David Kaib said something that might seem very small at first. But it's about language, and language is about defining reality, and (a) that's the first step to changing reality and (b) that's very much what today's little exercise here on Open Left is all about:
Here's my hope
That we can start with the small step of calling this day Independence Day, not Fourth of July. It recently struck me how odd it is to refer to the day by its date - the only holiday I can think of we do that for. Is there any doubt that his is because of its political content - like so much political language, this seems to be an example of "blunt[ing] the too sharply pointed."
From there, I hope that we can reconnect with the meaning of today (this post by Paul, and Mike's above, are great starts) and other holidays - like MLK and Labor Day. Perhaps we might also use this day as a chance to think about the ways we have yet to root out royalism / aristocracy in our culture - whether that be the way we treat presidents, senators, celebrities, or the rich. Or perhaps maybe (it's a small thing, I know), I could go to the grocery store and not have to see magazines detailing the lives of British princes
I couldn't think about any of the above-Independence Day, reclaiming meaning, calling things by their true names--without immediately thinking about another, closely-related meaning of "Independence Day," the Gretchen Peters song made famous by Martina McBride, a song which embodies its own set of contested meanings that resonate powerfully with what we've been talking about here today, and which became a part of campaign contest last fall. Here's the Wikipedia entry on its background:
The lyrics tell a story of a woman's response to domestic abuse, seen from the point of view of her daughter. The song's music video was somewhat controversial at the time of its release, because of its graphic depiction of domestic violence. The ending of the video is particularly intense, as it shows the young girl's home burning to the ground, implying that the mother had been responsible for the fire, and that she and the abusive father both perished in the fire.
The lyrics have a double meaning in that the woman in the story is finally gaining her "freedom" from her abusive husband. Thus, it is her "independence day." The title also refers to the fact that the events noted in the song happened on America's Independence Day, or July 4.
And its use in politics:
Writer Gretchen Peters has objected to Hannity's use of the song, and engaged in a "personal protest" by donating to organizations such as ACLU, PFLAG and MoveOn.org. When the song was used to introduce Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin at a rally in October 2008, Peters publicly announced that she considered the use of the theme, in view of Palin's opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest to be "beyond irony" and that "[Palin] represented the opposite of what this song really is all about". She said that she intended to donate all royalties from the song during the election cycle to Planned Parenthood, in Gov. Palin's name.
I would have embeded the video as part of this diary, but embeding has been disabled. It's quite powerful, and you can see it here. Lyrics on the flip.
Another comment worthy of reflection. Almost all of us have similar family stories we could tell, except for those exclusively descended from slaves and Native Americans. They're all remarkably similar in essence, regardless of race, or when our ancestors came. Yet, in nuance, meaning and significance, even within the same family, even between siblings, they can be remarkably different, as they define us and we define them:
Mine is the American story of an immigrant. The family legend has that my grandfather arrived here on his 18th birthday. He met and married my grandmother who had emigrated from the same Eastern European country.
My grandfather would work for over 50 years in the steel mills and be one of the first steel workers to become part of a labor union. During the depression they took in relatives to house and feed, grew gardens and geese and chickens.
Some of their children would not make it to adulthood but the seven that did all become successful in their own way. One even made it to college and became an engineer for U.S. Steel. My own father and mother had a successful small business though neither of my parents graduated from high school.
I have watched waves of immigrants reach our shore, first from Cuba, then Viet Nam, now from Mexico, Poland, Russia, and India. Each has the unique story. Some come here without anything; some come armed with a good education and a skill. Each has come to try a new life in a country where opportunity seems limitless and wide open spaces still exist. I marvel at their bravery to come to a country with a foreign language and often very foreign customs. I wonder if I could adjust to new land as my grandparents did before me.
One thing I am sure of those is that the immigrants that come to our shore have made us stronger. They bring to us the best of their homelands and we are the benefactors. These are the exceptional few that have courage and the ability to embrace change. The immigrant story is the backbone of this country and it is the backbone of my story.
My father was born on the Fourth of July and so as a family this was always a day of great celebration. So it has always been in my life this day is always seen as a day for new beginnings and new horizons.
Today let us celebrate all that is good in our country and to remember that there is still work to do so that the blessings are secured for the next generation and every generation thereafter.
And the other clip is Maurice Cheeks helping a young gal get through the anthem at an NBA game when she was screwed up and was about to give up singing.
Sarah Palin Resigns In A Mega-Blizzard of Lies--Revealing A Crucial Difference Between Libertarians and Liberals
It was a slow newsday, Friday before a holiday, so why shouldn't Sarah Palin suck up all the oxygen in five continents? If only that stupid Michael Jackson fellah hadn't died the week before, she could have totally pulled it off. As it was, she did pretty damn well for a couple of hours there. Her big secret? Same as it ever was: she lied. Seven ways from Sunday. She lied about being cleared in all the Alaska investigations; she lied about their cost; she lied about wanting to serve the people of Alaska; she lied about fulfilling her goals; she lied about people attacking her son Trig; she lied about being like a point guard; she lied when she said "and" and "the". She spoke, therefore she lied.
