American Evolution: an Exegesis

For those who are curious; you may be many, or you may be nonexistent, in which case I am speaking into a void, I thought I'd explain in detail what I intended when I chose to title this blog "American Evolution." As is done with scripture, I chose to look at each word individually, in addition to their connection to each other.

American: This is easy.  I will be focusing on American issues.  The news I look into, respond to, and talk about is American, or at the very least affects America or Americans.

Evolution: Yes, I adhere to the theory of evolution.  If a better supported and incompatible theory supersedes this as a viable alternative, I may reconsider, but I don't consider religious texts to be hard evidence against this theory.  However, this is not solely concerned with the past and the origins of our species, but also with where we are going; how I see American culture developing, for better or worse.

Now for the two words together.

American Evolution: It is my hope to highlight, and perform my small part to advance, the evolution of America beyond the current state of today.  It is to point out the areas in need of improvement, and highlight a direction to head in, or a path to follow, as I see it.  I desire to see an evolution of consciousness in the American people.  I want to see a people who is educated, and capable of critical thinking.

We've reached a point in American society where we no longer trust our elected representatives to, well, represent us.  The prominence of political "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders (and yes, Donald Trump) are a testament to this growing zeitgeist.  Unfortunately, even amid the backdrop of this awakening to the corruption and disdain of the establishment for the desires and passions of its constituency (which I sincerely hope is a true awakening, with lasting repercussions, rather than a venting of steam into which will be spent the revolutionary fervor, allowing us to settle anew into the familiar complacency of lassitude and despondency) we as a people fall short, for even in the glimpsing of it, we lack the acumen to put that realization to good use.  This is by design.  It is also the hurdle I wish to see us surmount, and play out my little role in boosting us over.

Right now what unites American is a sense of pervasive dissatisfaction, but with what or whom, we are divided.  We have noticed that the narrative we are being fed does not make sense; we've dimly grasped that we are dreaming, but in that foggy way that does us little good.  We are trying to wake up, or at least learn to dream lucidly, but we lack the skills, and they are pumping us full of tranquilizers and anesthetics to keep us under.  It's time to pull out the morphine drip, and face reality.


It is no accident that this is but one letter away from American Revolution.  I see the process of evolution as an inherently revolutionary act.  We must change the way we see the world and interact with it.  If we do that, the status quo cannot remain intact.  Many of us, myself included, are strongly attached to the idea of America.  This attachment to the idea often causes us to don the rose-colored glasses with regards to the truth of America, and the truth is that we are not what we claim to be.  In a sense, we never have been.  Some of you may have the urge to shout epithets at the screen upon reading that, and if it were the end of the thought, I might even say you were justified; but it's not the end of the thought.  Because our history is a tangled mess of people who have been trying to be what we claim to be; and those who beat the drum louder than anyone else, while marching against the tide of history and the values that they would claim to represent.

Part of growing up is accepting the delusions an romantic misconceptions of your childhood.  Despite all of our self-righteous chest-slapping over our moral superiority, our history is filled with some of the worst atrocities in history.  Slavery, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese Americans, mass incarceration, these are only a prominent few.  They need not define us, but we cannot pretend they are not a part of who we are as a nation.  They continue to shape us even now.  Racism did not end with Martin Luther King Jr.  Upton Sinclair didn't forever stop industry from mistreating its workers.  Women's suffrage did not win them equality.

The process of cultural evolution must be accompanied by a wide-spread personal evolution.  It is the responsibility of each of us to become better than we are.  It is our responsibility to pay attention and observe the world around us; our city, our state, our nation, and hold it accountable for being what we deserve it to be.

Vox: "The rise of American authoritarianism"

In an article long enough to need a table of contents, Amanda Taub of Vox brings us an insightful and adroit look at the true phenomenon taking place behind the curtain of Donald Drumpf and his rise to prominence within the Republican Party.

