[5 Parts]

(Part One)

10/22/18 from Truthdig / Axis of Logic (under Fair Use; Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107)

"American History for Truthdiggers:

Original Sin"

By Maj. Danny Sjursen:

(Truthdig editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “Make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

The “American History for Truthdiggers” series, which begins with the installment below, is a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past. The author of the series, Danny Sjursen, an active-duty major in the U.S. Army, served military tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and taught the nation’s checkered, often inspiring past when he was an assistant professor of history at West Point. His wartime experiences, his scholarship, his skill as a writer and his patriotism illuminate these Truthdig posts.)

***

PART ONE

American Slavery, American Freedom (Colonial Virginia 1607-1676)

Origins matter. Every nation-state has an origin myth, a comforting tale of trials, tribulations and triumphs that form the foundation of “imagined communities.” The United States of America—a self-proclaimed “indispensable nation”—is as prone to exaggerated origin myths as any society in human history. Most of us are familiar with the popular American origin story: Our forefathers, a collection of hardy, pious pioneers, escaped religious persecution in England and founded a “new world”—a shining beacon in a virgin land. Of course, that story, however flawed, refers to the Pilgrims, and Massachusetts, circa 1620. But that’s not the true starting point for English-speaking society in North America.

The first permanent colony was in Virginia, at Jamestown, beginning in 1607. Why, then, do our young students dress in black buckle-top hats and re-create Thanksgiving each year? Where is the commemoration of Jamestown and our earliest American forebears? The omission itself tells a story, that of a chosen, comforting narrative (the legend of the Pilgrims), and the whitewashing of a murkier past along the James River.

The truth is, the United States descends from both origins—Massachusetts and Virginia—and carries the legacy of each into the 21st century. So why do we focus on the Pilgrims and sideline Virginia? A fresh look may help explain.

The Age of ‘Discovery’

When it comes to history—like any story—the starting point is itself informative. I taught freshman history at West Point, a far more progressive and thoughtful school than many readers probably imagine. Nonetheless, with cadets required to take only one semester of U.S. history, we had just 40 lessons to illuminate the American past. So where to start? The official answer—as in so many standard history courses—was Jamestown, Virginia, 1607.

That, of course, is a fascinating, perhaps absurd, choice. Such a starting point omits several thousand years of Native American history, of varied, complex civilizations from modern Canada to Chile. Time being short and all, 1607 remains a common pedagogical starting point. As a result, from the beginning, our understanding of U.S. history is Eurocentric and narrow (covering only the last 400 or so years). Consider that Problem No. 1.

Next, contemplate the language we use to describe the “founding” of new European colonies. This is, say it with me, the “Age of Discovery.” In 1492, Columbus discovered (even though he wasn't first) America. Now, that’s a loaded term. Isn't it just as accurate to say that Native Americans discovered Columbus—a lost and confused soul—when he landed upon their shores?

When we say Europeans discovered the “New World,” we’re—not inadvertently—implying that there was nothing substantial going on in the Americas until the Caucasians showed up. Europe has a dated, chronological history, reaching back at least to the Greeks, which most students learn in elementary school and later on in Western Civilization classes. Not so for the Native Americans. Their public history starts in 1492, or, for Americans, in 1607. What came before, then, hardly matters.

Inauspicious Beginnings

Englishmen came neither to escape religious persecution nor to found a New Jerusalem. Not to Virginia, at least. No, the corporate-backed expedition—by the Virginia Joint Stock Company—sought treasure (think gold), to find a northwest passage to India, and balance the rival Catholic Spaniards. But, first and foremost, they pursued profit.

The expedition barely survived. That should come as little surprise. They chose a malarial swamp for a home. The first ships carried mostly aristocrats—“gentlemen,” as they were then labeled—with a few laborers and carpenters for good measure. Gentlemen didn't work or deal with the dirty business of farming and settling. But they did like to argue—and there were too many “chiefs” on this voyage. The first party did not include any farmers or women. Only 30 percent survived the first winter. Two years later, only 60 out of 500 colonists survived the “Starving Time.” Over the first 17 years, 6,000 people arrived, but only 1,200 were alive in 1624. One guy ate his wife.

So why the disaster? Why the poor site selection and early starvation? First off, the colonists chose a site inland on the James River because they feared detection by the more powerful Spanish. But mainly the disaster came down to colonial motivations. Jamestown was initially about profit, not settlement. Corporate dividends, not community. This was the private sector, not a permanent national venture. In that sense, matters in early Virginia were not unlike modern American economics.

Saved by Tobacco, the First Drug Economy

They never did find much gold, or, for that matter, a northwest passage. Then again, they didn't all starve to death. Rather, the venture was saved by a different sort of “gold”—the cash crop of tobacco. Tobacco changed the entire dynamic of colonization and control in North America. Finally, there was money to be made. The Englishmen shipped the newest vice eastward and pulled a handsome profit in return. Our beloved forefathers were early drug dealers. More migrants now crossed the Atlantic to get in on the tobacco windfall.

The plentiful “gentlemen” of Virginia sought to re-create their landed estates in England. Despite significant early conflict with the native Powhatan Confederacy, large tobacco plantations eventually developed along the coast. Who, though, would work these fields? Certainly not the landowners. The burgeoning aristocracy had two choices: lower-class English or Scots-Irish indentured servants (who worked for a fixed period in the promise of future acres) and African slaves. Whom to choose? Unsurprisingly, ethics played little role, and cost was the defining factor.

When mortality was high in the colony’s early years, plantation owners favored the cheaper indentured (mainly white) servants. But as more families planted corn, kept cattle and improved nutrition, death rates fell and slaves became more appealing. After all, though expensive in upfront costs, slaves worked for life, and the slave owners got to keep their offspring. Nevertheless, for the first several decades, an interracial mix of slaves and servants worked the land in Virginia.

Bacon’s Rebellion and the American Future

The problem with the tobacco economy was one of space. To be profitable, cash crops require expansive acreage, and in Virginia this meant movement inland. This expansion set the Englishmen on a collision course with local Native Americans. Furthermore, what was plantation society to do about those indentured servants who survived and matriculated? Land would have to be found somewhere. (Though not near the coasts and early settlements. The “gentlemen” weren't about to divide up their own large estates.) In order to maintain their chosen societal model—landed aristocracy—in which the wealthiest 10 percent possessed half the wealth and the bottom 60 percent held less than 10 percent of accumulated wealth, new land would have to be found further west—in “Indian territory.”

