On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a “Resolution for Independence” declaring “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
“…gathering together the desperate and the discontented…”
To say nothing of the gullible rakes and roués who chose to be taken in by a lying, puysygrabbing, felonious conman — not.once, but twice — because of something something butterymales, the price of eggs, Haitians, and ‘Biden is old’ memes.
Not only the desperate by any means. While they make up the MAGA faction, there is that group of billionaires who seek to become trillionaires and like Nixon’s quest to be president, Trump had to get there and once there had no idea what to do except rape and pillage the American taxpayers. Access was granted to those who payed to play. Far more is in play at levels MAGA could not conceive. Besides his legacy of panhandling the world he is forever the criminal face of murder Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump White House. His associates will eventually find their pictures hung in post offices everywhere posted along side of trumps which is already there.
There are no billionaires seeking toe become trillionaires. That happened just the one time. Musk lives in an Airstream and other small hovels. The became a trillionaire by incident when he brought his collection of remarkable companies public.
Envy is a sin for a reason.
Without the current billionaires, we have no computers or software for you to use to express your jealousy, we have no cars, airplanes, museums, universities or medical research. I'm glad to have billionaires making my life better.
There's a difference between a billionaire and a corrupt billionaire. There's a difference between Bill Gates and elon musk. There's a big difference between a decent human being and the vile, putrid lump of excrement that is donald trump.
It took me 3 minutes to research the effect of billionaires (oligarchs). I am truly amazed that anyone would think we are jealous. The only thing I am jealous of is them taking my right to live in a Democracy.
See below:
From campaign dominance to policy control, the concentration of wealth among billionaires is transforming participatory democracy into a system of elite rule
Today, a handful of billionaires don't just influence democratic outcomes. They increasingly are the political outcomes. Elon Musk doesn't just donate to candidates—he shapes information flows through a global platform and sits inside government rewriting federal agencies. Peter Thiel doesn't just back politicians—he builds parallel power structures that explicitly operate outside democratic processes. Tech titans and finance moguls are moving from funding politics to replacing politics.
I second the other comments. To in any way attribute the amazing technological progress in the U.S. or any country solely to billionaires is nonsense. If I was going to point fingers I'd include our government. Chicago had one of the first government funded public libraries in the country. It's an amazing (though underfunded today) institution and resource for EVERYONE that brings immeasurable but real value to our city. That is one tiny example. NASA, medical research, the list goes on. You say trillionaire is an outlier? You're not paying attention to the skewed distribution of wealth in the U.S. It is seriously distorted and getting worse. I don't envy Musk at all. His money will never help him, beyond amassing uncountable wealth, to have a life worth living.
For heaven's sake, one of the things our most billion-y billionaires are moxst well-known for is taking credit for and/or outright stealing others' work for the purposes of glorifying themselves.
I never fell too far from the ranch the fires or the fishery except to be a builder and cabinet maker and sawyer business owner teacher and purveyor of humanity, but my crowd usually bathed in sweat blood and tears. Especially the soldier in me that saw the U.S. as far off across the big water. I knew a handful of millionaires and by and large they were okay. The thing is, I didn’t ever find them essential to my life with one exception. Old Jim Palmer was the best trucking boss of that crowd. I liked working for the man. I liked to shoe his horses as they were good ones. The skinny is that Jim needed me a hell of a lot more than I needed him. I worked for the strawberry king of Oregon. He was kind. Like all millionaires he needed a ranch in Montana. But the story held and holds across the spectrum of American wealth. That wealth is amassed through the funnel of millions of workers. We are those millions so in a funny way we are the millionaires.
Their disquietudes go much deeper than memes. Lack of learning, lack of understanding, lack of common sense, and a sense that all their problems are caused by someone else.
Collette, that’s a fair question. It’s simply my impression of a Monty Python skit where the Serf Mob rises up against anything that the loudest Rabble Rouser in the Town Square suggests (insert MAGA and Fox News here)
Matt Stoller has recently written about the collusion of the three giant egg producers to take advantage of the bird flu--which is still culling flocks-- to extort the egg market. So the shenanigans continue.
Jen, I just read about this last night in one of the Geddry posts. I recommend them, mother and daughter. I had no idea about the egg collusion although i am not surprised. I buy local eggs. Yes, they have risen in price because feed, etc. has risen in price.
Of course it’s wildly offensive! That’s why I quoted HIM, not myself. Go order somebody else to lie about what he said. I don’t respond well to orders to self-censor.
You have been asked to stop repeating a disgusting misogynistic phrase. Repeating a hurtful phrase and justifying because it is so hurtful is an interesting logic--kinda like hitting someone again because someone hit them the first time.
I needed that Christine. Seriously thanks. I’m headed to the wild places this holiday and I needed to depart laughing. Don’t worry about the echo coming off the mountain. It’s just another madman laughing from the top of the world.
Spoken like someone who thinks that women should put up with any of that behavior. The Epstein island survivors would like to have a word with you too.
A setup by whom, and for what purpose? Do you imagine that Ms Lewinsky was a pawn in a larger game? Even if true, she was still a willing player, and not a rape victim.
In the E Jean Carroll case, he was found civilly liable for conduct constituting the crime of rape had the case been brought in a timely manner (as I understand it).
Paine was astonishingly prescient. And yet, so far, despite all that has happened THE LAW REMAINS KING. It's still our government, our republic - if we can keep it.
We will keep it. They have underestimated the soul of America. They forgot about the goodness that always outraces the connivers. They underestimated the moral backbone that with each generation contributes another building block that binds our civilization together. They are just another premature ejaculation while all around them the real deal unfolds. It’s not just us. It’s our children and their children yet unborn who will shore up these sacred building blocks. We are not going anywhere but forward. What we have is stronger than rope, stronger than chains. We are American DNA. MY NAME IS Patrick goddamned Cole. I’ve been there and done that and I’m not taking prisoners nor backing down. And I am in the best outfit in the whole damned world. You have my back! Say your name like you mean it while we run right over the top of these sonsabitches.
THE LAW REMAINS KING.... as practiced in TX and FL? THERE IS NO LAW, only Trump corruption. The FBI is busy tracking down ANTIFAS holding algae to be tried in TX with the hanging judge, who will dole out 100 year sentences. We have a MAGA MONARCHY, given to us by the HERITAGE FOUNDATION by CHEATING in the 2024 election and no one has the balls to stop him.
The republicans have all the balls which they use as armies that they keep up their sleevies. That is coming to change as they must return to the playing field.
Too many of us have tasted freedom to ever be able to quietly be shoved back into slavery. With that freedom came education and the knowledge needed to fight back; along with the will to fight as long as it takes.
So, some will mourn our setbacks and do little more beyond that, but others among us with a more active disposition aren't going away. We're everywhere. The genii got out of the bottle in 1776 and there will never again be a time when opressors will be allowed to rule un-challenged. Like Ozymandias, they may rise temporarily, but they'll fall permanently.
Like Woody Guthrie once sang, "All you Fascists are bound to lose."
The law is still there and in some ways our voices are holding at bay somethings like the SAVE Act. But the captured Robert’s Supreme Court can and will do whatever the majority
decides counter to truth, facts and long established law.
With the support of a corrupted Maga congress we are balanced on the head of a pin. A blue wave large enough to get a large majority might be able to use its power to pass laws
that reduce the power of the Supreme Court. A large enough majority is not a given, particularly with all the things the regime is trying-planning to do to stand in the way of voters.
And what will the regime attempt at the following election to keep power?
I think the difference in point of view; that the law is still there and the law
is no longer there is very small. But that difference shapes how ready
we are to fight with all of our might. That difference is in digesting fully how bad and precarious it is right now.
True, the Socialists are doing a fine job of it, with the groundwork having been laid by Cortez, Omar, Tlab, Pressley, Crockett, Jayapal and the other crazies.
They are all reacting to Trump’s autocratic and vastly corrupt administration, just as Marx was reacting to the power lust and cruelty of the new industrial barons of the nineteenth century.
I was making a parallel with the Marxism as a reaction to the barons of the new industrial age, those who vastly profited from control of the conditions of those who actually did the work in the factories, etc.
In this country, the initial reaction, usually referred to as progressivism, actually came with FDR’s older cousin Teddy following the excesses of the Gilded Age and the so-called Robber Barons. The right commonly equates progressivism with socialism.
Except that in this case, those "popular disquietudes" are the result of decades of massive GOP fake news combined with a legislative agenda designed to make the 99% suffer as much as possible...
Last July 4 at a public reading of the Declaration of Independence for the first time I looked past Jefferson’s magnificent passages and listened carefully to the list of tyrannical transgressions committed by King George. Everyone around me also nodded as the list was ticked off because they too saw how the 250 year old list described so aptly the treacherous acts of our present Tyrant.
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.”
The same patterns of power keep repeating because people are easily divided by hatred of the “other.” We need a leader who can harness our individual better angels and stop this mess. Otherwise we all lose in the end.
Where is today's Jefferson who will write the 2026 version to reflect the current grievances? And bring them to Congress to IMPEACH the current tyrant.
Enough of this bullshit already.
250 years ago your Founders had the balls to defend their citizens rights.
These midterms are your last kick at defending them.
The Founders weep as fo all your ancestors who died fighting for this remarkable act of declaring independence from a tyrant. They are being pissed on because generations did not continue to heed the words of Paine.
A careful historical analysis of Jefferson’s list would reveal that some of his complaints were entirely justified, others were far less so. And they certainly don’t all match what Trump and his myrmidons are attempting.
In an era in which truth itself is under siege, and ‘alternate facts” reign supreme, it is important not to fall into that same trap.
Later, when Jefferson turned on Washington, he proved himself as much a master of disinformation as of eternal truth.