It took me a few days to get through it, due to a combination of its sheer volume and the distressing nature of her findings.  It has been frequently said that the most troubling aspect of Trump's rise is not Trump himself, but the number of his supporters.  In itself, this is not surprising, but the article sheds light on what lies behind the droves of supporters the businessman-turned-reality-star has garnered.  The researchers have discovered that around 44% of Americans (who are mostly found in the republican party) display authoritarian personality traits.  Those with these authoritarian personalities tend to be fearful of foreign threats, and of social change, feeling personally threatened by a change in the structure of society.  In a climate like now, when they are encouraged to fear ISIL, Russia, and Iran; when they are afraid of terrorist attacks and the Zika Virus, when they see Gay Marriage becoming legal, immigration changing the demographics of society, and protesters shouting that "Black Lives Matter" they experience existential dread over their place in society, and desire a perceived "strong man" to take charge and tell them everything will be alright; that he'll make the scary bad guys go away. Enter Drumpf.  He fits their needs to a T.

The Good News
The article seems to suggest that they don't have the numbers to pull off a win in the General election.
The Bad News
The large number of authoritarians in America suggests that their anxieties and their desires will continue to exist as a force in politics long after this election.

Sing Out For Bernie: "Hey Bernie Sanders"

Here comes another one.  While not especially new, it was new to me when I discovered it the other day.  Brian Estes of youtube channel homemadechickn brings us a modern folk song about our favorite socialist.  Furthermore, he's announced that the song is "common property of anyone who wishes to sing it, share it, whatever," which makes is perfect for a Sing Out, for a rally, a protest, a phone-bank party, or any occasion that moves you to sing along to this tune.

He praises the Vermont Senator with straightforward lyrics and and simple chords, played on the banjo, while you can gaze out his rear window at the forest in the background.  The "grassroots" essence of Bernie's political movement is apparent in this video, in more ways than one.

It's a charming little ditty that is bound to stick in your head, & echoes older populist movements, awakening the spirit of Woody Guthrie and (more recently) the 60s protest songs of Bob Dylan and his ilk.  This is appropriate considering the political and socioeconomic climate of the US today.  We are coming out of a recession that may well have been the worst economic collapse in the US since the Great Depression, and the nation today shows many parallels to he 1960s.  The Black Lives Matter movement echoes, and could learn a great deal from, the Black Panther Party.  The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, with no end in sight, alongside the threat of more war in Syria has drawn protest and upheaval at home not seen since Vietnam.  And once more, women's sexuality is in question, and women are trying to assert their right to own their bodies and to do with them as they see fit.  All of these parallels make Estes' music seem very timely and appropriate.

Sing Out for Bernie:
"Feel the Bern"
"Talk Bernie to Me"

Pledging Allegiance

A few years ago, a push to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance stirred up controversy relating to the relationship of church and state, and whether the technically-not-mandatory-but-do-what's-expected-of-you pledge in school was a violation of religious freedom.  Spoiler alert: they didn't take it out.

There is a bigger issue than the tacked-on "under God" in the rote recitation of the Pledge: the REST of the pledge.  Let's break it down.

"I pledge allegiance..."
The term allegiance is derived from its root word "liege," which Merriam-Webster defines as: "having the right to feudal allegiance or service" or "obligated to render feudal allegiance and service." Dictionary.com defines the noun liege as "a feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service" and the adjective form as "owing primary allegiance and service to a feudal lord."  Merriam Webster defines allegiance itself as "the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord."

At least I'm not a serf.  Those guys are fucked!

The feudal system is antithetical to the principles of the American government.  The keeping of the people in serfdom by a king and his appointed lords and vassals constitutes a form of slavery which is thoroughly incompatible with the concept of liberty, and with the foundations of the United States of America.  The Declaration of Independence states that:

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, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

The key phrase here is "from the consent of the governed."  It is the very basis of the American system that the government is only legitimate through the consent of the American people.  As a form of republican government, meaning that the vox populi is the true ruler of the state, and that is expressed by the people's chosen representatives, who rule in their name with with their voice.  If the people are displeased, they are within their rights and powers to remove that representative from office.  But if the people are "obligated to render feudal service" then they are not free citizens.  And to whom are they promising this service?

"...to the flag of the United States of America."

To the Flag.  Not the people, or even the nation itself, but the symbol of that nation.   An argument can be made that this is a usage of metonymy, and the flag stands in for, and even means the United States as a whole.  That is all well and good, but placing undo reverence on the symbol can lead to a distancing from the reality of the thing itself.