Thing is, after some bloody, early wars with the Powhatan, most “gentlemen” preferred a stable, secure status quo. (Not another war. That’d be bad for business.) However, falling tobacco prices, increased competition from nearby colonies and the relentless search by the former indentured class for more land brought frontier Virginians into conflict with an easy scapegoat: nearby Native Americans. Frustrated lower-class men—both white and black—rallied behind a young, discontented aristocrat, a firebrand named Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon led his interracial poor-people’s army in attacks on local Natives and, eventually, on Gov. William Berkeley and the establishment “gentlemen.” In 1675 and 1676, Bacon’s throng destroyed plantations and even burned Jamestown before Bacon died of disease (the “bloody fluxe”) and the rebellion petered out.

Bacon’s Rebellion was one of the foundational—and most misunderstood—events in American history. Here, a populist army savagely assaulted hated Native Americans and aristocrats alike. A mix of black and white former indentured servants demonstrated the fragility of Virginian society. The planter class was terrified. In order to avoid a repeat at all costs, the landed gentry made a devil’s bargain. To ensure stability, they realized they must co-opt some of the poor without ceding their own privileged status.

Enter America’s original sins: racism and white privilege. Plantation owners simply hired fewer indentured servants and became more reliant on (black) African chattel slaves for their labor force. The planters also threw a bone to the middling whites, lowering some taxes and allowing more political representation for white male Virginians.

The implications were as disturbing as they were enduring. White unity became the organizing principle of life in colonial Virginia. To be fair, poor whites lived difficult lives and always outnumbered their aristocratic betters. Nonetheless, these lower-class Caucasians benefited from the new, racialized social system. Pale skin became a badge of honor—life may not be optimal, but “at least we are white.” Black freemen became a thing of the past, and soon “blackness” became inseparably associated with slavery and the lowest of social classes. Black skin became a brand of slavery, and runaways could no longer blend into colonial society. Slaves were easily spotted by virtue of their color.

Bacon’s Rebellion linked land, labor and race together in nefarious ways. Land (ownership) remained the path to freedom. Labor remained essential to profiting from the land, and race came to define the relationship between land and labor. After 1676, a class-based system morphed into a race-based system of labor and social structure. The demand for African slaves rose and a triangular trade developed among North America, Africa and Europe. It seemed everyone benefited from slave labor—it became an Atlantic system. The American South had transformed from a society with slaves to a slave society. It would remain so for nearly two centuries. Race became a prevalent fact of life in the Americas—and still is, 342 years later.

There’s nothing simple about America’s origins, and it is well that this is so. In that way, the United States is like most other modern nation-states. Leaving behind exceptionalist rhetoric and exploring uncomfortable truths signify intellectual maturity. Should this country wish to move forward, be its best self and fulfill the dream of its finest rhetoric, then the citizenry must dispense with reassuring myths and grapple with inconvenient truths.

What, then, do Jamestown and early Virginia have to tell us in 2018? Perhaps this: American slavery arose alongside and intertwined with American freedom. Our society descends from a sinister original sin: the development of a race-based caste system along the banks of the James River. Race, class, labor and slavery were inextricably linked in our colonial past. They remain so today.

PART TWO 10/29/18 - Truthdig

American History for Truthdiggers:

Roots in Religious Zealotry

By Maj. Danny Sjursen:

Truthdig editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “Make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

Below is the second installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past.

***

It is the image Americans are comfortable with. The first Thanksgiving. Struggling Pilgrims—our blessed forebears—saved by the generosity of kindly Native Americans. Two societies coexisting in harmony. If Colonial Virginia was a mess, well, certainly matters were better in Massachusetts. Here are origins all can be proud of.

Our children re-create the scene every November, and we watch them with pride through the lenses of our smartphones. But is this representation of life in Colonial New England an accurate portrait of Anglo-Native relations at Plymouth, or, for that matter, in the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony? Of course it isn't, but nonetheless the impression—the myth—persists. That’s a story unto itself.

Consider this: How many Americans even know there was a difference between Pilgrims and Puritans? The distinctions matter. The Pilgrims, of course, arrived first. Calvinists of humble origins, the Pilgrims were Protestant separatists who believed the mainstream Church of England was beyond saving. They fled England for the Netherlands in the early 17th century, and then, in 1620, about a hundred boarded the Mayflower to go to North America. It was they who landed on Plymouth Rock.

The far more numerous Puritans were also pious, dissenting Protestants, but they initially believed the Church of England could be reformed from within. They were generally wealthier, more prominent citizens. In about 1630, about 1,000 Puritans formed the first wave to settle the area claimed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were, indeed, fleeing the persecution of King Charles I, but—unlike the Pilgrims—they received a royal charter for their colony. They hoped to found a “New Jerusalem” in the New World.

Stark Contrasts: Virginia vs. New England

These weren't the gold-hungry aristocrats of Colonial Virginia. The Puritans (and Pilgrims) came as families—they included women. The Massachusetts climate and natural population growth made for far lower mortality than that experienced at early Jamestown in Virginia. Everyone was willing to work, and the productive family units made, eventually, for bountiful harvests. This was not a land of “gentlemen” and cash crops, as in Virginia, but of dutiful families tilling the land.

The motivations and origins of the two English colonies affected the social structure of each. Differing goals set the tone from the first. Virginians sought to exploit the land, mine its resources, compete with the Spanish and turn a quick profit. Not so the Puritans. They strove to settle, to put down roots and thrive in an idealized community. Their middling origins combined with communal goals and resulted in familial plots with widespread land ownership—another contrast with the tobacco plantations of Jamestown. All this translated into a rough economic equality, at least in the early years. There was also a near total absence of chattel slavery: The climate didn't support the most common cash crops, and so there was little incentive to import Africans to New England.

God Wills It: The Motivations of the Puritans

It all sounds harmonious, idyllic even. Yet something lurked below the surface, something dark and unpleasant to modern eyes. These were fundamentalist zealots! These insufferable, millenarian Calvinists held themselves in shockingly high esteem. They were chosen, they would transform the world by their example. If the Pilgrims sought separation from a world of sin, the Puritans meant to create a New World, an example for all to emulate. It briefs well, and makes for an agreeable origin narrative, but isn't there something disturbing about such a people, about such overbearing confidence?