We properly revere Jefferson for his ideas, his rhetoric, and his literary fire, but as with every other American icon, as with our history itself, we should strive for as much historical accuracy as possible in order to counteract the distortions and lies coming from the other side.
The list of grievances is chilling when viewed in the context of 2026. How about this one:
“He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.”
Housing bill will not be signed unless he also gets the SAVE Act (and maybe not even then).
The Declaration of Independence is not merely a founding document. It is America’s original promise, and also its enduring test. Its power does not come from the perfection of the men who signed it. They were limited by their age, and often by their own contradictions. Its power comes from the fact that they put into words a principle larger than themselves: that all people possess rights no government may justly deny.
That idea remains revolutionary. The Declaration says government exists to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that its authority depends on the consent of the governed. In plain terms, government is not sacred. People are. Institutions are legitimate only when they protect human dignity and serve the public good.
This is why the seeds of America’s present renewal are already contained within the Declaration. When citizens call for equal justice, honest elections, living wages, bodily freedom, racial equality, climate responsibility, and a democracy that answers to people instead of wealth, they are not rejecting America. They are calling America back to its deepest stated purpose.
The Declaration also gives us a hopeful kind of patriotism. It does not ask us to pretend the nation has been pure. It asks us to believe that the nation can be corrected. That is a braver love than nostalgia. It is the love that built abolition, expanded citizenship, won voting rights, advanced civil rights, and keeps pushing the country toward a wider meaning of “all.”
America does not need renewal because its founding promise failed. It needs renewal because that promise remains unfinished. The Declaration gave us the language of equality, consent, accountability, and human flourishing. Our task is to give those words fuller life. The work before us is not to worship the past, but to redeem its best promise with courage, compassion, and democratic faith.
"America does not need renewal because its founding promise failed. It needs renewal because that promise remains unfinished." Brilliant and succinct! Thanks for posting that.
You remind me of long ago when I was in the wheelhouse and dad was in the galley. We had really big weather swells and another storm breaking. He stepped to the cabin door and hollered up, “ Goddammit Pat, hold er steady.” The thing that you brought back to me was all the course corrections on nearly every swell to keep her steady. That was the worst storm and that little FV took a beating but we came through that cold dark night just fine. Our compass was true.
imagine writing somehting almost 250 years ago and it was predicted better (or worse since it matches the prediction) than end of the world 2012 prediction.
"“Where…is the King of America?” Paine asked in Common Sense. “I’ll tell you Friend…so far as we approve of monarchy…in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other."
Thank you for a fine essay, Dr Richardson. These days, I feel abandoned by many fellow citizens who have descended into a cult of personality or acquiesced to it out of economic interest.😳
Yet I share responibility, too. During the thirty year stretch, ending in 2016, I neglected to wear the thinking-cap of republican citizenship, willing to make sacrifices for the great good.😯
And what was that greater good? Better opportunities for those who are ill-clothed and ill-schooled as Governor Thomas Kean, Republican of New Jersey, pleaded in the 1980s.🙏🏾
What does wearing the thinking-cap of republican citizenship entail? That each American abstract him-or-herself from the immediate circumstance to imagine the best end-state for all of us.💡
And then pursuing that common good peaceably. We call this pursuit of happiness "elightened self-interest," but wearing the ten thousand pound thinking-cap is an intellectual exercise.🗽
Those mind-mechanics yield that communal interest to ascend from the present to a "Great Society." Sadly, I was simply too isecure to don that cap. Hopefully, it is not too late.⚖️
It's a sin that Thomas Paine has been all but eliminated from the HS American History text books. I suspect the religious right is responsible. Anyone know?
Lee was my cousin 6 generations back on my late father’s side. For more on him, I recommend: “First Founding Father: Richard Henry Lee and the Call to American Independence,” by Harlow Giles Unger (2017).
That puts you in an extremely wide and mostly noble family of America, Jim. Richard Lee, Thomas Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, and of course Robert E. Lee (just a few of the most famous Lee's of Virginia).
As Richard H Lee sings in 1776, "Here a Lee, There a Lee, Everywhere a Lee a Lee...!" :-).
I would love to see a brand new version of Common Sense. Yes, in print and left everywhere, as too many people are siloed and refuse to see the utter corruption of Trump and his family!
I'd love to discover it on a seat in mass transit; left under a windshield wiper; left on a fast food table; you name it.
If only!
I lack the prose to make the arguments, and the finances to produce and distribute it.
Where's that Soros when you need him?!?!
EDIT: I would strongly suggest everyone search out Greg Olear's most recent edition of his Substack "Prevail" regarding his opinions on the 250th. Personally, I don't agree with him today, although I understand his feeling. It will be a smaller celebration at my house this year, due to the heat and humidity, but still we will grill food and gather, and then watch the beautiful fireworks of my village. And I will fly the flag. I do not fly it every day as some people do, and sadly, some are apparently unaware of flag etiquette! So many American flags in my area are tattered, are dragging on the ground, and "fly" in a wet clump in the darkness of night. I had written to the Chicago Tribune years ago, imploring them to write a feature on the proper ways to display the flag, but they never did it. Pity.
One needn’t change too much of what Paine wrote. Republish "Common Sense" and spread it around. Spreading it around would be the most difficult aspect now.
Pilgrim, it could be spread quickly and broadly using our various media. However, I like the idea of finding it everywhere. I'd be willing to put it in braille if it isn't already in that format!
Something very similar happened in Hungary, small tracts placed surreptitiously in people’s mailboxes originally. It played a very strong, if largely still uncredited role, in Victor Orbán’s eventual downfall.
And no, it *shouldn’t* be electronic, but a real tract and pamphlet, tucked away on buses, on the tables of internet cafés, at McDonalds, on supermarket tabloid stands, with not one word changed or “updated.”
This is the kind of thing that must not hide behind the barrage of e-slop and AI-generated videos we’re all too familiar with.
I love this idea. And I would happily distribute to many places, including Hobby Lobby and Chick-Filet (ugh). And simple English as David Herrick says!
That's a one-page web document that contains all 46 pages of Common Sense, transcribed in modern English spelling with some annotations. You can share it with everyone you know.
There have been since the days of Howard Zinn oral readings done by theater and film actors. In San Francisco there was including Peter Coyote the mime troup. I woukd and have suggested vans or some mobile machine to travel cities and towns and villages. Community theaters have a national group OCTA who instead of doing competitions do these types of performances and or readings.
Mary, wouldn't it be great to have volunteers pop up all over the place to read parts of "Common Sense" or "the American Crisis" or the "Declaration of Independence" or even our "Constitution, particularly the parts that could easily relate to the actions of our modern day tyrants!! I would just love that!
There are so many writings from then and now. Fredrick Douglass ‘s speech about the 4 th of July and maybe some words from Grace Lee Boggs. Indigenous authors Joy. Harjo and others. So many .
Think the original should just be printed. There really isn’t much of a difference of the arguments and points then to our current experience. The only difference is the text was in reference to a King in England…
It would need to be written at a 5th grade reading level. I’m not even being snarky. Any time you publish literature for the general public, it needs to be 5th grade reading level in order to be accessible.
Fifth grade at best I’d say, based on the slaughtered English I see everyday on internet sites. No one seems to know or care, for example, about subject and verb agreement. The rules of grammar exist to aid clear thinking and clear expression of ideas. Abandon them and you get garbage.
So many times I read comments and think “what exactly does that say?” Your comment is sadly really true. I stated 5th grade level because that is what is usually recommended by many different organizations. I did a quick google search and it said about 20-30% require that level of reading material, in the US…. Could take it a step further and think about MAGA’s polling numbers being awfully similar. And this isn’t a reflection on those reading at that level, but a reflection of how our education system needs improvement. Our schools let kids with dyslexia fail before it intervenes instead of intervening with all kids before anyone fails (when 20% of the population has dyslexia, all kids should be taught with “dyslexia friendly” techniques from the start).
L M, when I started writing professionally, about 40 years ago, the standard guidance was to write for Sixth Grade reading and comprehension. Indeed, Google is recommending Fifth Grade for "most effective" ads. Another source recommended Eighth Grade, if one is writing for doctors and surgeons.
So the complaint of "dumbing down America" is not hyperbole.
Nuh uh. Perhaps most egregious is their instruction to just slap an 's on any word to make it possessive singular. Thus, on their sage instruction, the Arkansas legislature passed a resolution that the possessive singular of Arkansas is "Arkansas's" and every hack immediately complied. This became an issue for me, since I wrote a lot of copy for official tourism publications. I refused to write bad style and got away with it.
I’m reading these comments to Heather’s letter, after reading Heather’s letter. People read, my friends and I pass books from one to another all the time.
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is
The Author."
Postscript to Preface in the third edition.
"P. S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a view of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independence: As no answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of Influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and principle."
Philadelphia,
February 14, 1776."
-excerpt from the Introduction to "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, who had written it anonymously in early 1776 as it was considered treasonous in regards to the British monarchy and that the message was more important than any fame or fortune in the pre revolutionary years, believing in the urgency and necessity to fight for the new Nation's Independence...
The Battle for control of government in 2026 and 2028 couldn't be more consequential.
We are fighting a 2nd American Revolution over very different visions of what America means. On the "Liberal" side, we want an activist government creating policy solutions that solve fundamental problems facing the great majority of ALL Americans; affordability, peace, equal rights and justice in our "melting pot" society. We, in our inclusionary way, believe all Americans are entitled to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness".
On the "Conservative" side, the Right believes Liberty and Happiness are best served by restraining government from interfering with our Freedom to do as we please, when we please. Just leave it to the Market and faith to solve. In many cases, that means deregulating agencies or eliminating many functions of the federal government while the majority suffers.
As we can see, this quickly leads to a Tyranny of the Minority and massive corruption among the wealthiest business class.
