I’m not sure if I feel less worried about nuclear war, considering the mind-numbing number of nuclear devices that have been detonated over the past fifty years, or more frightened at the relentless effort that was made to ensure that these weapons could kill as many people as possible.
There’s been much discussion over the potential loss of the polar bears as a result of the recent melting of polar ice. Many environmentalists have adopted the polar bear as their symbol of the dangers of global warming.
While I have also grown concerned over the environment in recent years and don’t want to see the polar bear disappear from this planet, I think that it might be prudent to revise the Oslo Agreement, which permits the hunting of this supposedly endangered species. The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods," although this has been liberally interpreted by member nations. All nations except Norway allow hunting by the Inuit, and Canada and Denmark allow trophy hunting by tourists.
More than a thousand polar bears per year are killed under the auspices of this treaty.
While I believe that the preservation of longstanding Native American traditions is a good thing, there are certain customs that we may want to put the kibosh on. For example, scalping was a common practice for the North American Indians, but we don’t allow this sort of thing to take place today.
If we are really concerned about the possible extinction of polar bears, why not start by keeping the bullets and arrows out of their heads?
I’m just about finished reading THE BOOK THIEF, which provides a very interesting view of Nazi Germany from the perspective of a child. Among other things, the book portrays a country that is fanatic in assuring its citizens support the German ideals and purpose at all times. Children are indoctrinated into these beliefs through rituals and customs, an active re-packaging of a shared history, and through organizations like The Hitler Youth. From all accounts, it was a highly effective means of assuring that the citizenry supported the Third Reich and all that it represented.
It’s got me thinking about a subject in this country that I have always felt uncertain about: The Pledge of Allegiance.
Specifically, I’ve grown more and more uncomfortable over the years with the process of asking school children to recite the pledge, for a number of reasons.
The first and most obvious problem with our pledge is the reference to God. Since the Constitution clearly establishes a divide between church and state and the government under Washington and Adams clearly asserted that the United States is not a Christian nation, the inclusion of the words under God, which were added in 1954 after a campaign by the Knight’s of Columbus (the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization) brings religion into the public schools in such a way that I consider unconstitutional.
In 2002, a federal court agreed with me, only to have their decision overturned by the Supreme Court two years later. Regardless of the Court’s decision, I think that asking children to recite these words in a public school is unconscionable, and I cannot imagine why it is permitted to continue.
In addition, asking elementary-aged children to pledge their allegiance to a nation, when their understanding of a pledge, the nation to which they are pledging their allegiance, and the implications of such a pledge, is limited at best, strikes me as a form of nationalistic indoctrination that is akin to the activities that took place in Nazi Germany.
THE BOOK THIEF depicts a nation in which German children are required to raise their right hand and offer a Nazi salute whenever asked. They are compelled to join Nazi Youth Brigades and memorize such pertinent information as Hitler’s birthday and important dates in German history. They are eventually required to read MEIN KAMPF and are encouraged to be seen with the book in their hands. Long before they have any understanding of the country in which they live, these children were indoctrinated into its ideals and purpose.
Is the teaching of a pledge of allegiance to children much different?
Before these students are asked to pledge their allegiance to anything, shouldn’t they possess a solid understanding of it? Why not wait until students have a couple years of US history and a class on US government under their belts before asking them to make this pledge?
Some may claim that the pledge is voluntary, and as a result, no student is ever forced to pledge his or her allegiance. But how many elementary school teachers are explaining the voluntary nature of the pledge or creating an environment in which seven-year olds feel comfortable remaining silent while their friends and teacher pledge their allegiance to their country?
And besides, the pledge is factually incorrect. It states that the United States is indivisible. But I seem to remember four years during the 1860’s when this nation was clearly divided, complete with separate capitols, currency, and Constitutions.
Yet we have our children pledging their allegiance to this factually incorrect, religiously-loaded form of nationalistic indoctrination in schools everyday, and everyday I grow more and more uncomfortable with it.
What is an elementary school teacher to do?
I’m not a Republican, and I’m not comfortable with everything Dale Peterson says, but damn if this isn’t the best campaign commercial I’ve ever seen.
Less than a week after I take a shot at Betsy Ross and her “sewing achievement” (angering more than I expected) comes BETSY ROSS AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA, which was reviewed in the Times Sunday Book Review. Serendipity.
The review opens with this paragraph:
Most historians dismiss the story about Betsy Ross making the first American flag. Yet despite a century of debunking, the legend endures. Across the country, schoolchildren still cut out five-pointed stars using the pattern that Ross, a Philadelphia flag maker, supposedly invented. The legend endures because publishers, souvenir sellers and patriotic boosters find it useful and because it fills a void in the American epic. Nations need heroines. Betsy Ross gives women a place in the national pantheon without disrupting our dominant myths.