Ponder the words of John Winthrop, an early governor of the Bay Colony:

"… wee shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: the Lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us. …"

These were people on a mission, the Lord’s mission, come what may. Such people would seem to be on a collision course with the region’s natives and Anglo nonconformists. And this would soon come to pass.

The Puritans’ motivations and goals raise some salient questions. What does it say about, and what are the implications for, a society founded on such colossal self-regard? Is it, ultimately, a good thing? That’s certainly a matter of opinion, but the questions themselves are instructive. Americans must make such queries to get an honest sense of themselves and their origins. This much is hard to argue with: Here, in Massachusetts, we find the geneses of American exceptionalism—the blessing and curse that has shadowed the United States for more than three centuries, driving domestic and especially foreign policy. Divergent modern political figures, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, stuck carefully to an American exceptionalist script, in rhetoric if not in deed. One wonders whether this “City on a Hill” milieu, on the whole, has been a positive attribute. This author, at least, tends to doubt it. Perhaps we should mistrust such pride, and conceit, in even its most American forms.

Stifling Dissent: Life in Colonial New England

Could you imagine living with these people, comporting with their way of life? It sounds like a nightmare. Yet we Americans hold these antecedents in high esteem. Perhaps it’s natural, but this much is certain: Such veneration requires a certain degree of willful forgetting, a whitewashing of inconvenient truths about Puritan society.

Sure, Massachusetts avoided the worst famines of Jamestown’s early years, but life in Colonial New England was far from serene. It rarely is in repressive religious societies. Remember, the Puritans constructed exactly what they said they would, a theocracy on the bay. The Massachusetts Bay Colony may indeed have more in common with modern Saudi Arabia—executing “witches” and “sorcerers”—than it does with contemporary Boston. Our ancestors were far more religious than most Americans can fathom. But there’s also a problem of framing; we’ve omitted the uncomfortable bits to fashion an uplifting origin narrative.

There were many subgroups that certainly didn’t enjoy life in early Colonial Massachusetts: religious dissidents, agnostics, free thinkers and, well, assertive women. We’ve all heard of the infamous Salem Witch Trials, but nearly four decades earlier the widow Ann Higgins was executed, hung for witchcraft, after having the audacity to complain that hired carpenters had overcharged her for a remodeling job on her house.

All told, 344 citizens were accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Massachusetts. Twenty were executed. The accused had commonalities that are indicative of the nature of gender relations in the Bay Colony. Seventy-five percent were women. Most of those women were middle-aged or older and demonstrated some degree of independence. Many were suspected of some sort of sexual impropriety. The point is that Colonial New England was inhabited by zealots—conformist and oppressive fundamentalists who strictly policed the boundaries of their exalted theocracy. Forget the Thanksgiving feast: This was Islamic State on the Atlantic!

If life was as idyllic as the settlers intended in hail-the-Protestant-work-ethic Massachusetts Bay, then why were so many colonial “heroes” kicked out? Roger Williams, for example, founder of Rhode Island, promoted religious toleration and some separation of church and state, and asserted (gasp) that settlers ought to buy land from the native inhabitants. His thanks? A ticket straight out of Massachusetts. Slightly less well known was Anne Hutchinson. She had the gall to organize weekly women’s meetings to discuss theology and even contemplated the concept of individual intuition as a path to salvation. She too was banished. There was simply no room for dissent in Puritan society.

‘We Must Burn Them’: Puritan and Native Relations

This, naturally, brings us to the native peoples of New England. If nonconformist Englishmen fared so poorly in Massachusetts, then what of the Indians? You can probably guess.

Once again, as in Virginia, the Native Americans did not, or could not, wipe out the nascent colonial community, even though, initially at least, there were fewer soldiers among the settlers in Massachusetts. The explanation for the settlers surviving among the native Americans is far more complex than the simple myth of the noble, benevolent savage. The Puritans were the “beneficiaries of catastrophe,” for New England native communities had recently been ravaged by infectious European diseases that spread up and down the coastline. The thinned-out native populations thus posed less of a demographic threat to Massachusetts.

Far from the serene images of Thanksgiving amity, Anglo-Indian relations quickly turned from bad to worse. Land was a factor, but not the only one. A permanent settler community such as the Puritans’ would require inevitable expansion and rapidly grow, to be sure. As in Virginia, land ownership cohered with “freedom”—Anglo land and Anglo freedom, that is. Still, in New England, ideology was as much of a stimulus for war as land, wealth or further economic motives. The native tribes, swarthy and “unbelieving” Pequot, Wampanoag, Naggaransetts and others, simply did not fit into the Puritan’s messianic worldview. Conquered or converted were the only acceptable states for local Indians.

Early colonial wars in Massachusetts were as brutal and bloody as wars anywhere else on the North American continent. Here there was a direct connection between the Puritan religion and the cruelty seen in the Pequot War and King Philip’s War. In the Pequot War, Massachusetts militiamen attacked a native fort at Mystic, Connecticut, and through fire and fury burned alive 400 to 700 Indians, mostly women and children. The survivors were sold as slaves.

The militia relied on allied native scouts. Observing the ruthlessness of the Puritan fighting men, one native auxiliary asked Capt. John Underhill, “Why should you be so furious? Should not Christians have more mercy and compassion?” Underhill’s reply was as instructive as it is disturbing:

"I would refer you to David where, when a people is grown to such a height of blood, and sin against God and man … sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents; some-time the case alters: but we will not dispute it now. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceeding."

Should, from time to time, a tinge of doubt betray the Puritans’ devout certainty, faithful zeal quickly assuaged the guilty conscience. Consider the words of another participant in the “Mystic Massacre,” William Bradford: “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire … and horrible was the stink … but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.”

Nearly simultaneous to the Virginian Bacon’s Rebellion, the Puritans fought King Philip’s—or Metacom’s—War in Massachusetts. Mercilessly executed on both sides, this was a war of survival that forever broke native power and independence in New England. Nearly one in 50 colonists were killed in what was by far the bloodiest war in American history, with 11 times the death rate of World War II. The native leader Metacom, known to the settlers as King Philip, was betrayed by an informer and killed, and his head was displayed on a pole in Plymouth, Mass., for decades. Such was the savagery of colonial war that the tactics and symbolism bring to mind Islamic State in today’s Syrian civil war.