250 years ago, we defeated an overbearing King on our way to a better society for all.
We are in that fight again. This time with a self appointed American "King" granted immunity by a corrupt SCOTUS. His "reign" cannot stand.
Related to the beginnings of our nation and to offer some hope that this "potentially great nation" can someday fulfill its potential, I offer this report from one of the truly great Republican leaders in American politics: Mayor David Holt of Oklahoma City. He has been in Philadelphia with a whole lot of America's mayors. He chaired the Conference of Mayors too. I think you'll enjoy reading what he posted tonight...
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Today, over a hundred American mayors - Republicans, Democrats and Independents - marched to Independence Hall in Philadelphia to honor the courageous declaration made there 250 years ago this week.
Though July 4th is our traditional day of celebration, it was in fact 250 years ago today (July 2, 1776) that the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution establishing our independence from Great Britain. It was two days later (July 4, 1776) when they passed the formal Declaration explaining the reasoning for their vote on July 2nd.
With the Declaration, the Congress actually left at least two distinct legacies, and it’s important to understand them both. The first was of course the establishment of an independent nation, but independence alone would not have led to the remarkable American story that has ensued since. It is the second legacy that is just as important.
With this sentence from the preamble, the Congress established the unique moral foundation for the American experiment.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our civic ethos are all constructed upon these founding ideals of equality and democratic agency. To declare independence, it was not necessary to also declare that all people are born equal, but the founders of this nation intended for this endeavor to be more than a pursuit of patriotism. America was an experiment from the day of its founding, and the experiment remarkably endures to this day.
No elected officials in America believe more in this experiment than America’s mayors. We work each day to apply these democratic principles in the pursuit of equality, life, liberty and happiness. Today, we were honored to mark this history together in the city of our nation’s birth.
Real independence is egalitarian and mutual. We do not depend on the whims and control of an autocrat. In a wide variety of ways, we all depend on one another.
I agree. And as a friend pointed out to me years ago, the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence talks about how we all depend on one another when it says...
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Thank you for sharing this re mayors! And thank you, Heather, for another great history lesson. As a dual citizen of Canada and U.S., I am learning so much about U.S. history with you! Also, I am encouraged to see from this gathering of mayors, of every political stripe, that the U.S. "experiment" for a true democracy is alive and well! Indeed, it is manifesting in the primaries of various states and in the over-burdened courts. It is manifesting in the streets of Minnesota and elsewhere by ordinary people standing up to protect their law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working neighbors and their families. Happy Indepence Day from tyrants!!! RESIST!!!!
I must admit that on the eve of our 4th of July and 250th anniversary I feel a lot of grief. It's a specific kind of grief — loving something (my country) enough to see clearly how far it's fallen short, and yet refusing to look away from that gap. It's not despair. I do not give up. Interestingly, I learned today that this kind of grief is actually a very old American feeling. Lincoln had it and so did Frederic Douglas, I'm told. Loving the Fourth of July and hating what it eludes in the same breath. That's good to know. But what I know for a fact is that your work, your deep commitment to our Democracy strengthens my resolve every day. I read your newsletter every morning. I watch the interviews you hold, your videos (Today in Politics, Politics Chats). I delight in your short video series 250 to 250. You have a way of conveying that one can have an ongoing relationship with one's country even during very difficult times, and for that I am immensely grateful to you. My sincere appreciation. May you and all of us have a meaningful 4th celebration this weekend.
And the same back to you and yours! July 4 used to be a celebration of all of us. We must remain resolute that with great effort and willpower, we can make it so again.
Grief is an appropriate response to loss. And our losses are grievous, deliberate, and cruel. Celebration is hard in the midst of loss so fundamental to our existence as a country. We are a shell of our better selves, and our path to realizing the potential of Paine’s vision has been detoured to chump’s raving delusions.
...in response to JDinTX: I do not know of a more self-serving President within our nation's history including all of his lackies who are soaking up the benefits. Another deep sadness is the destruction, he seems to leave regarding each person, place or thing he touches. He is an empty vessel. He will never be able to "pay back his cronies" because the money/gifts he may give them flow out as quickly as they are received.
They are as empty and self-serving as he.
To maintain good-character, one must face the reality of temptation to put "self" first above the good of others, opportunity for personal gain by "walking over" the naive or uninformed, etc. is abuse!
Maintaining good-character forces a battle within because "greed" is a monster that wants to shut-out "the better angels" of heart, mind and soul.
Trump is certainly not the one with the "brains", he is just a useful tool for those who stand behind him who are seeking gain for themselves within each and every area of the government to which they have access, for example, investment opportunities!
When are we going to "put on the brakes" of this corrupt administration? It is "We, the People" who are able to do this, but we must speak up and speak out. We must take action, NOW!!!!
Many Bea have the same feeling about this celebration. What’s remarkable is how many of us love this country to become a more perfect union to one day achieve.. a lofty goal and so worth keeping, not just for ourselves but for generations to come.. May your celebration be filled with hope.
As Thomas Paine's Common Sense told those early Americans 250 years ago, and as Heather wrote above, "a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law." Yes, to repeat Paine"s premise, in a democracy,, the law is the only king.
Every person in this United States of America should have to read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" in its entirety before voting in the November mid-term elections.
Jerry, last year I got our small bookclub to read Paine’s _Common Sense_. Our consensus was that it was as important today as it was then. Making people read it may not work. OTOH, there are online resources where one may read it for free. I think many who start it from idle curiosity may well finish it from interest.
I love that idea -- I have long thought that highway signs -- Burma Shave, billboards are a good way to deliver messages in non-urban areas. Especially love the Burma Shave model!
I recall when Tea Party crap arose in 2009, a friend quoted Thomas Paine in opposition to Obama. Just like SC uses skewed justification for the most heinous rulings. Orwellian it is…
I learned some of Thomas Paine from the wallpaper in our first floor powder room! It was the time before the bicentennial and the consumer purchasing was all American colonial so we had two lamps of young men holding colonial rifles. I grew up not noticing all the strange aspect of the lamps and the powder room. And I was not unaware just there was so much in that stream. The old tv show The Young Rebels was part and parcel of that. I was born at the end of the baby boom so my perspective and ability to be in the mix was compromised. If I had been born later I easily would have gone into two directions the Catholic Worker or Catherine Dougherty Friendship Houses or SDS.
Given how hard it is to get my 37-year-old son to read a 2-page pamphlet, I expect that if you made this a voting qualification, even fewer young people would vote. Sorry, not a great idea.
True. Thanks to 40 years of neoliberal (aka ChristoNazi) economics, Moron Nation prevails. More than anything else, its manifestations of ecogenocidally prideful ignorance must be overthrown if the forces of democracy are to have even the most minimal chance of winning this war.
I agree with you in principle, Loren, although I tend to believe the main culprit is not ignorance but just laziness, so I probably prefer Lazy-ass Nation to Moron Nation. Yes, there are morons in this country, but it always surprises me how many who voted for Trump are NOT in that category. They are just too lazy to take the time to learn enough to make a valid intellectual decision about any particular candidate rather than simply taking all the propaganda in from a fire hose.
IMO, the failure of young people to READ is a direct effect of conditioning (a la behaviorist B.F.Skinner). Video games, tiktok, Youtube, everything in their media world is delivered in soundbites of 3 minutes or less. In short, they have been trained to have short attention spans. It is terribly unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s laziness; it’s training. Many schools are removing phones from classrooms, so that may help, but a complex problem needs multifaceted solutions.
Cults attract lazy, ignorant, morons, suckers, losers, and all kinds of deplorables. They also attract those smart and bent. Much worse than the deplorables. The damage they inflict goes to the bone.
Gave you a "like," though not because I believe in laziness, but rather because -- as a (semi-retired) journalist who spent a lot of years covering USian education, I know how we are truly being reduced to ever greater ignorance. But that is [not] what makes us this planet's Moron Nation; it is the fact we so aggressively -- most often with an institutionalized anti-intellectual violence that far exceeds mere schoolyard bullying -- embrace the suicidal idiocy of ChristoNazism. (Don't forget the Pew finding that even if all the stay-at-home-voters turned out in 2024, the ChristoNazis still had the majority and were thus unstoppable in their vindictive destruction of the United States. As disturbingly Evil as it is, we need to recognize the new, probably-permanent, unquestionably voter-chosen role for this irreparably failed republic is that of resurrecting Hitler's ideology of world conquest in a thermonuclear-armed, technologically omnipotent global Reich.)
Reading or hearing that story never gets old. I first heard a significant part of it when I was in first or second grade and it made me love history and particularly our nation's founding! If we are careful and stand up for this nation, we can make Trumplandia a blip, a wart on American history that can be treated and made better as the future unfolds.
I believe we can rise from this, but the damage being done will not be overcome quickly or easily, and abuse of power, including financial, political, and use of force has ebbed and flowed in our history. It was abuse of power against which the colonies rebelled, about which the Civil War was fought, and ever-present companion to the better angels of our nature. There are all sorts of ways of parsing that, but I think plutocracy has been on a roll since at least the election of Reagan. After more than four decades of making the rich so much richer, and most others falling behind or running in place, there are still a lot of Main Street support for Reaganomics, now in it's terminal stages. I see some unraveling of that and I hope we can help that along.
Yesterday I heard two comments. One was from our neighbor, who was talking to my husband. He said he didn’t think he agreed with Rs anymore; it was the Dems who were doing what Jesus instructed. This is a huge statement, consider the source. The other was from a politically active friend whose Neighbor asked her about a sign in her yard for a dem candidate for county mayor, whom she’d not heard of before. The neighbor liked what she heard and was going to tell her sisters about him. (Relational organizing at its best.)