Symbols are used by those who understand their power.  Because we have invested so much energy into The Flag--every child in America has chanted their promise of service to it every morning at school for years and years and years--politicians use this fixation on the flag and can very easily confound and assail our senses by using this symbol as a shield to deflect suspicion.  You can see this in display when candidates for office wear prominent flag pins, or more extremely, by competing over who can display the most, or the biggest flags.

Do you think he's compensating for something?

"...and to the Republic for which it stands..."
Oh right, there's actually a government!  So we are also pledging to serve the republic; the system of representative government meant to serve us.  Hey wait a minute...

Yes.  They've actually gotten us to turn it around in our heads so that instead of making the government promise to serve the American people, the people promise daily to serve the government.  And this happens on a daily basis throughout the nation at our schools, at an age when we are at our most malleable and impressionable.  Something sounds hinky.

Abby's on it!  McGee is there too.

"...one nation under God..."
Ok, so this one is divisive.  Some people like it and will bristle if you try to take it out.  Apparently these people represent a majority of some sort.  At least in government.  But while there isn't anything objectionable as such in "one nation," the phrase "under God" is another matter.  The phrase was added in 1954 by congressional legislation which is a violation of the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  Why does this violate the amendment?  Because it gives national respect to the idea of god which is present in many, but not all religions.  It imposes upon American patriotism a religious hue, and not just in general, but specifically monotheistic religion.  Furthermore, this is not simply stating the existence of such a god, but that the United States is a nation under that god; subservient to him.  If the nation was meant to be religious in nature, and meant to be second to the will of God there would have been some mention of god or religion somewhere in the US Constitution.  There isn't.  Don't believe me?  Go look for it.  I'll wait.

"...indivisible..."
Well...

Secession didn't work.  We had a whole Civil War about it.  Though technically if you have tens of thousands of Americans killing each other en masse over whether the nation can be divided or not, isn't the nation already divided?  So are we talking about legally here?  Because that's true-ish if you're assuming that the United States is eternal or something, but chances are that some day; years, centuries down the line, it will cease to be, and then all bets are off.

They certainly can't mean politically.  The whole basis of the US was so that there could be disagreement politically.  And while George Washington might have told us not to form political parties, we didn't listen.  Now Americans are SUPER divisible!  They divide along party lines, issues, and Donald Trump's hair.

You're responsible!  You're the one to blame!  It's YOUR FAULT!

"...with liberty and justice for all."
That's cute.  It's just not true.

It's incredibly naive to think, much less chant as a daily ritual, that everyone actually gets liberty and justice in America, just by virtue of the fact that this is America.  Regarding liberty, that is becoming questionable in the ever-more-police-state-looking modern day America.  Since the Patriot Act (at least) the government has been spying on us & accumulating information to determine whether we are good loyal citizens or not, and since the NDAA the Feds can hold you indefinitely and without charges on the suspicion of terrorism.  This is not to mention that the US leads the world in mass incarceration.  We have more prisons than colleges, and some for-profit prisons are now suing the government for not providing enough prisoners.  That's right, there is actually a demand for prisoners.  A whole industry around making sure that large numbers of citizens are locked up, and making sure that we have enough citizens locked up.  It's disgusting that we have an industry that creates this kind of demand for crime and punishment.

Don't get me started on justice!  Was there justice for Tamir Rice and his family?  Not only the the police officer shoot dead an innocent twelve year old boy on sight, but the state actually sued his family for the cost of the ambulance.  Insult to injury much?  And the officer involved was never even tried for the unnecessary killing.  Let me make sure that is understood: he wasn't found not guilty in court, he was never taken to court at all.  They just refused to investigate.  And that's just ONE of the many many cases of injustice throughout America, so to say that this is a land that achieves liberty and justice for everyone is just a lie.

So there is something problematic with almost every part of the Pledge, not just those two little words that have received so much of the attention, but we continue to, if not force then at least coerce, our students to repeat it day, after day, after day, often without really knowing why they are doing it, or what it is they are really pledging.  We need to rethink the pledge.