When it came to Native American affairs, the Puritans hardly set the “City on a Hill” example. Or did they? After all, John Winthrop believed the “God of Israel”—a jealous, smiting deity if ever there was one—was among the Puritans, guiding their every move. As noted here earlier, Winthrop claimed this God provided the colonists such strength that 10 of their number could “resist a thousand enemies.” Viciousness and intolerance toward racially distinct, heathen natives were actually at the heart of “City on a Hill” teleology from the start. What Americans now decry in the Greater Middle East is but an echo of their colonial past. That much is worth remembering.

Not So Different: What Virginians and New Englanders Shared

When considering the two origin-societies of Virginia and Massachusetts, the differences are stark and effortlessly leap forth. More difficult, but just as relevant, are their significant commonalities. For it is in the overlap that we find our shared heritage, that which is universal in the American past, and, perhaps, the past of all settler-colonial societies.

Anglo dominance—and arrogance—acutely pervaded both colonial civilizations. In Massachusetts, as in Virginia, conflict and brutality toward the native peoples were regular features of settler life. In each setting, though to differing extents, a fever for land combined with exceptionalist ideology to conquer slave and native alike. For Englishmen, property ownership corresponded with liberty, but all along the Eastern Seaboard, Anglo liberty portended native death and displacement.

If Colonial Virginian society was fundamentally based on white unity at the expense of African slaves, then perhaps Puritan Massachusetts was founded upon Anglo zealotry at the expense of a “savage” Indian “other.” As proud descendants—some of us literally, most figuratively—of these twin settler-colonial enterprises, Americans must grapple with their inconvenient past. Here there’s much work left to be done.

The exceptionalism and chauvinistic Protestantism of the Massachusetts Puritans long influenced the American experiment. From the “City on a Hill” it is but a short journey to Manifest Destiny and the conquest of a continent—native inhabitants be damned!

Again, origins, and origin stories, matter. They inform who we were, and who we are, in stark contrast to who we’d like to think we were and are. America is its best self when it searches its soul and reforms from within. When, that is, it confronts its demons and seeks a better, more inclusive and empathetic future.

ttp://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_81676.shtml

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/jacobin-fueling-lies-syria/

(Part 3)

Axis of Logic - Truthdig - Monday, Nov 5, 2018 (fair use)

American History for Truthdiggers:

"Whose Empire?"

By Maj. Danny Sjursen:

Truthdig editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “Make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

Below is the third installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past.

***

If Americans have heard of the Seven Years’ War—a truly global struggle—it is most certainly under the title “The French and Indian War” (1754-1763). Popular images of the conflict are likely to stem from the 1992 movie “The Last of the Mohicans,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis. When Americans think of this war at all, or discuss it in school, they generally situate the central theater of the conflict in the northeast of North America. Yes, the savage Indians and their deceitful French allies were beaten back along the wooded frontier, allowing pacific English—soon to be American—farmers to live in peace. Ending in 1763, and saddling Britain with debt, the French and Indian War is often remembered as but a prelude to a coming colonial revolt over excessive taxation. Perhaps it was, but not in a direct, linear sense. Nothing historical is preordained. Chance and contingency ensure as much.

In reality, though the fighting began in North America—western Pennsylvania to be exact—the American theater (just like the simultaneous campaigns in India) was often a sideshow to the main event unfolding in Europe. That was a global war, fought on several continents between Britain and Prussia on one side and France, Russia and Austria on the other. It’s important to remember that events in America—then and now—did not unfold in a vacuum but rather shaped and were shaped by global affairs. And, while it is true the American Revolution kicked off just a dozen years after the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War, nothing about the revolt was inevitable. In fact, in 1763, at the close of the French and Indian War, the vast majority of colonists saw themselves as Englishmen and Englishwomen, invested in and proud of their British Empire.

How to Kick Off a Global War

It started over land and money. The “Ohio Country,” just west of the Appalachian Mountains, covered much of what is today the state of Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Rich in lumber, with fertile farmland and plentiful game, the Ohio Country presented a tempting find. Though mainly inhabited by native tribes, the region also just happened to sit on the contested border between France and Britain’s empires in North America.

Both sides (and, no doubt, the native inhabitants) coveted this land. The French saw the Ohio Country as a strategic buffer against the encroaching Brits, and to the Indians, well, it was home. The English settler population of the 13 Colonies was, however, rapidly expanding westward. The stage was set for conflict. All it took was the right spark. Count on the profit motive as a reliable catalyst.

A few decades earlier, some prominent Virginia families, including those of both the royal governor and a young militia officer named George Washington, established the Ohio Company of Virginia. This being a land speculation outfit at heart, the company’s investors hoped to claim land in the Ohio Country, buy it cheaply from the Crown and sell at a profit to westward-bound settlers. Buy low, sell high—enrich the already wealthy plantation families of Virginia—same old game!

So, when the time came to seize and hold the land in western Pennsylvania once and for all, guess who Robert Dinwiddie, lieutenant governor of Virginia—himself an Ohio Company investor—sent in? A young lieutenant colonel of the militia, George Washington. Washington took a militia company and some allied Mingo Indians and headed toward Fort Duquesne, a French installation near present-day Pittsburgh. The French command sent out from the fort a smaller party under Joseph de Jumonville, with strict orders to avoid a fight unless provoked.

What happened next is contested in the few existing accounts. The most credible sources agree that Washington’s force surrounded the French party and opened fire, killing several. Most surrendered, however, at which point Washington’s native counterpart, known as the “Half King” wielded a tomahawk to Jumonville’s head, killing the Frenchman. This was supposed to have been as much a diplomatic as a military mission, and no state of war had been declared. Washington’s choice to open fire was strategically and ethically questionable; however, his inability to control his native allies and the assassination of a prisoner must certainly constitute a war crime.

Early Setbacks, Stillborn Unity

Things didn’t go so well for the British early on. Despite exponentially outnumbering the military and settler population of New France, the Brits and their colonists suffered some disconcerting early defeats. Soon after the “Jumonville Affair,” the French dispatched hundreds of troops and allied natives to dislodge Washington’s force, which had built a ramshackle defense known as “Fort Necessity.” A military novice in his 20s, Washington placed his fort in an indefensible location and was forced to humiliatingly surrender.