JL, I think you are right both about coming out of this and the challenge it will be. I know it is worth the effort. I would like to see us beginning the process sooner rather than later.
Will The Electorate Allow The Nazi Republicans To Buy Elections?
On the eve of our country’s birthday the Founders would never have imagined that one of the hot political topics of the day is whether corporations and individuals with a lot of $$ would be able to buy candidates or buy election results.
Yet here we are, confronted by people or companies with unimaginable wealth attempting to buy power and political influence by flooding our elections with vast amounts of $$. And the partisan SCOTUS just furthered the Nazi scheme to buy elections, supporting the effort to the presidentially stated fact that the Nazi Republicans will interfere with the upcoming elections.
So WE need to mobilize and decimate this fascist movement. WE need to ignore all the propaganda that the wealthy are buying in ads and instead talk to our friends, neighbors, family, and to anyone who will listen to US that WE can begin to collectively take our country back in the upcoming midterms in November. If one wants to join like minded souls, join a local Indivisible group to lend more power to your voice. This is an all hands on deck moment.
Every time I read of the colonists and their Declaration of Independence I wonder what is stopping States that want nothing of Trumpism from leaving the Union. How much more are we willing to take of the corruption, racism, Latinophobia, sexism, antisemitism, stupidity, foolishness, taxation without representation, and out-and-out lying? These a truly the times that try the souls of all who have the free will to see what is so blatantly before them.
States tryed to leave the Union so they could have African slaves is what started the Civil War. Slavery is wrong and these states were trying to avoid having slavery terminated by leaving the Union. Thank God it did not work. The United States represents all the people, if you do not like that then leave. The rest of us will stay here and work things out.
“If you do not like that then leave” is what the KKK told southern Blacks. I don’t think absolutist proclamations will work. Not for me, anyway. I have considered the idea of “soft secession” — states like CA and NY, who make a ton of money and effectively subsidize states like Alabama and Mississippi, could refuse to give any to the federal government — and I do overall see the appeal of secession for Blue states.
Good luck Elena. How do you propose we work things out? And, don’t tell me by electing better people. When money rules, better people are extremely rare. I’ve been around for 84 years. My first career was in the political and social sciences and legal history. I was asked a few days ago to describe the US in no more than two words. I thought for a long while. My two words for the US? “Terminally Ill” Sounds like the rantings of a tired old man? Maybe, but this country is closer to oligarchic fascism than any country in history but Nazi Germany. Again, good luck. I certainly don’t want what is now the status quo for my children and grandchildren and their children.
Maybe it depends where you live. I live in Los Angeles, except for four years of my life and I am now in my sixties, I lived in Los Angeles, I have lived in California all my life with the exception of 2 years when I lived in Nevada, next door. I do not know where you live and I agree that it depends on where you live. I get along fine here, while no place is perfect, and we still have crime even in areas where you would think there should not be, generally it is a very nice place to live. If you have never lived here, even if you have visited for a short while, you would not know what I am referring to. This is not New York, it will never be New York, THANK GOD!! I HAVE been to New York pre Mandamini, the place is hopeless and his ideas will probably make it worse, my advise to everyone is do not live there, but this is a huge country and New York despite being a big, is just a very small part of the USA.
Barry, last year, many states created a coalition as an alternative to the cdc (specific to vaccine policies). This is allowed vaccine access to remain stable in those states. We need more of this from the states. We have a republic for a reason—to counter the power of a single federal government. They don’t even have to declare independence. They just need to start building their own infrastructure/systems that are separate from (and parallel to) the federal government.
Not all the trends have been downward, but clearly what the "Republican Party" has become is an existential threat to our Republic. And yes, I remain cautiously hopeful.
And where is Congress? Hiding out in Washington receiving the $110 lodging per diem and their $68 food and incidentals per diem while they expect families on SNAP benefits to survive on an average benefit of $5.80 per day. Plus, there is a work requirement AND a work reporting requirement in many states.
Every company I ever consulted for required weekly time reporting detailing what projects were worked on and for how long. The consultants called in "creative writing", but that's another story. If we failed to turn in our time we didn't get paid. Easy peazy.
Anyway, do we have a clue how our Senators and Congressmen spend their time? Like with many professional jobs, they should on a public website how they spent their time before we pay them.
The reps spend their time at home because Mike Johnson can’t control them and so shuts down the House. Mine spends his time not talking to constituents.
GJ, I recall seeing a television news report years ago that followed a legislator through his day. I don't remember any details, so I'm not going to state any specifics. What I do remember is that the legislator literally spent more time on the phone schmoozing donors and begging for money than doing anything else. He half-heartedly complained about having to spend so much time raising campaign money, but asserted that if he didn't do it, he'd lose the next election.
So basically, our legislators spend a lot of time and money trying to get elected, so they can spend more time and money trying to get re-elected. They are Archimedes trammels, aka do-nothing machines, ellipsographs, or my favorite, bullshit grinders.
From 1765 to 1776 — but a blip in time. The larger message — for greedy, idiot emperors and their ingrown, mentally deficient families, lackeys so laughably stupid they look as though they were drawn by 4-year-olds with crayons, drunks posing as serious, thinking people, incompetents, criminals and fuckups — is that it can all go south faster than you can say “full algal bloom” five times fast. Some of you drunk with petty power might want to sit up and take notice before it’s too late.
“We have it in our power to begin the world all over again.”
“We have it in our power,” Thomas Paine wrote in q776, “to begin the world over again.”
Sadly, this is the first July 4th observance that I dread. On the other hand, Trump has achieved something significant: the urgent need for a major reset! I support the idea of fresh, young blood entering the political arena. I would call it Democratic Social Capitalism. This would signify the end of trickle-down economics and the beginning of flood-up economics.
We have the power to reboot America. As the saying goes, “to begin the world over again.” And Trump has taught us what to protect ourselves against—hopefully.
I eagerly look forward this coming bright new America 2.0, where all humanity is not only created equal but is also treated equally!
Thomas Paine. Common sense on human nature.
“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
Words written 250 years ago, and they describe the current day with amazing accuracy. "Laying hold of popular disquietudes" indeed.
“…gathering together the desperate and the discontented…”
To say nothing of the gullible rakes and roués who chose to be taken in by a lying, puysygrabbing, felonious conman — not.once, but twice — because of something something butterymales, the price of eggs, Haitians, and ‘Biden is old’ memes.
Not only the desperate by any means. While they make up the MAGA faction, there is that group of billionaires who seek to become trillionaires and like Nixon’s quest to be president, Trump had to get there and once there had no idea what to do except rape and pillage the American taxpayers. Access was granted to those who payed to play. Far more is in play at levels MAGA could not conceive. Besides his legacy of panhandling the world he is forever the criminal face of murder Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump White House. His associates will eventually find their pictures hung in post offices everywhere posted along side of trumps which is already there.
There are no billionaires seeking toe become trillionaires. That happened just the one time. Musk lives in an Airstream and other small hovels. The became a trillionaire by incident when he brought his collection of remarkable companies public.
Envy is a sin for a reason.
Without the current billionaires, we have no computers or software for you to use to express your jealousy, we have no cars, airplanes, museums, universities or medical research. I'm glad to have billionaires making my life better.
There's a difference between a billionaire and a corrupt billionaire. There's a difference between Bill Gates and elon musk. There's a big difference between a decent human being and the vile, putrid lump of excrement that is donald trump.
Can one even become a billionaire without swimming in the swamp of corruption?
Let's not deify Gates. He had numerous affairs and was familiar with Epstein. His ex-wife is the real hero. Her philanthropy is amazing.
It took me 3 minutes to research the effect of billionaires (oligarchs). I am truly amazed that anyone would think we are jealous. The only thing I am jealous of is them taking my right to live in a Democracy.
See below:
From campaign dominance to policy control, the concentration of wealth among billionaires is transforming participatory democracy into a system of elite rule
https://www.laprogressive.com/economic-equality/billionaire-rule-how-extreme-wealth-undermines-american-democracy#:~:text=The%20Rise%20of%20Billionaire%20Rule%3A%20How%20Extreme%20Wealth%20Undermines%20American%20Democracy
ALSO
Today, a handful of billionaires don't just influence democratic outcomes. They increasingly are the political outcomes. Elon Musk doesn't just donate to candidates—he shapes information flows through a global platform and sits inside government rewriting federal agencies. Peter Thiel doesn't just back politicians—he builds parallel power structures that explicitly operate outside democratic processes. Tech titans and finance moguls are moving from funding politics to replacing politics.
https://frontierpioneer.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-problem-how-elite#:~:text=The%20Billionaire%20Problem%3A%20How%20Elite%20Wealth%20Captured%20Democracy
ALSO
Americans Want Billionaires Out Of Politics—And Think They’re A Threat To Democracy, Poll Shows
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/11/14/americans-want-billionaires-out-of-politics-and-think-theyre-a-threat-to-democracy-poll-shows/#:~:text=Americans%20Want%20Billionaires%20Out%20Of%20Politics%E2%80%94And%20Think%20They%E2%80%99re%20A%20Threat%20To%20Democracy%2C%20Poll%20Shows
I second the other comments. To in any way attribute the amazing technological progress in the U.S. or any country solely to billionaires is nonsense. If I was going to point fingers I'd include our government. Chicago had one of the first government funded public libraries in the country. It's an amazing (though underfunded today) institution and resource for EVERYONE that brings immeasurable but real value to our city. That is one tiny example. NASA, medical research, the list goes on. You say trillionaire is an outlier? You're not paying attention to the skewed distribution of wealth in the U.S. It is seriously distorted and getting worse. I don't envy Musk at all. His money will never help him, beyond amassing uncountable wealth, to have a life worth living.
For heaven's sake, one of the things our most billion-y billionaires are moxst well-known for is taking credit for and/or outright stealing others' work for the purposes of glorifying themselves.
