Just Another Day in Goshen, NY
The above photograph was taken this morning by my sister.
Goshen, New York is the town that I was born and raised in. After spending a number of years living all across the United States and Canada, I moved back to the place about twenty years ago. Every forth of July there have been an abundance of American flags on display throughout the village's main thoroughfare. This year - nothing. Mere coincidence? Possibly. Although it is not-at-all inconceivable that there might very well be a connection to the fact that our little village has found itself thrust into the midst what can only be described as a national embarrassment. One of my ancestors, Charles Carroll, signed the Declaration of Independence, two-hundred-and-forty-three years ago today. This holiday, at one time, was a source of national pride. It has become a fucking joke.
Isn't it amusing being an inmate of Idiot Nation?
As I write these words, the president of the United States is participating in a partisan rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial - the monument to the Great Emancipator. Is it within your imagination to believe that Lincoln would have been proud of the 21st Century incarnation of the party that he took part in forming? I cannot believe that we have come to this place. My only solace is that, someday - maybe - we will have come to a place where, in spite of the complete and utter stupidity that is America today, we might experience a more enlightened tomorrow. For all of the craziness that we have been forced to deal with on a day-today basis, there are still small and gentle pockets of hope. America is still a great place - in spite of the stupidity of the people who cast their ballots here. This is something that thinking people will be forced to contend with for generations to come.We can only imagine the cost and damage that Trump is currently doing to the infrastructure of Washington DC. Experts are predicting that the tanks that he plans on bringing into the nation's capital will tear the shit out of the streets. That's fine: let the damage be done. My belief is that America will only be healed after it completely destroys itself - which is why I am loving every minute of its destruction.
I'm awfully glad that I lived to see this day. Aren't you?
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
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| In my little town, I grew up believing.... |
posted by Tom Degan @ 3:29 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."
President Calvin Coolidge celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926
If it's any consolation, God rained on Trump's parade today.
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary.
And there you have it. The Republican Party, Trump, the Slavers' Electoral College, and the Senate, all working to suppress voting, and eliminate consent of the governed through minority rule.
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