Soon after, a large British column commanded by Gen. Edward Braddock was ambushed and nearly destroyed, and Braddock was killed. Washington, barely escaping several near misses, would experience his second consecutive defeat in battle. For the next few years, the British knew mostly defeat and the colonists suffered under brutal French and Indian raids up and down the western frontier.

As the settlers’ confidence deteriorated under the weight of defeats and frontier insecurity, some leaders began to argue for increased colonial unity as a desperate, defensive panacea. Representatives from the various colonies met in Albany, New York, to discuss the prospect of confederation. The result was disappointing. Although it is true that the first colloquial usage of the term “American” seems to have begun in this period, the diverse and fiercely independent colonies were—despite the vicious frontier attacks—not yet ready for unification. Little was settled, less was agreed to. Contrary to the deterministic interpretations of the French and Indian War as a prelude to the American Revolution, the fact is that individual colonial identities were far too strong and the threat from France and the Indians far too uneven to prompt any meaningful confederation.

Celebrating Empire

By 1759, the tide began to turn. The British, under the governmental leadership of William Pitt, changed strategy and responded to French onslaughts in clever ways. The British already had massive advantages in colonial manpower and naval power. Now, they began to follow the French lead and recruit their own Native American allies. The British bankrolled the Prussians under Frederick the Great to do the heavy lifting of ground battle on the European continent and shifted resources to the colonial theaters in India, the Caribbean and North America. The Brits also imposed an effective naval blockade on New France (roughly analogous to modern Canada) to cut off French reinforcements.

After Gen. James Wolfe (depicted in the painting at the top of this article) famously defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec, momentum clearly shifted to the British. Though this is indeed remembered as the seminal battle of the French and Indian War, one could just as plausibly argue the French actually lost Canada—and the Seven Years’ War—in a battle fought in modern Poland on the European continent. Such was the global, interconnected nature of warfare, even in the 18th century.

How, then, did the English colonists view themselves and define their identity in the wake of British victory? Were they indeed the unified Americans on the cusp of independence, as is so often remembered? Hardly.

Sometimes a painting, a period work of art, has much to impart to the observant historian. The artist who created “The Death of General Wolfe,” Benjamin West, was a colonist, an “American,” from Pennsylvania, in fact. West’s painting was a hit, paraded around the London Royal Academy after its completion. So what, exactly, did West hope to communicate with his famous painting? Pride. In victory and in empire. In the sky he depicts the light of British conquest overcoming the dark clouds of French rule in Canada. A Native American, clearly of a British-allied tribe, crouches in stereotypical dress and in the reflective pose of a truly “noble savage.” And, at center, there is the martyred Gen. Wolfe, held by his comrades in the ubiquitous Christ-like “lamentation” pose (see below) of so many famous Western religious depictions. Here was the new Christ, a general, a British general who sacrificed so America could be free (of the French and their native allies, that is).

West, the Pennsylvania colonist, memorialized the French and Indian War not as a prelude to independence but as a celebration of empire, British empire. At the close of this brutal, costly war (2.5 percent of the men of Boston had been killed), West and most other American colonists did indeed share a common identity of sorts: as proud Britons.

An Unhappy Peace: Conflicting Lessons, Divergent Expectations

Both the colonists and metropolitan Britons emerged from the long, vicious conflagration with contrasting expectations. As is so often the case, many of these desires ran at cross-purposes. The British imperial officials wanted, most of all, to consolidate their gains (France had ceded all of Canada and the Ohio Valley) and ensure stability.

“Peace will be as hard to make as war.”—William Pitt (1759)

Above all, this meant protecting the newly gained territory and separating English settlers from the native tribes west of the Appalachian Mountains. Toward the end of the war, a confederation of Ohio Country Indian tribes realized the French were losing and they would probably soon find themselves alone to check the expansionist Brits. The crisis of extended war and impending French defeat begot a spiritual awakening among the natives led by a holy man named Neolin.

Neolin’s call for native unity influenced an Ottawa war chief known as Pontiac to attack British forts up and down the frontier in a conflict that took his name, Pontiac’s Rebellion. Though the British eventually prevailed, they incurred heavy casualties, and the demonstration of native unity had spooked imperial officials. To avoid a repeat rebellion and preserve the status quo, the British announced the Proclamation Line of 1763, which ceded land west of the Appalachians to the Ohio Country tribes and forbade further settler expansion. They also hoped to raise funds from the (presumably grateful) colonists to help pay down Britain’s crippling war debts. That meant taxes—and taxes, eventually, meant discord.

None of that jibed with colonists’ expectations. They had started the war—for land, for expansion, for profit! How, then, could their British protectors deny them their destiny: ample farmland and security from native savages across the Appalachians. They, too, had fought in the key battles of the conflict, as militiamen alongside the British redcoats. Nor did most colonists expect to bear the burden of debt relief for the crown: Hadn’t they already borne the brunt of a war fought adjacent to their land and endured Indian raids on their homesteads? The stage, so to speak, was set for future confrontation.

The Real Losers: Dwindling Hope for Native Empowerment

If colonial and metropolitan Britons emerged from the war with divergent lessons and expectations, so too did the local native tribes. The Ohio Country, which the French had ceded without native permission, was the tribes’ home. Pontiac’s Rebellion demonstrated just how serious the Indian claims were. Nonetheless, unsurprisingly, the natives proved to be the war’s great victims.

For years, decades even, native tribes had counted on the imperial rivalries between British, French and Spanish claimants to North America as a way to divide, conquer and survive. Though the Indians were generally weaker than the great European empires, they had become adept at balancing between the differing poles of imperial power and played the part of spoiler in countless colonial wars. Now, with New France vanquished and the Spanish empire increasingly anemic, the native tribes could no longer rely on tried and true past strategies. They stood alone in the face of a powerful, populous and insatiably expansionist British Empire. Pontiac’s Rebellion was a desperate response to the new reality, but the more prescient chiefs could see the tragic writing on the wall.

Some Indians must no doubt have felt expendable as the French abandoned them to their fate. Could natives ever truly trust any Europeans? In the end, were these white men not all cut from the same cloth, as they arrogantly traded Indian land as spoils in a deadly imperial game?