What nonsense.
Oh Lord! Please give it a rest!
I mean, good Lord. Do we really have somebody in here weeping and pleading for somebody to please think of the billionaires?
How them boots taste, bud?
Perfect summation, nothing else to say.
And hatred of “others”
hatred and disdain.
They drip with both while claiming love. The hypocrisy is a cult strategy and is unforgivable, seems to me
I never fell too far from the ranch the fires or the fishery except to be a builder and cabinet maker and sawyer business owner teacher and purveyor of humanity, but my crowd usually bathed in sweat blood and tears. Especially the soldier in me that saw the U.S. as far off across the big water. I knew a handful of millionaires and by and large they were okay. The thing is, I didn’t ever find them essential to my life with one exception. Old Jim Palmer was the best trucking boss of that crowd. I liked working for the man. I liked to shoe his horses as they were good ones. The skinny is that Jim needed me a hell of a lot more than I needed him. I worked for the strawberry king of Oregon. He was kind. Like all millionaires he needed a ranch in Montana. But the story held and holds across the spectrum of American wealth. That wealth is amassed through the funnel of millions of workers. We are those millions so in a funny way we are the millionaires.
Their disquietudes go much deeper than memes. Lack of learning, lack of understanding, lack of common sense, and a sense that all their problems are caused by someone else.
Collette, you mean “the rabble”? The Great Unwashed? The Group Think?
Not sure what point you are trying to make, Dave. What do you think?
Collette, that’s a fair question. It’s simply my impression of a Monty Python skit where the Serf Mob rises up against anything that the loudest Rabble Rouser in the Town Square suggests (insert MAGA and Fox News here)
Its a riot mentality, but without the riot
Matt Stoller has recently written about the collusion of the three giant egg producers to take advantage of the bird flu--which is still culling flocks-- to extort the egg market. So the shenanigans continue.
Jen, I just read about this last night in one of the Geddry posts. I recommend them, mother and daughter. I had no idea about the egg collusion although i am not surprised. I buy local eggs. Yes, they have risen in price because feed, etc. has risen in price.
Why do men insist on resurrecting that phrase? It's been 10 years-ok? And it is still wildly offensive. Stop using it.
Of course it’s wildly offensive! That’s why I quoted HIM, not myself. Go order somebody else to lie about what he said. I don’t respond well to orders to self-censor.
You have been asked to stop repeating a disgusting misogynistic phrase. Repeating a hurtful phrase and justifying because it is so hurtful is an interesting logic--kinda like hitting someone again because someone hit them the first time.
Trump only grabbed, Clinton raped. Whatever.
E. Jean would like to have a word
Intelligence has been chasing you all of your life but you have always managed to stay one step ahead.
I needed that Christine. Seriously thanks. I’m headed to the wild places this holiday and I needed to depart laughing. Don’t worry about the echo coming off the mountain. It’s just another madman laughing from the top of the world.
Feel free to copy and paste whenever needed. Enjoy your holiday at the top of your mountain!!! Best place to be. Laugh till you pee your pants!
Spoken like someone who thinks that women should put up with any of that behavior. The Epstein island survivors would like to have a word with you too.
TROLL
Best not to engage.
Yes, I never do.
He's not troll. He's just your ordinary, less than intelligent idiot.
Clinton didn’t rape. While he did take advantage of the aid, she was all too willing to comply.
James,I always thought that was a set up knowing how Bill could be tempted.
A setup by whom, and for what purpose? Do you imagine that Ms Lewinsky was a pawn in a larger game? Even if true, she was still a willing player, and not a rape victim.
Who did Clinton rape?
In the E Jean Carroll case, he was found civilly liable for conduct constituting the crime of rape had the case been brought in a timely manner (as I understand it).
“Clinton raped.” Really? Who (or what) did he rape, Kauffman?
According to courts of law, it's the opposite. Whatever.
Hate sells. Price of eggs? Blame the president? Oh, Trump will bring the price of eggs down?
Paine was astonishingly prescient. And yet, so far, despite all that has happened THE LAW REMAINS KING. It's still our government, our republic - if we can keep it.
Hold fast, and resist!
We will keep it. They have underestimated the soul of America. They forgot about the goodness that always outraces the connivers. They underestimated the moral backbone that with each generation contributes another building block that binds our civilization together. They are just another premature ejaculation while all around them the real deal unfolds. It’s not just us. It’s our children and their children yet unborn who will shore up these sacred building blocks. We are not going anywhere but forward. What we have is stronger than rope, stronger than chains. We are American DNA. MY NAME IS Patrick goddamned Cole. I’ve been there and done that and I’m not taking prisoners nor backing down. And I am in the best outfit in the whole damned world. You have my back! Say your name like you mean it while we run right over the top of these sonsabitches.
“We have it in our power,” Paine wrote, “to begin the world over again.”
Yes we do.
Dayim! I couldn't have said one word better than that. Well done!
THE LAW REMAINS KING.... as practiced in TX and FL? THERE IS NO LAW, only Trump corruption. The FBI is busy tracking down ANTIFAS holding algae to be tried in TX with the hanging judge, who will dole out 100 year sentences. We have a MAGA MONARCHY, given to us by the HERITAGE FOUNDATION by CHEATING in the 2024 election and no one has the balls to stop him.
The republicans have all the balls which they use as armies that they keep up their sleevies. That is coming to change as they must return to the playing field.
Too many of us have tasted freedom to ever be able to quietly be shoved back into slavery. With that freedom came education and the knowledge needed to fight back; along with the will to fight as long as it takes.
Here's an example of 'King Law' in action -
See https://joycevance.substack.com/p/former-cia-director-john-brennan.
So, some will mourn our setbacks and do little more beyond that, but others among us with a more active disposition aren't going away. We're everywhere. The genii got out of the bottle in 1776 and there will never again be a time when opressors will be allowed to rule un-challenged. Like Ozymandias, they may rise temporarily, but they'll fall permanently.
Like Woody Guthrie once sang, "All you Fascists are bound to lose."
Clearly the will of America to keep our democracy is being tested.
Sorry to respectfully disagree but the law being king is no longer a truth in the United States since the Supreme Court has been bought and paid for!
But they're not all and we've been pushing back mightily in many cases and the Laws will prevail despite their lack of devotion to Truth.
You have much greater faith and hope than I do!
The law is still there and in some ways our voices are holding at bay somethings like the SAVE Act. But the captured Robert’s Supreme Court can and will do whatever the majority
decides counter to truth, facts and long established law.
With the support of a corrupted Maga congress we are balanced on the head of a pin. A blue wave large enough to get a large majority might be able to use its power to pass laws
that reduce the power of the Supreme Court. A large enough majority is not a given, particularly with all the things the regime is trying-planning to do to stand in the way of voters.
And what will the regime attempt at the following election to keep power?
I think the difference in point of view; that the law is still there and the law
is no longer there is very small. But that difference shapes how ready
we are to fight with all of our might. That difference is in digesting fully how bad and precarious it is right now.
True, the Socialists are doing a fine job of it, with the groundwork having been laid by Cortez, Omar, Tlab, Pressley, Crockett, Jayapal and the other crazies.
TROLL
They are all reacting to Trump’s autocratic and vastly corrupt administration, just as Marx was reacting to the power lust and cruelty of the new industrial barons of the nineteenth century.
I thought the reaction came with FDR!
I was making a parallel with the Marxism as a reaction to the barons of the new industrial age, those who vastly profited from control of the conditions of those who actually did the work in the factories, etc.
In this country, the initial reaction, usually referred to as progressivism, actually came with FDR’s older cousin Teddy following the excesses of the Gilded Age and the so-called Robber Barons. The right commonly equates progressivism with socialism.
You are such a PITA!
Yawn. You again?
Except that in this case, those "popular disquietudes" are the result of decades of massive GOP fake news combined with a legislative agenda designed to make the 99% suffer as much as possible...
Last July 4 at a public reading of the Declaration of Independence for the first time I looked past Jefferson’s magnificent passages and listened carefully to the list of tyrannical transgressions committed by King George. Everyone around me also nodded as the list was ticked off because they too saw how the 250 year old list described so aptly the treacherous acts of our present Tyrant.
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.”
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
Sounds like Elon’s DOGE jerkwads. 😞
Or ICE
ICE is on a rampage right now. Solidarity with Sister Letty, RN & any other person targeted.
The unsettling part is not that history repeats itself, but that the same patterns of power keep returning.
The same patterns of power keep repeating because people are easily divided by hatred of the “other.” We need a leader who can harness our individual better angels and stop this mess. Otherwise we all lose in the end.
History repeating itself indeed! This was so right on it was scary. We need to declare our independence again!!
From the film of the 1972 Broadway hit, 1776.
'Reading the Declaration & The Egg',
.https://youtu.be/kzrLQjFJbrw?si=sqR7HVCaeb5aNKLp.
Chirp, chirp, chirp!
Where is today's Jefferson who will write the 2026 version to reflect the current grievances? And bring them to Congress to IMPEACH the current tyrant.
Enough of this bullshit already.
250 years ago your Founders had the balls to defend their citizens rights.
These midterms are your last kick at defending them.
The Founders weep as fo all your ancestors who died fighting for this remarkable act of declaring independence from a tyrant. They are being pissed on because generations did not continue to heed the words of Paine.
SHAME
I think the first line of the 2026 version should be:
"Enough of this bullshit already!"
A careful historical analysis of Jefferson’s list would reveal that some of his complaints were entirely justified, others were far less so. And they certainly don’t all match what Trump and his myrmidons are attempting.
In an era in which truth itself is under siege, and ‘alternate facts” reign supreme, it is important not to fall into that same trap.
Later, when Jefferson turned on Washington, he proved himself as much a master of disinformation as of eternal truth.