But according to the review, the tragedy of Betsy Ross (who it turns out was actually Betsy Claypool for most of her adult life) was that although her participation in the creation of the American flag was spurious and questionable at best, “the life of the woman who came to be known as Betsy Ross is worth recovering.”
The myth, it turns out, blurred a life of actual accomplishment and genuine interest.
Grasping for straws only makes you and your cause appear more pathetic.
Case in point: I was listening to the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast, and the topic was Did Betsy Ross actually design the first flag?
Based upon the historical evidence, it is doubtful that she did.
But normally clear-headed podcast host Candice Keener had apparently been consumed by her feminist side for this podcast, declaring that she was upset that Betsy Ross’s place in history was begin challenged since so few women appear as important figures in early American history.
While I sympathize with the plight of women in terms of their place in the history books, it’s an unfortunate but true fact that women were not involved in the affairs of state that typically place a person’s name prominently in the historical record. They could not run for public office, they could not serve in the military, and for a long, long time they could not even vote. We’ve never had a female President, and until the 1990’s, very few women ever served in the Senate (a total of 37 so far in the body’s two hundred year old history).
For a long, long time, it sucked to be a woman if you wanted to get into the history books.
So while it’s understandable for Keener to want Betsy Ross’s accomplishments to remain untainted, let’s remember that this is essentially a sewing accomplishment, and not a terribly original one at that. After all, the colors of our flag are identical to the colors of the Union Jack and wasn’t very different than several other flags at the time, including the British East India Company’s flag.
And again, we’re talking about a sewing accomplishment.
But Keener goes over the deep end in the podcast when she reports that contrary to popular belief, Betsy Ross was not a seamstress but an upholsterer. “And this makes me respect the woman even more, having to handle those heavy rugs, curtains and even Venetian blinds.”
Heavy rugs? Venetian blinds? Am I wrong in saying that Keener is probably more insulting to women with this statement than she is complimentary to Betsy Ross? Does she really expect me to respect a woman more for sewing curtains rather than bloomers?
What I’d like to tell Candice Keener is this:
Look, I know it’s sad and frustrating that women don’t play a larger role in early American history, but there’s nothing you can do about it. We cannot change the past.
But attempting to prop up the historical significance of an early American upholsterer who may or may not have designed a rather unoriginal flag for our country does not do women any good. And adding that your respect for this woman increased when you learned that she had to sew curtains and Venetian blinds undermines your credibility and makes women appear weak and pathetic, at least in your mind.
Even if Ross designed and sewed the first American flag, this is still a sewing accomplishment. She did not win battles. She did not place her life on the line for the country. She did not assume the mantle of leadership.
She sewed.
Save your praise for women like Joan of Arc, who actually did many of these things and at a remarkably young age.
Urban Dictionary provides a definition for World War II that I love. I’ve cleaned it up a bit before posting it here:
Germany invades Czechoslovakia.
Britain and France tell them to knock it off.
Germany invades Poland (Russia also invades Poland from the other side, but everybody forgets this).
Britain and France declare war. This is the official kick-off of the war.
Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania all join the German side (Everybody forgets the last three).
Axis forces cut through Europe like a knife through butter.
Nazis exterminate Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and the disabled (Everybody remembers the Jews but forgets the rest).
UK holds out.
Russia and the USA do nothing.
Entire divisions of Danish, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, French and Serbian volunteers join the Axis armies & SS (Everybody forgets this and to listen to them now, they were all in the resistance, which must have been massive based upon their claims).
Axis forces invade Russia. Suddenly the Russians don't think it's funny any more.
Japan joins the Axis & bombs Pearl Harbor.
Suddenly the US doesn't think it's funny any more.
The USA tools up the world, because it's got more factories than everybody else put together and they're out of bomber range.
Axis runs out of steam in Russia because Russia's enormous & bloody freezing.
Allies invade on D-Day. Five landings: two British, two American, 1 Canadian (Everybody forgets the Canadians).
Hitler ends up smoldering in a ditch. Russians find the body and confirm he only had one testicle. Seriously.
The US decides invading stuff is a pain in the ass and invents the atom bomb instead. Drops two buckets 'o sunshine on Japan.
Russians steal half of Europe.
On the day that the Democrats lost a Senate seat once held for forty years by Ted Kennedy, I thought it was worth mentioning that although I tend to lean left on most things, not all conservatives subscribe to the intolerance of the right wing of the Republican Party.
