed over by the waves.
Life has a memory from its dawn and coexisting with time to alter itself and thrive.
Some are still confused and think we are still that stone and ask what has gone wrong in a God’s universe.
We are living and its time to wake up to appreciate what this is all about.
Its not a lesson taught in school and those who think we are a machine as defined by science in a finite way are wrong.
Its time to reconsider that life is worth it.
Brilliant! Thank you Cynthia.
Oh! I'm responding as I'm reading and SO GLAD that you're bringing attention to this. I don't know how far you and Matt have gotten in my book (which you didn't have, of course, when you presented this two years ago) but you'll especially like the chapter on The Short Eventful Life of Sovereign Money that talks about the Constitution as a coup that enshrined slavery along with a debt-economy to the British bankers. I quote NY Judge Robert Yates, who wrote as the 'anti-Federalist' Brutus against the Consitution:
"What adds to the evil is that these states are to be permitted to continue the inhuman traffic of importing slaves until the year 1808--and for every cargo of these unhappy people, which unfeeling, unprincipled, barbarous, and avaricious wretches may tear from their country, friends, and tender connections and bring into those states, they are to be rewarded by having an increase of members in the general assembly."
Your opening question in this lecture is brilliant, Cynthia. It's really what our whole dilemma comes down to. And pride in your ancestors or race is just as unwarranted as guilt or shame. We need, I think, to look at bad behaviors in the past and ask "what would have made me do the same?" If we think we never would have done that thing, we're assuming ourselves to have been born morally superior. Even if that were true, absurd as it is, it's still no cause for pride because we didn't create ourselves. There's only nature and nurture--and nurture means the system. Analyzing the system to see why it creates bad behavior is the most important thing we can do to prevent them in the future.
Thank you. I always learn from your articles.
Once you realize that the U.S. Empire is the biggest terrorist organization on the planet, has cause untold death and destruction in the name of global hegemony and resource exploitation, it becomes hard to be a "proud American." Most people have absolutely clue that the U.S. Empire has been causing so much destruction since the Spanish American War; they need to read their history with a critical eye, and they need to look at how much carnage we have caused in every corner of the world since then. The myth of the "shining city on the hill" is just that, a myth. And TPTB who have perpetuated that myth are perfectly happy to let Americans think they are "exceptional," and not like those sloven hordes in the rest of the world. And I say this as a 35-year veteran. Would that I knew then what a know now.