We properly revere Jefferson for his ideas, his rhetoric, and his literary fire, but as with every other American icon, as with our history itself, we should strive for as much historical accuracy as possible in order to counteract the distortions and lies coming from the other side.
The list of grievances is chilling when viewed in the context of 2026. How about this one:
“He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.”
Housing bill will not be signed unless he also gets the SAVE Act (and maybe not even then).
I ❣️Heather!
https://youtu.be/Qg03joniGQo?si=auqy31oSlnJ6JwJu
Heather is the new Thomas Paine. We the people must resist the orange dictator. Let’s keep singing the no kings anthem together at protests for Independence Day: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
Servant:
I have another recommendation for an anthem appropriate for our time.
"People Have the Power," by Patti Smith. Listen to the version recorded in April, 2019, with Choir, Choir, Choir.
\Vince S
still love Lennon's Power to the People or Parachute Club's "Rise up"
Gives me goosebumps of memory
Some warnings never become outdated.
''The Declaration Still Points America Forward''
The Declaration of Independence is not merely a founding document. It is America’s original promise, and also its enduring test. Its power does not come from the perfection of the men who signed it. They were limited by their age, and often by their own contradictions. Its power comes from the fact that they put into words a principle larger than themselves: that all people possess rights no government may justly deny.
That idea remains revolutionary. The Declaration says government exists to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that its authority depends on the consent of the governed. In plain terms, government is not sacred. People are. Institutions are legitimate only when they protect human dignity and serve the public good.
This is why the seeds of America’s present renewal are already contained within the Declaration. When citizens call for equal justice, honest elections, living wages, bodily freedom, racial equality, climate responsibility, and a democracy that answers to people instead of wealth, they are not rejecting America. They are calling America back to its deepest stated purpose.
The Declaration also gives us a hopeful kind of patriotism. It does not ask us to pretend the nation has been pure. It asks us to believe that the nation can be corrected. That is a braver love than nostalgia. It is the love that built abolition, expanded citizenship, won voting rights, advanced civil rights, and keeps pushing the country toward a wider meaning of “all.”
America does not need renewal because its founding promise failed. It needs renewal because that promise remains unfinished. The Declaration gave us the language of equality, consent, accountability, and human flourishing. Our task is to give those words fuller life. The work before us is not to worship the past, but to redeem its best promise with courage, compassion, and democratic faith.
"America does not need renewal because its founding promise failed. It needs renewal because that promise remains unfinished." Brilliant and succinct! Thanks for posting that.
KEM:
People have the power to redeem the work of fools.
That's a profound line from Patti Smith's anthem, "People Have the Power."
Listen to the video recorded with Choir, Choir, Choir in April 2019.
\Vince S
Excellent statement, KEM!
You remind me of long ago when I was in the wheelhouse and dad was in the galley. We had really big weather swells and another storm breaking. He stepped to the cabin door and hollered up, “ Goddammit Pat, hold er steady.” The thing that you brought back to me was all the course corrections on nearly every swell to keep her steady. That was the worst storm and that little FV took a beating but we came through that cold dark night just fine. Our compass was true.
imagine writing somehting almost 250 years ago and it was predicted better (or worse since it matches the prediction) than end of the world 2012 prediction.
Paraphrasing & fast forward to 2026, the paths to the Great Repair will neither be obvious nor easy.
"“Where…is the King of America?” Paine asked in Common Sense. “I’ll tell you Friend…so far as we approve of monarchy…in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other."
Let Common Sense prevail 250 years later.
Oh my God, exactly! When and how do we make this raping of America stop???
Thank you for a fine essay, Dr Richardson. These days, I feel abandoned by many fellow citizens who have descended into a cult of personality or acquiesced to it out of economic interest.😳
Yet I share responibility, too. During the thirty year stretch, ending in 2016, I neglected to wear the thinking-cap of republican citizenship, willing to make sacrifices for the great good.😯
And what was that greater good? Better opportunities for those who are ill-clothed and ill-schooled as Governor Thomas Kean, Republican of New Jersey, pleaded in the 1980s.🙏🏾
What does wearing the thinking-cap of republican citizenship entail? That each American abstract him-or-herself from the immediate circumstance to imagine the best end-state for all of us.💡
And then pursuing that common good peaceably. We call this pursuit of happiness "elightened self-interest," but wearing the ten thousand pound thinking-cap is an intellectual exercise.🗽
Those mind-mechanics yield that communal interest to ascend from the present to a "Great Society." Sadly, I was simply too isecure to don that cap. Hopefully, it is not too late.⚖️
It's a sin that Thomas Paine has been all but eliminated from the HS American History text books. I suspect the religious right is responsible. Anyone know?
Some dictator,,, hmmmmmm. Like Donald Trump maybe?
Lee was my cousin 6 generations back on my late father’s side. For more on him, I recommend: “First Founding Father: Richard Henry Lee and the Call to American Independence,” by Harlow Giles Unger (2017).
That puts you in an extremely wide and mostly noble family of America, Jim. Richard Lee, Thomas Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, and of course Robert E. Lee (just a few of the most famous Lee's of Virginia).
As Richard H Lee sings in 1776, "Here a Lee, There a Lee, Everywhere a Lee a Lee...!" :-).
I immediately had that song going through my head when I saw the Lee Resolution. Love that movie & the songs in it.
I would love to see a brand new version of Common Sense. Yes, in print and left everywhere, as too many people are siloed and refuse to see the utter corruption of Trump and his family!
I'd love to discover it on a seat in mass transit; left under a windshield wiper; left on a fast food table; you name it.
If only!
I lack the prose to make the arguments, and the finances to produce and distribute it.
Where's that Soros when you need him?!?!
EDIT: I would strongly suggest everyone search out Greg Olear's most recent edition of his Substack "Prevail" regarding his opinions on the 250th. Personally, I don't agree with him today, although I understand his feeling. It will be a smaller celebration at my house this year, due to the heat and humidity, but still we will grill food and gather, and then watch the beautiful fireworks of my village. And I will fly the flag. I do not fly it every day as some people do, and sadly, some are apparently unaware of flag etiquette! So many American flags in my area are tattered, are dragging on the ground, and "fly" in a wet clump in the darkness of night. I had written to the Chicago Tribune years ago, imploring them to write a feature on the proper ways to display the flag, but they never did it. Pity.
One needn’t change too much of what Paine wrote. Republish "Common Sense" and spread it around. Spreading it around would be the most difficult aspect now.
Pilgrim, it could be spread quickly and broadly using our various media. However, I like the idea of finding it everywhere. I'd be willing to put it in braille if it isn't already in that format!
Something very similar happened in Hungary, small tracts placed surreptitiously in people’s mailboxes originally. It played a very strong, if largely still uncredited role, in Victor Orbán’s eventual downfall.
And no, it *shouldn’t* be electronic, but a real tract and pamphlet, tucked away on buses, on the tables of internet cafés, at McDonalds, on supermarket tabloid stands, with not one word changed or “updated.”
This is the kind of thing that must not hide behind the barrage of e-slop and AI-generated videos we’re all too familiar with.
Common Sense 2! In every nook and cranny. It could become a major paper- recycling event. Simple English so even the MAGA crowd can understand it.
I love this idea. And I would happily distribute to many places, including Hobby Lobby and Chick-Filet (ugh). And simple English as David Herrick says!
Its pretty simple to find it and spread it around in our modern "web" world:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1776-paine-common-sense-pamphlet
That's a one-page web document that contains all 46 pages of Common Sense, transcribed in modern English spelling with some annotations. You can share it with everyone you know.
There have been since the days of Howard Zinn oral readings done by theater and film actors. In San Francisco there was including Peter Coyote the mime troup. I woukd and have suggested vans or some mobile machine to travel cities and towns and villages. Community theaters have a national group OCTA who instead of doing competitions do these types of performances and or readings.
Mary, wouldn't it be great to have volunteers pop up all over the place to read parts of "Common Sense" or "the American Crisis" or the "Declaration of Independence" or even our "Constitution, particularly the parts that could easily relate to the actions of our modern day tyrants!! I would just love that!
There are so many writings from then and now. Fredrick Douglass ‘s speech about the 4 th of July and maybe some words from Grace Lee Boggs. Indigenous authors Joy. Harjo and others. So many .
Also Guerrilla Theater did something similar and it’s on their Substack. They also did a reading of Enemy of the People.
Pilgrim, America in Class has produced a downloadable, annotated version to help modern readers.
https://americainclass.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Common-Sense-Full-Text.pdf
Think the original should just be printed. There really isn’t much of a difference of the arguments and points then to our current experience. The only difference is the text was in reference to a King in England…
It would need to be written at a 5th grade reading level. I’m not even being snarky. Any time you publish literature for the general public, it needs to be 5th grade reading level in order to be accessible.
Fifth grade at best I’d say, based on the slaughtered English I see everyday on internet sites. No one seems to know or care, for example, about subject and verb agreement. The rules of grammar exist to aid clear thinking and clear expression of ideas. Abandon them and you get garbage.
So many times I read comments and think “what exactly does that say?” Your comment is sadly really true. I stated 5th grade level because that is what is usually recommended by many different organizations. I did a quick google search and it said about 20-30% require that level of reading material, in the US…. Could take it a step further and think about MAGA’s polling numbers being awfully similar. And this isn’t a reflection on those reading at that level, but a reflection of how our education system needs improvement. Our schools let kids with dyslexia fail before it intervenes instead of intervening with all kids before anyone fails (when 20% of the population has dyslexia, all kids should be taught with “dyslexia friendly” techniques from the start).
L M, when I started writing professionally, about 40 years ago, the standard guidance was to write for Sixth Grade reading and comprehension. Indeed, Google is recommending Fifth Grade for "most effective" ads. Another source recommended Eighth Grade, if one is writing for doctors and surgeons.