If conservatives like Theodore Olson, the Solicitor General under George Bush and frequently mentioned by Republicans and Democrats as a possible Supreme Court nominee were running the Republican Party, as opposed to the fringe lunatics who are currently steering the ship, the Democrats would be doomed.
His Conservative Case for Gay Marriage in Newsweek is exactly the kind of message that Republicans should be sending. From the piece:
“The explanation mentioned most often (for rejecting gay marriage) is tradition. But simply because something has always been done a certain way does not mean that it must always remain that way. Otherwise we would still have segregated schools and debtors' prisons.”
“Even those whose religious convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable "lifestyle" should recognize that disapproval should not warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment.”
“I understand, but reject, certain religious teachings that denounce homosexuality as morally wrong, illegitimate, or unnatural; and I take strong exception to those who argue that same-sex relationships should be discouraged by society and law. Science has taught us, even if history has not, that gays and lesbians do not choose to be homosexual any more than the rest of us choose to be heterosexual. To a very large extent, these characteristics are immutable, like being left-handed. And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Instead of this reasoned, tolerant, and thoughtful position from a man who is willing to stand apart from the party leadership, the Republicans give us the three-headed monster of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, complete with a seedy Dick Cheney underbelly.
I’m not happy that the Democrats lost yesterday’s election, and I can’t imagine how they managed to do so in a state like Massachusetts, but as long as the Republicans continue to put forth these seemingly cartoon characters as they voice of their party, even the fumbling, bumbling, politically deaf Democrats stand a chance.
I try not to be too political on this blog, but sometimes I can’t help it.
I’ve also been told by those who represent me to be myself and not be afraid to share my personal feeling from time to time. Apparently readers enjoy getting to know authors on a more personal level.
I’m a registered Democrat who longs for a Republican party of the Barry Goldwater era in place of the socially conservative, right-wing, anti-intellectual religious insanity that now dominates the party.
I simply cannot join arms with people whose political mantra is “Drill, baby drill.”
Until Limbaugh, Beck, Fox News, the Christian Coalition, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin cease to have power over the party and there is a return to sensible, more moderate, conservative ideals, absent the religious fervor, anti-gay rhetoric, and acceptance of idiocy, I’ll continue to throw in my hat with the Democrats.
As a Democrat, however, I find myself constantly wishing for a party with the organization, tenacity, and ruthlessness of the Republicans. The Democrats are a middling, disorganized lot who often lack a clear vision.
It frustrates me to no end.
But occasionally a voice is heard from the wilderness, an appeal that possesses the fortitude, the ruthlessness and the courage that I so desire.
This is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island on the floor of the Senate chamber last week, lambasting Republicans for their fear-mongering of Barack Obama. He’s worth a listen.
"All to break the momentum of our new young president. They are desperate to break the president. The birthers, the militias, the lifers--- it is unbearable to them for the presidency of Barack Obama to exist."
"...the lying time is over....there will be a reckoning."
Article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina state constitution states: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”
This law, deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, might still prevent Cecil Bothwell from being seated as a City Council member in Ashville, North Carolina.
Bothwell is an atheist.
In looking for North Carolinian politicians who were guilty of crimes more heinous than the denial of the existence of an omnipotent, almighty ruler, I came across Robert Potter, a man whose life was almost too fantastic to believe.
Among his more notable milestones include:
Potter was a two-term Congressman, serving with distinction until forced to resign after castrating two men whom he believed to be having an adulterous relationship with his wife, one of whom being his wife’s cousin. For this crime, he paid a fine and served six months in prison.
Castrating two men? How does one even go about this?
The incident received sufficient celebrity that the term "Potterized" became euphony for such an act.
His wife soon divorced him. After all, it was her cousin.
Undeterred from a life in politics. he then went on to serve in North Carolina’s House of Commons until his expulsion in January 1835 either for "cheating at cards" or "for brandishing a gun and knife during a fight over a card game."
Still undeterred. Potter became Secretary of the Navy during the Texas Revolution under interim President David Burnet.
While in Texas, Potter married Harriet Page after convincing the woman that her marriage to Solomon Page, who was off to war, was not binding since their wedding ceremony had not been performed by a priest. After Potter’s death, their marriage was found to be non-binding by the court, leaving Harriet impoverished and destitute.
Potter then participated in the Regulator-Moderator War in East Texas as a leader of the Harrison County Moderators. On March 2, 1842, his home was surrounded by a band of Regulators led by William Pinckney Rose. He ran to the edge of Caddo Lake and dove in, his body sinking to the bottom after being shot once in the back of the head while swimming away.
Potter County, Texas is named after this illustrious man.
Quite a life. Not all of it terribly honorable, and at least one part violent and horrific, but don’t worry. He believed in God, so all was well.