Consider the above painting—also by colonist Benjamin West—in which a “civilized” British officer restrains his “savage” ally from killing their ostensibly common enemy. The message is instructive: Yes, the French were their foes, but both (European) sides at least adhered to common rules of gentlemanly warfare. View this painting out of context and it is far from obvious that the red- and white-clad Caucasians are actually enemies. Viewed through the lens of Benjamin West, it seems the real enemy of civilization is the “savage”—that anachronistic native who most certainly has no place in the North American future. Though many Native Americans surely couldn’t yet foresee it, they were already doomed. It was they, not the French, who had truly lost the Seven Years’ War!

* * *

In 1763, American colonists felt little sense of—the term was yet to be coined—common nationalism. Despite contemporary memories to the contrary, in the coming revolution against Britain the colonists hardly rebelled against the concept of empire itself. Rather, they desired a new, expansive American Empire, unhindered by London and stretching west over the Appalachians and deep into native lands. If the Seven Years’ or “French and Indian” War was the first conflict for North American empire, well, then, perhaps it helped set the stage for the second: the American War for Independence.

Of course, all attempts by historians—this author included—to periodize and categorize the past run the risk of determinism and distort the inherent contingency of events. Still, a fresh look at the French and Indian War raises profound questions about the course of early American history. It is, perhaps, appropriate to exchange the standard narrative of these events for something at once more accurate and, for many, more disturbing. Instead of a simple prelude to the coming revolution, couldn’t it be that the Seven Years’ War was itself a pivotal turning point in American history—the moment when the balance shifted and native power irreversibly waned? If so, it is long past time to replace the comforting American narrative of a transition from (British) empire to liberal republic with a more accurate and complex progression: from empire to revolution to a new, American empire. We live in it still.

Source URL

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_81846.shtml

(Part 4)

Axis of Logic - Truthdig - - Monday, Nov 12, 2018 (fair use)

American History for Truthdiggers:

Were the Colonists Patriots or Insurgents?

By Maj. Danny Sjursen:

Truthdig editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “Make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

Below is the fourth installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past.

***

“Who shall write the history of the American Revolution?” John Adams once asked. “Who can write it? Who will ever be able to write it?”

“Nobody,” Thomas Jefferson replied. “The life and soul of history must forever remain unknown.”

***

Compare the tarring-and-feathering scene at the top of this article with the 1770 painting “The Death of General Wolfe” (immediately below this paragraph), which was featured in installment three of this Truthdig series. Painted by colonist Benjamin West, it shows North American colonists among those devotedly and tenderly attending the mortally wounded British general, who lies in a Christ-like pose. How did (at least some) North American colonists evolve from a proud celebration of empire into the riotous, rebellious mob portrayed in the illustration above? It’s an important question, actually, and it deals with an issue hardly mentioned in standard textbooks. Even rebellious “patriots” saw themselves as Englishmen right up until July 4, 1776. Others remained loyal British subjects through the entire Revolutionary War.

Most of the lay public tends to view the coming of the American Revolution as natural, predetermined, inevitable even. After all, “we” are the descendants of patriots with a special, anti-monarchical destiny. The British crown, with its intolerable taxation, merely stood in the way of American providence and thus was of course shunted aside in a glorious democratic rebellion. At least that’s the myth—the comforting preferred narrative.

The reality of the pre-revolt era was far more complex, influenced by diverse forces, motives, individual agency and contingency. The truth, as often the case, is messy and discomforting. Still, simplicity sells. Want to earn a bundle in royalties? Well, then avoid publishing an intricate analysis of lower-class colonial motivations. No one reads that stuff! It’s easy—just write another flattering biography of a “Founding Father.”

But just who were these “patriots”? What motivated them to seek open conflict with a powerful empire? How pure were their motives? Did they even represent a majority of colonists? And what of their tactics—did the ends justify the means? Only a fresh, comprehensive examination of this untidy, chaotic era promises satisfactory answers to these questions, the questions at the root of the United States’ very origins. Still, rest assured: The lead-up to the American Revolution has been, and will always be, a contested history. Perhaps Jefferson was right after all, and the soul of this history must remain unknown.

A Reassuring Tale: Common Explanations for the American Revolution
Taxes.

Americans hate them with a unique national passion. After all, ours is a nation founded in opposition to insufferable, imperial taxation. Wasn’t it? One group certainly thought, and thinks, so. If you see the American Revolution as only a relic of the past, please note that in 2009, soon after the election of Barack Obama, a new conservative political movement arose and brought its version of history to the public square. The “tea party” was suddenly everywhere. Its supporters, mostly Republicans, even liked to dress up as colonists, adorning themselves with tricorner hats and carrying signs with anti-tax slogans. For these Americans, the past was immediate and President Obama was the new King George. However, as historian Jill Lepore has written, the Tea Party Revolution was more about nostalgia than serious scholarship. In the tea party’s telling—which coheres with the popular understanding—the revolution was surely all about taxes.

Monarchy.

This is equally anathema to the citizenry and inextricably tied to authoritarian taxation. Surely, our revolution was also a Manichean battle between tyranny and democracy, between royalty and republicanism. Despite generations of critical scholarship, some version of these basic, twin explanations pervades Americans’ collective memory of revolution and independence.

We all know the basic economic and political chronology of the rebellion. It’s usually told in a nice, neat sequence: Stamp Act, Boston Massacre, Tea Act, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Lexington and Concord. New tax, colonial protest, British suppression, next tax, etc. This is an altogether linear, cyclical narrative, and it emphasizes the anti-tax and anti-monarchical components of colonial motivation. We hardly consider the British side, and it appears self-evident that all colonists were patriots. Who wouldn’t be? The Brits were “intolerable.”

It’s not that taxation didn’t factor at all in rebel motivations—it most certainly did. Still, there are some awkward questions worth raising; like, if taxes directly caused the war then how do we explain that just about every new tax was repealed before 1775? Besides, the colonists paid far lower taxes than metropolitan Britons. In fact, the Sugar Act of 1764 actually lowered the tax on molasses—it simply sought to more stringently enforce it. The Tea Act didn’t upset colonists so much for the economic cost as for the mandated monopoly it granted the British East India Co.

Surely, other, political and cultural factors must have contributed to a rebellion that men were willing to die for. An honest analysis of the coming of revolution must grapple with the varied, complex motives of individual “patriots.” Indeed, the rebellion was as much social revolution as political quarrel.