So the complaint of "dumbing down America" is not hyperbole.
All hail Strunk and White!
Nuh uh. Perhaps most egregious is their instruction to just slap an 's on any word to make it possessive singular. Thus, on their sage instruction, the Arkansas legislature passed a resolution that the possessive singular of Arkansas is "Arkansas's" and every hack immediately complied. This became an issue for me, since I wrote a lot of copy for official tourism publications. I refused to write bad style and got away with it.
I should have added something indicating sarcasm to my comment.
Yet that was the style guide that was foisted upon us, at least from undergrad on.
Agreed.
Read it free: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/147/147-h/147-h.htm
Thank you!
True.
And the colonists did not elect the King.
Twice.
What a great idea, but do people READ anymore?
I’m reading these comments to Heather’s letter, after reading Heather’s letter. People read, my friends and I pass books from one to another all the time.
We read 🤷♂️
Apparently, Gen Z is starting to go into bookstores.
Give them discounts.
in short bits they do...Make it a Tik Tok video and people will see it
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is
The Author."
Postscript to Preface in the third edition.
"P. S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a view of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independence: As no answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of Influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and principle."
Philadelphia,
February 14, 1776."
-excerpt from the Introduction to "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, who had written it anonymously in early 1776 as it was considered treasonous in regards to the British monarchy and that the message was more important than any fame or fortune in the pre revolutionary years, believing in the urgency and necessity to fight for the new Nation's Independence...
Greg O'Lear...I enjoy his writing...with a large cup of coffee!
The Battle for control of government in 2026 and 2028 couldn't be more consequential.
We are fighting a 2nd American Revolution over very different visions of what America means. On the "Liberal" side, we want an activist government creating policy solutions that solve fundamental problems facing the great majority of ALL Americans; affordability, peace, equal rights and justice in our "melting pot" society. We, in our inclusionary way, believe all Americans are entitled to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness".
On the "Conservative" side, the Right believes Liberty and Happiness are best served by restraining government from interfering with our Freedom to do as we please, when we please. Just leave it to the Market and faith to solve. In many cases, that means deregulating agencies or eliminating many functions of the federal government while the majority suffers.
As we can see, this quickly leads to a Tyranny of the Minority and massive corruption among the wealthiest business class.
250 years ago, we defeated an overbearing King on our way to a better society for all.
We are in that fight again. This time with a self appointed American "King" granted immunity by a corrupt SCOTUS. His "reign" cannot stand.
Join the Battle.
Related to the beginnings of our nation and to offer some hope that this "potentially great nation" can someday fulfill its potential, I offer this report from one of the truly great Republican leaders in American politics: Mayor David Holt of Oklahoma City. He has been in Philadelphia with a whole lot of America's mayors. He chaired the Conference of Mayors too. I think you'll enjoy reading what he posted tonight...
---------
Today, over a hundred American mayors - Republicans, Democrats and Independents - marched to Independence Hall in Philadelphia to honor the courageous declaration made there 250 years ago this week.
Though July 4th is our traditional day of celebration, it was in fact 250 years ago today (July 2, 1776) that the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution establishing our independence from Great Britain. It was two days later (July 4, 1776) when they passed the formal Declaration explaining the reasoning for their vote on July 2nd.
With the Declaration, the Congress actually left at least two distinct legacies, and it’s important to understand them both. The first was of course the establishment of an independent nation, but independence alone would not have led to the remarkable American story that has ensued since. It is the second legacy that is just as important.
With this sentence from the preamble, the Congress established the unique moral foundation for the American experiment.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our civic ethos are all constructed upon these founding ideals of equality and democratic agency. To declare independence, it was not necessary to also declare that all people are born equal, but the founders of this nation intended for this endeavor to be more than a pursuit of patriotism. America was an experiment from the day of its founding, and the experiment remarkably endures to this day.
No elected officials in America believe more in this experiment than America’s mayors. We work each day to apply these democratic principles in the pursuit of equality, life, liberty and happiness. Today, we were honored to mark this history together in the city of our nation’s birth.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JVLjUsv6P/
Real independence is egalitarian and mutual. We do not depend on the whims and control of an autocrat. In a wide variety of ways, we all depend on one another.
I agree. And as a friend pointed out to me years ago, the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence talks about how we all depend on one another when it says...
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Society disintegrates without mutuality.
Thank you for sharing this re mayors! And thank you, Heather, for another great history lesson. As a dual citizen of Canada and U.S., I am learning so much about U.S. history with you! Also, I am encouraged to see from this gathering of mayors, of every political stripe, that the U.S. "experiment" for a true democracy is alive and well! Indeed, it is manifesting in the primaries of various states and in the over-burdened courts. It is manifesting in the streets of Minnesota and elsewhere by ordinary people standing up to protect their law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working neighbors and their families. Happy Indepence Day from tyrants!!! RESIST!!!!
I am happy you are finding hope in what you see happening at the more local level. And yes, no more tyrants!
Heather, again a thought-provoking letter.
I must admit that on the eve of our 4th of July and 250th anniversary I feel a lot of grief. It's a specific kind of grief — loving something (my country) enough to see clearly how far it's fallen short, and yet refusing to look away from that gap. It's not despair. I do not give up. Interestingly, I learned today that this kind of grief is actually a very old American feeling. Lincoln had it and so did Frederic Douglas, I'm told. Loving the Fourth of July and hating what it eludes in the same breath. That's good to know. But what I know for a fact is that your work, your deep commitment to our Democracy strengthens my resolve every day. I read your newsletter every morning. I watch the interviews you hold, your videos (Today in Politics, Politics Chats). I delight in your short video series 250 to 250. You have a way of conveying that one can have an ongoing relationship with one's country even during very difficult times, and for that I am immensely grateful to you. My sincere appreciation. May you and all of us have a meaningful 4th celebration this weekend.
And the same back to you and yours! July 4 used to be a celebration of all of us. We must remain resolute that with great effort and willpower, we can make it so again.
Thank you!
Grief is an appropriate response to loss. And our losses are grievous, deliberate, and cruel. Celebration is hard in the midst of loss so fundamental to our existence as a country. We are a shell of our better selves, and our path to realizing the potential of Paine’s vision has been detoured to chump’s raving delusions.
Emily Pfaff,
...in response to JDinTX: I do not know of a more self-serving President within our nation's history including all of his lackies who are soaking up the benefits. Another deep sadness is the destruction, he seems to leave regarding each person, place or thing he touches. He is an empty vessel. He will never be able to "pay back his cronies" because the money/gifts he may give them flow out as quickly as they are received.
They are as empty and self-serving as he.
To maintain good-character, one must face the reality of temptation to put "self" first above the good of others, opportunity for personal gain by "walking over" the naive or uninformed, etc. is abuse!
Maintaining good-character forces a battle within because "greed" is a monster that wants to shut-out "the better angels" of heart, mind and soul.
Trump is certainly not the one with the "brains", he is just a useful tool for those who stand behind him who are seeking gain for themselves within each and every area of the government to which they have access, for example, investment opportunities!
When are we going to "put on the brakes" of this corrupt administration? It is "We, the People" who are able to do this, but we must speak up and speak out. We must take action, NOW!!!!
Totally agree with you. That’s why my sleeves stay rolled up - in spite of my heartache.
All day every day
Appreciate your reply. Thank you.
Many Bea have the same feeling about this celebration. What’s remarkable is how many of us love this country to become a more perfect union to one day achieve.. a lofty goal and so worth keeping, not just for ourselves but for generations to come.. May your celebration be filled with hope.
So good to know that many of us feel this grief. Thank you.
What she said...☝🏻
I feel exactly the same way. Beautifully said.
I second that devotion!
As Thomas Paine's Common Sense told those early Americans 250 years ago, and as Heather wrote above, "a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law." Yes, to repeat Paine"s premise, in a democracy,, the law is the only king.
Every person in this United States of America should have to read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" in its entirety before voting in the November mid-term elections.
Jerry, last year I got our small bookclub to read Paine’s _Common Sense_. Our consensus was that it was as important today as it was then. Making people read it may not work. OTOH, there are online resources where one may read it for free. I think many who start it from idle curiosity may well finish it from interest.
Maybe a series of highway signs like (here showing my age) ads for Burma Shave.
I love that idea -- I have long thought that highway signs -- Burma Shave, billboards are a good way to deliver messages in non-urban areas. Especially love the Burma Shave model!
I recall when Tea Party crap arose in 2009, a friend quoted Thomas Paine in opposition to Obama. Just like SC uses skewed justification for the most heinous rulings. Orwellian it is…
I learned some of Thomas Paine from the wallpaper in our first floor powder room! It was the time before the bicentennial and the consumer purchasing was all American colonial so we had two lamps of young men holding colonial rifles. I grew up not noticing all the strange aspect of the lamps and the powder room. And I was not unaware just there was so much in that stream. The old tv show The Young Rebels was part and parcel of that. I was born at the end of the baby boom so my perspective and ability to be in the mix was compromised. If I had been born later I easily would have gone into two directions the Catholic Worker or Catherine Dougherty Friendship Houses or SDS.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/147/147-h/147-h.htm
Given how hard it is to get my 37-year-old son to read a 2-page pamphlet, I expect that if you made this a voting qualification, even fewer young people would vote. Sorry, not a great idea.
True. Thanks to 40 years of neoliberal (aka ChristoNazi) economics, Moron Nation prevails. More than anything else, its manifestations of ecogenocidally prideful ignorance must be overthrown if the forces of democracy are to have even the most minimal chance of winning this war.