Why does Sarah Palin lie? She lies to get out of trouble; she lies to shift blame; she lies to get even; she lies to get ahead; she lies to hurt her enemies; she lies to amuse her friends; she lies to relieve boredom; she lies to have some fun; she lies because truth is bother; she lies as a key to strategy; she lies because she has no plan; she lies to confuse anyone trying to keep track; she lies to make sense to those not keeping track; she lies for power; she lies because lying works for her; she lies just for the hell of it; she lies because she can; she lies because that's how she expresses her freedom--a very libertarian idea of freedom, I might well add.
Liberals and libertarians are both about freedom, but their concepts of freedom are radically different, and Sarah Palin's compulsive, multipurpose lying is as a good a way as any to approach understanding the differences between them.
In sharp contrast, liberals characteristically express their freedom by telling the truth, inconvenient truths, as Al Gore put it. Truths about racism and war, such as Martin Luther King told, when speaking truth to power. Truths about the social order and tradition that are not supposed to be said.
As we celebrate America's independence and the birth of its democracy this weekend, some states are moving toward enfranchising its future voters. A growing legislative trend following the jump in youth voter participation in the 2008 presidential election, preregistration allows soon-to-be voters to take full advantage of registration opportunities when they get their driver's licenses, fosters civic engagement in the classroom, and catalyzes lifelong participation in democracy.
Last month, when Stephanie Taylor and I turned the tables on FOX's Griff Jenkins, he had "no comment" when asked about the talking points that are distributed to FOX anchors and reporters each morning giving them Republican propaganda to say aloud on the air.
But last night, the single-best progressive talk show out there -- The Young Turks -- went beyond their great news analysis and entertaining commentary. They broke actual news.
Check out FOX's talking points on Al Franken:
Congrats to Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Jayar Jackson, David Koller, and Jesus Gadoy for breaking this news.
A programming note: I mentioned above that the Young Turks is the single-best progressive talk show out there. I mean it. I listen to their podcasts when I jog and whenever else I can.
Not only is their news analysis absolutely in the same ballpark as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, but they are extremely entertaining. Mothers pushing their babies around DC in strollers look at me weirdly because I spontaneously laugh while jogging.
How can you listen to The Young Turks? Watch the Young Turks online for free at TheYoungTurks.com. Join their 59,000 subscribers on YouTube. Or, do yourself a favor and become a $10/month member and get all their podcasts to listen to whenever you want -- like your drive to work.
On this holiday celebrating the courage of America's brave revolutionary founders, all Americans can celebrate. But progressives should take special pride in this holiday, for it was the ultimate achievement of progressive values that brought us this day.
As I discuss in my book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, the Tories who opposed American independence were the conservatives of their day. They revered tradition, and proudly followed orders from the king and the aristocracy in London. They hated and feared the idea of democracy, and thought the idea of equality was laughable. As Tory Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, argued:
"If I must be enslaved, let it be by a king at least, and not a parcel of upstart lawless committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.
In a letter to the editor of a British newspaper, another American Tory argued that the colonists had shown:
...an extravagant zeal for liberty without considering...that nothing is as essential as a due obedience to the government they live under.
The Tories valued tradition over justice, feared the unintended consequences of change, and hated the idea of being "gnawed to death by [the] rats and vermin" of democracy.
Our progressive revolutionary founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine argued that we should "make the world new again." Paine's pamphlet Common Sense lit a fire under the American people, reaching working class and poor people as well as the elites, and fundamentally changed the debate. Before Common Sense was published, most Americans were debating how they could best claim their rights as Englishmen. Afterwards, the debate was about revolution itself.
And make no mistake: the ideas we take for granted today were truly radical in 1776. Before our revolution, every country on earth was ruled by some kind of king and aristocracy. Ideas like democracy and equality were shocking and terrifying to the conservatives of the day. Even among the brave leaders who came together in Philadelphia, their list of grievances with the king and Parliament were pretty basic. But in Jefferson's stunning opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, he blew away thousands of years of assumptions about government - the divine right of kings, citizens owing obedience to whatever government they lived under, adherence to tradition, rule by aristocracy. And he set the stage for an American debate about the progressive values of equality and justice that have inspired our debates ever since.
Listen to the words again with fresh ears. Think about how radical they were then, and how their values should inform our modern debates:
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 pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power 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 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 affect their Safety and Happiness.
Those ideas are progressive ideas. Those values are progressive values. So as we are fighting today's battles - to expand our definition of equality to all of our people, to protect our rights as free citizens, to make sure all of the children growing up in a great country have a legitimate chance at their own pursuit of happiness - let's remember and embrace that history.