What Makes a “Patriot”?

There’s just one problem: Probably no more than one-third of all colonists were actually anti-imperial “patriots.” Our Founding Fathers and their followers weren’t even in the majority. That’s not so democratic! Furthermore, the motivations of the patriots were multifaceted, diverse and—largely—regional.

If only one in three colonists became dyed-in-the-wool patriots, then what of the others, the silent majority, so to speak? Well, most historians estimate that another third were outright pro-empire loyalists. The rest mostly rode the fence, too engaged in daily survival to care much for politics; those in this group waited things out to see which side emerged on top.

That story, that reality, is—for most Americans—rather unsatisfying. Maybe that’s why it never caught on and is hardly taught outside of academia.

As discussed, this was much more than just a quarrel between Americans and Britons; it was an intense debate over what British identity meant for those residing outside the home islands. The slogan “No taxation without representation!” has caught on as a prime explanation for rebellion, but even that reality was far more complex. It wasn’t just colonists who were taxed and had no proper voice in Parliament, but also many urban Britons within the United Kingdom. Tiny, rural aristocratic districts—so-called “rotten boroughs”—could count on a seat in the assembly while densely populated towns like Sheffield and Leeds went without representation. Metropolitan Englishmen no doubt had rights that were denied to their colonial cousins, i.e. a free internal trade market and the right to do business with foreign countries. However, colonists had benefits unknown in Great Britain, such as lower property taxes. In addition, there was slavery, from which some colonists profited handsomely at the suffering of fellow humans.

The varied class-based and regional motivations for patriot or loyalist association could be seen in New York’s Dutchess County, to consider only one example. In many cases, the primary motivation was the desire of middling tenant farmers to oppose their oppressive landlords. Thus, the battle lines of tenant riots in the 1760s became the dividing lines between patriot and loyalist a decade later. In Dutchess County’s south, the landlords were loyalists and, consequently, the tenants became avid patriots. Conversely, just a few miles north at Livingston Manor, the landlord was a member of the Continental Congress. Unsurprisingly, his tenants bore arms for the British.

Why We Fight—the Complex Motives of Colonial Rebels
Ideology or economics?

This question about the primary cause of the American Revolution has raged among scholars for the better part of a century. There is persuasive evidence on both sides. Still, the strict binary is itself misleading. Patriot sentiment emerged for countless individual and communal reasons. Some colonists were avid readers of John Locke or British commonwealth-men like Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard. For them, it was all about ideology and independence—life, liberty and property. They were also obsessed with alleged conspiracy and corruption at the top ranks of Parliament and the monarchy.

Another group, especially in the Northern urban centers, abhorred what they saw as unfair taxation or imperial mercantilism that suppressed both free trade and a lucrative smuggling economy. Indeed, no less a figure than John Hancock himself was a famous smuggler! Still others, mainly in the Chesapeake region, desired more land and westward expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains into “Indian Country.” This had, after Pontiac’s Rebellion, become illegal due to the British Proclamation of 1763 that granted these lands to various native tribes.

Nor can we underestimate the class component of protest and rebellion. Merchants, artisans and laborers in Northern cities, such as Boston, tended to identify with the protest movement. These working and middle-class urbanites were egged on by firebrands like Samuel Adams—the failed tax collector and sometime brewer of beer. Adams founded a newspaper, the Independent Advertiser, which overtly pitched to the laboring classes the notion that “Liberty can never subsist without equality.” In the South, conversely, the landed gentry tended to be patriots, and it was the smallholders who were often loyalist. Still, any description of patriot motivations can hardly ignore class and the impulses of the uncouth urbanites, those whom historians have labeled “the people out of doors.”

***

Standard interpretations of the American revolutionary movement generally make no mention of religion. This is strange considering the profound religiosity of 18th-century colonists. While prominent Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were deists or agnostics, the vast majority of the population was devoutly Christian. Part of what accounts for the dearth of religious analysis among historians is no doubt the secular bias within the academic community. Still, religious fervor in the wake of the mid-18th-century Great Awakening certainly had influence over the rebellion. In comparing the religious proclivities of metropolitan Britons and English colonists in North America, one distinct difference stood out. While most Britons in the United Kingdom were members of the state’s Anglican Church, the preponderance of colonists were Protestant dissenters—Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and Congregationalists—who had broken with the Church of England. One would be right to expect this inverse religious situation to influence colonial protests in the 1760s and 1770s.

New Jersey stands out as a representative example, at least among the Northern and Mid-Atlantic colonies. Most yeoman farmers were highly influenced by the Great Awakening’s revivalist teachings and became Protestant dissenters. The landed gentlemen, on the other hand, stayed loyal to the hierarchical Anglican Church. The messages of revivalist preachers were distinctly anti-authoritarian and anti-materialist, resonating among the smallholders who felt threatened by landed proprietors. When imperial taxes increased and British officials sought to assert increased control, the battle lines, unsurprisingly, cohered with religious preferences.

Colonists were fiercely chauvinistic Protestants with an intense hatred of Catholics. Thus, when Parliament passed the Quebec Act in 1774, allowing religious freedom to French-Canadian habitants, many colonists threw a fit! The crown, they assumed, must be beholden to a papist, Catholic conspiracy. Such religious tolerance was unacceptable and convinced many patriots that perhaps independence was the preferred path. The old spirit of intolerable Puritan zealotry was alive and well.

***

Some colonists simply resented military occupation. The British decision to send uniformed regular army troops to rebellious hotbeds like Boston had an effect opposite to what was intended. This is an old story. American soldiers in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have learned this lesson again and again as foreign military presence angered the locals and united disparate political, ethnic and sectarian groups in a nationalist insurgency. Nor were British troops—generally drawn from the dregs of English society—held in high esteem by the colonists. Most Bostonians were appalled by the uncouth manners of soldiers they described as rapists, papists, infidels or, worst of all, “Irish!”

The presence of thousands of soldiers also worsened a pervasive economic depression. Back then, off-duty soldiers and sailors were allowed to seek side work in the local economy to supplement their meager wages. They thus flooded Boston’s job market. Protests against the occupation sometimes got out of control when soldiers, thousands of miles from home in a strange land, made mistakes or overreacted. In one incident—sound familiar?—an 11-year-old Boston boy was shot dead by a trigger-happy trooper. A local journal wrote of the British occupation, “The town is now a perfect garrison.” It was not meant as a compliment.