I agree with you in principle, Loren, although I tend to believe the main culprit is not ignorance but just laziness, so I probably prefer Lazy-ass Nation to Moron Nation. Yes, there are morons in this country, but it always surprises me how many who voted for Trump are NOT in that category. They are just too lazy to take the time to learn enough to make a valid intellectual decision about any particular candidate rather than simply taking all the propaganda in from a fire hose.
IMO, the failure of young people to READ is a direct effect of conditioning (a la behaviorist B.F.Skinner). Video games, tiktok, Youtube, everything in their media world is delivered in soundbites of 3 minutes or less. In short, they have been trained to have short attention spans. It is terribly unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s laziness; it’s training. Many schools are removing phones from classrooms, so that may help, but a complex problem needs multifaceted solutions.
Cults attract lazy, ignorant, morons, suckers, losers, and all kinds of deplorables. They also attract those smart and bent. Much worse than the deplorables. The damage they inflict goes to the bone.
Gave you a "like," though not because I believe in laziness, but rather because -- as a (semi-retired) journalist who spent a lot of years covering USian education, I know how we are truly being reduced to ever greater ignorance. But that is [not] what makes us this planet's Moron Nation; it is the fact we so aggressively -- most often with an institutionalized anti-intellectual violence that far exceeds mere schoolyard bullying -- embrace the suicidal idiocy of ChristoNazism. (Don't forget the Pew finding that even if all the stay-at-home-voters turned out in 2024, the ChristoNazis still had the majority and were thus unstoppable in their vindictive destruction of the United States. As disturbingly Evil as it is, we need to recognize the new, probably-permanent, unquestionably voter-chosen role for this irreparably failed republic is that of resurrecting Hitler's ideology of world conquest in a thermonuclear-armed, technologically omnipotent global Reich.)
Hear hear, Thomas Paine in 2026 as in 1776. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” So be it on our 250th anniversary.
Reading or hearing that story never gets old. I first heard a significant part of it when I was in first or second grade and it made me love history and particularly our nation's founding! If we are careful and stand up for this nation, we can make Trumplandia a blip, a wart on American history that can be treated and made better as the future unfolds.
I believe we can rise from this, but the damage being done will not be overcome quickly or easily, and abuse of power, including financial, political, and use of force has ebbed and flowed in our history. It was abuse of power against which the colonies rebelled, about which the Civil War was fought, and ever-present companion to the better angels of our nature. There are all sorts of ways of parsing that, but I think plutocracy has been on a roll since at least the election of Reagan. After more than four decades of making the rich so much richer, and most others falling behind or running in place, there are still a lot of Main Street support for Reaganomics, now in it's terminal stages. I see some unraveling of that and I hope we can help that along.
Yesterday I heard two comments. One was from our neighbor, who was talking to my husband. He said he didn’t think he agreed with Rs anymore; it was the Dems who were doing what Jesus instructed. This is a huge statement, consider the source. The other was from a politically active friend whose Neighbor asked her about a sign in her yard for a dem candidate for county mayor, whom she’d not heard of before. The neighbor liked what she heard and was going to tell her sisters about him. (Relational organizing at its best.)
JL, I think you are right both about coming out of this and the challenge it will be. I know it is worth the effort. I would like to see us beginning the process sooner rather than later.
Barn door slammed shut, seems to me this “Independence Day”
Will The Electorate Allow The Nazi Republicans To Buy Elections?
On the eve of our country’s birthday the Founders would never have imagined that one of the hot political topics of the day is whether corporations and individuals with a lot of $$ would be able to buy candidates or buy election results.
Yet here we are, confronted by people or companies with unimaginable wealth attempting to buy power and political influence by flooding our elections with vast amounts of $$. And the partisan SCOTUS just furthered the Nazi scheme to buy elections, supporting the effort to the presidentially stated fact that the Nazi Republicans will interfere with the upcoming elections.
So WE need to mobilize and decimate this fascist movement. WE need to ignore all the propaganda that the wealthy are buying in ads and instead talk to our friends, neighbors, family, and to anyone who will listen to US that WE can begin to collectively take our country back in the upcoming midterms in November. If one wants to join like minded souls, join a local Indivisible group to lend more power to your voice. This is an all hands on deck moment.
And Patel and those who should be protecting our Constitutional Rights are part of the Trump criminal operation—working for Trump vindictiveness.
Every time I read of the colonists and their Declaration of Independence I wonder what is stopping States that want nothing of Trumpism from leaving the Union. How much more are we willing to take of the corruption, racism, Latinophobia, sexism, antisemitism, stupidity, foolishness, taxation without representation, and out-and-out lying? These a truly the times that try the souls of all who have the free will to see what is so blatantly before them.
States tryed to leave the Union so they could have African slaves is what started the Civil War. Slavery is wrong and these states were trying to avoid having slavery terminated by leaving the Union. Thank God it did not work. The United States represents all the people, if you do not like that then leave. The rest of us will stay here and work things out.
“If you do not like that then leave” is what the KKK told southern Blacks. I don’t think absolutist proclamations will work. Not for me, anyway. I have considered the idea of “soft secession” — states like CA and NY, who make a ton of money and effectively subsidize states like Alabama and Mississippi, could refuse to give any to the federal government — and I do overall see the appeal of secession for Blue states.
Good luck Elena. How do you propose we work things out? And, don’t tell me by electing better people. When money rules, better people are extremely rare. I’ve been around for 84 years. My first career was in the political and social sciences and legal history. I was asked a few days ago to describe the US in no more than two words. I thought for a long while. My two words for the US? “Terminally Ill” Sounds like the rantings of a tired old man? Maybe, but this country is closer to oligarchic fascism than any country in history but Nazi Germany. Again, good luck. I certainly don’t want what is now the status quo for my children and grandchildren and their children.
Maybe it depends where you live. I live in Los Angeles, except for four years of my life and I am now in my sixties, I lived in Los Angeles, I have lived in California all my life with the exception of 2 years when I lived in Nevada, next door. I do not know where you live and I agree that it depends on where you live. I get along fine here, while no place is perfect, and we still have crime even in areas where you would think there should not be, generally it is a very nice place to live. If you have never lived here, even if you have visited for a short while, you would not know what I am referring to. This is not New York, it will never be New York, THANK GOD!! I HAVE been to New York pre Mandamini, the place is hopeless and his ideas will probably make it worse, my advise to everyone is do not live there, but this is a huge country and New York despite being a big, is just a very small part of the USA.
Barry, last year, many states created a coalition as an alternative to the cdc (specific to vaccine policies). This is allowed vaccine access to remain stable in those states. We need more of this from the states. We have a republic for a reason—to counter the power of a single federal government. They don’t even have to declare independence. They just need to start building their own infrastructure/systems that are separate from (and parallel to) the federal government.
L M,
"We have a Republic for a reason--to counter the power of a single federal government."
Great words of encouragement we must bring to life with our actions!!!!
A nation resting "not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law"?
So far we've descended from the brave history and humane imagination Heather recites here today up to these concluding lines of hers.
Hi Phil, it's taken 250 years to reach this low point and there's still hope we'll pull out of this one.
Not all the trends have been downward, but clearly what the "Republican Party" has become is an existential threat to our Republic. And yes, I remain cautiously hopeful.
And where is Congress? Hiding out in Washington receiving the $110 lodging per diem and their $68 food and incidentals per diem while they expect families on SNAP benefits to survive on an average benefit of $5.80 per day. Plus, there is a work requirement AND a work reporting requirement in many states.
Every company I ever consulted for required weekly time reporting detailing what projects were worked on and for how long. The consultants called in "creative writing", but that's another story. If we failed to turn in our time we didn't get paid. Easy peazy.
Anyway, do we have a clue how our Senators and Congressmen spend their time? Like with many professional jobs, they should on a public website how they spent their time before we pay them.
The reps spend their time at home because Mike Johnson can’t control them and so shuts down the House. Mine spends his time not talking to constituents.
GJ, I recall seeing a television news report years ago that followed a legislator through his day. I don't remember any details, so I'm not going to state any specifics. What I do remember is that the legislator literally spent more time on the phone schmoozing donors and begging for money than doing anything else. He half-heartedly complained about having to spend so much time raising campaign money, but asserted that if he didn't do it, he'd lose the next election.
So basically, our legislators spend a lot of time and money trying to get elected, so they can spend more time and money trying to get re-elected. They are Archimedes trammels, aka do-nothing machines, ellipsographs, or my favorite, bullshit grinders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsograph
…the arbitrary rule of a dangerous clown and his 250 ring circus…
From 1765 to 1776 — but a blip in time. The larger message — for greedy, idiot emperors and their ingrown, mentally deficient families, lackeys so laughably stupid they look as though they were drawn by 4-year-olds with crayons, drunks posing as serious, thinking people, incompetents, criminals and fuckups — is that it can all go south faster than you can say “full algal bloom” five times fast. Some of you drunk with petty power might want to sit up and take notice before it’s too late.
“We have it in our power to begin the world all over again.”
Their juvenile “governing” is so obvious and ridiculous that it’s laughable. But beware. Laughable snd dangerous are not mutually exclusive
Absurd yet armed and dangerous.
Exactly
“ . . . a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law.” And so say all of us!
“We have it in our power,” Thomas Paine wrote in q776, “to begin the world over again.”
Sadly, this is the first July 4th observance that I dread. On the other hand, Trump has achieved something significant: the urgent need for a major reset! I support the idea of fresh, young blood entering the political arena. I would call it Democratic Social Capitalism. This would signify the end of trickle-down economics and the beginning of flood-up economics.
We have the power to reboot America. As the saying goes, “to begin the world over again.” And Trump has taught us what to protect ourselves against—hopefully.
I eagerly look forward this coming bright new America 2.0, where all humanity is not only created equal but is also treated equally!
We read this aloud in the garden tonight before dinner. What inspiration, warts and all.