However, no incident so inflamed the local consciousness—and our own historical memory—as the so-called Boston Massacre of 1770. In popular remembrance, and countless paintings, the event is depicted as a veritable slaughter perpetrated by heartless redcoats against peaceful patriot protesters. But hold on a moment. Was this really an accurate label? Do five dead men a massacre make? And what prompted the “slaughter”?

What started as snowball and rock throwing at British sentries quickly escalated into a raucous crowd shouting insults, a crowd armed with clubs and, in the case of one man, a Scottish broadsword. Some protesters grabbed at the lapels of a British officer’s uniform, several other rebels screamed “Fire, damn you!” no doubt confusing the enlisted soldiers. Finally, Benjamin Burdick, he with the broadsword, swung the weapon with all his might down upon a grenadier’s musket, knocking him to the floor. The soldier climbed to his feet and fired his musket at the crowd. Several fellow troopers did the same. The rest is history.

The soldiers and their officer were put on trial, certainly a strange allowance from a supposedly tyrannical regime. None other than a local lawyer, John Adams, defended the British troops and, taking mitigation into account, won their freedom. Adams took the case at great risk to his reputation, but he believed in equal justice for all, even redcoats. This narrative, no doubt, complicates the entire episode, and well it should. The revolutionary fairy tale to which we’ve grown accustomed is in distinct need of some nuance.

No one explanation exists for patriot motivations. Individual preferences, incentives and decisions are difficult to unpack. These were diverse peoples divided among themselves by class, religion and region. How, then, could one synthesize their countless motives? The historian Gary Nash offers an apt summary. The coming of the revolution was a “messy, ambiguous, and complicated” story of a “seismic eruption from the hands of an internally divided people … a civil war at home as well as a military struggle for national liberation.”

Revolutionary Tactics: Venerable Protest or Mob Rule?

When I patrolled the mud villages of southwestern Kandahar province in Afghanistan, we sought to “protect” the population from the loc

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Thom Hartmann Program (Full Show) - 11/19/18

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More gender idiocy: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/surviving-the-woke-workplace/

"I wanted to bring this to your attention. My husband had a conversation with a young friend of ours who is a recent college grad. He has been working at [a major retailer] for the last year. I’m not sure what his title is, but we have encountered him at the store. He is a great worker and has earned a number of company awards for his performance. He related to my husband that he had had a conversation with a friend at work about the use or non-use of transgender pronouns. He took the position that he would not feel comfortable doing this."

"He was later called into his manager’s office and reprimanded. The manager told him that someone had overheard his conversation (manager wouldn’t say who), and that he had made this person feel “unsafe”. Our friend was written up for this, transferred to another store a long distance away, and suffered other severe sanctions! He was a bit naive to have engaged in this conversation at work, but good grief!"

And the so-called party of science supports this nonsense.

Because my self-esteem is at issue here, I have come to a major life decision. I have decided that I now want to be addressed as Your Highness. Or Your Excellency will also do I suppose. Oh, and please bow down when you see or address me from now on. After all, I can be anyone or anything that I choose, and you must go along with it. Or else you are a bigot. After all, my feelings are the most important thing. So please start practicing your bows and curtsy. Thank you for your support.

Personal essays, also known as personal narratives, allow the writer to express himself in a rather bold manner. Such essays help gauge the writer's ability to write on a given topic in an engaging manner.

click for info As the name suggests, a personal essay is more or less a personal perspective. While writing a personal essay, ensure that the rhythm and pace of the essay is smooth. There should be more opinions than facts. Try to avoid using philosophical rants to impress the reader.

Your article content is being a lot of people interested, I am very impressed with your post. I hope to receive more posts. the impossible quiz

Sad to see those tents and to make matters worse, one camp in a Walmart parking lot was having trouble with outsiders (non fire victims) coming in and stealing what little the fire victims had.

We had our home flooded out and know what is is like to be without a place to live for awhile. No insurance coverage because homeowners did not cover a flood and when we bought the property we could not buy flood insurance from the government because we were 10 feet from the edge of a 100 year flood plain. One year later we were knee deep in wetlands in our lower level. We rebuild ourselves and did everything, plumbing, electricity, sheetrock, and finish work. Learned a lot but never complained. I am proud of our family.

Take A Look At This Picture And Decide For Yourself If America’s Priorities Are Out Of Whack

http://dcwhispers.com/take-a-look-at-this-picture-and-decide-for-yourself-if-americas-priorities-are-out-of-whack/

Change of plans today. ...hanging around!

visited a Rauschenberg exhibition the other day after a saunter through Borough market and it struck me. 192.168.1.1

Saved the best for last......

Victor Davis Hanson Discusses President Trump…Posted on November 18, 2018 by sundance

Victor Davis Hanson appears for an interview with Mark Levin to discuss his support for President Trump and current political challenges. The affluence of America driving the influence of Marxism by demanding equality of outcome.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/11/18/victor-davis-hanson-discusses-president-trump/#more-156809

And then there's.....

Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed this weekend that she has no idea what the three branches of the U.S. government are during a conference call with prospective far-left political candidates."If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress — uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House," Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday while on a call with Justice Democrats.The three branches, not chambers, of the U.S. government, are the executive, legislative, and judicial.WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez then thought it would be a good idea to bring more attention to the video so all of her followers on Twitter could see that she does not know what she is talking about."Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real-tomd [sic], they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they don’t believe people deserve a right to healthcare." Ocasio-Cortez urged people to join Justice Democrats' #OurTime campaign on Saturday to help them identify Democratic House incumbents that are "demographically and ideologically out-of-touch with their districts," the Huffington Post reported. In other words, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed a campaign that says that people can't represent those who are "demographically" different from them, which is the very definition of racism.

http://commonsensewonder.blogspot.com/

I used to think you had to at least have a high school education before you could run for office!

Coalage3, correct on the Hollywood types. Hard to find any conservatives in that bunch. If they are there they aren't working.

Look at the link I provided regarding GA. Every one of the leftie/socialist arguments is debunked. The freakin laws cleaning up the voting logs were put in by democrats. This Georgia loser just needs to justify her existence so she is being a crybaby. Sad bunch with no end in sight.