Reflections on the American Revolution

   I was recently studying the American Revolution with my 4th grader and the events leading to it and to our eventual birth of a nation.  For anyone who hasn't thought about this lately, this is a great time to revisit the beginnings of what was to become the United States of America.  It had been a long time since I thought about our revolutionary history.  Since I had recently taken our children to an Occupy protest, it was one of those few times where a history lesson actually comes to life with a large amount of relevancy.

   There are those close to us, family and friends, who do not believe in the Occupy movement.  Some are conservative and some are just scared.  A close relative recently shouted at me in exasperation, "It is just going to get worse!"  I wasn't sure if he was angry at me, the situation or the fact he has realized he will never be in the 1 %.  All of these reasons are valid to be upset.  He is right.  It will.   However, all of us on the front line know things need to change.

   Critics keep asking, "What is is that THEY want?  What are THEIR demands?"  If you have to ask, you are either naive or in denial or in the 1%,  I would venture to say.  At LGMC, we recently posted a nicely written list of demands noted by Michael Moore.  In sum though, it is simple.  We want some semblance of normalcy with a vibrant middle class.  The world feels insane right now.  How can CEO's of large, corrupt banks and decision makers who knew what was happening be allowed to get away with the destruction of the American economy AND profit by it?  Why are they not in jail?  Why must WE all suffer? How can all of us who are struggling to provide for our families and defaulting on student loans, credit cards, mortgages all be a bunch of whiny, irresponsible, losers?  Something happened in America;  it was a slow course but a path we all chose to take.  We, the 99% are not responsible for actually coming up with the exact solutions and policies.  It is our job though, as true Americans, to protest what we feel is a "bizarro" world right  now (to borrow a DC Comics concept).

   Back to American Revolution.  In the mid 1700's things did not seem right our ancestors; they were in their own bizarro world.  They felt that being ruled by a King in a country thousands of miles away was not right anymore.  In simple terms, they did not like being ruled by and paying tribute in the form of taxes to a King.  There was also a lack of religious freedom and taxation without representation. The key themes were independence and justice and these are still relevant today.  The topic which started me on this path is one we all know and love - the Boston Tea Party.  In school my daughter was taught that that Boston Tea Party occurred due to increased taxation but there is no mention of the real culprit, the East India Company.  Many of us, who consider ourselves enlightened, know or at least learned many moons ago (when real history was taught in school) that the East India Company was running rampant in the New World at that time. (Thom Hartmann wrote an excellent blog, based on fact, about this historical event you can read here.)

   The East India Company was truly the large multinational corporation of its day enjoying a British-supported monopoly on the tea market due to some huge tax cuts it was granted by the Crown.  The fact is, the East India Company paid no taxes at all on their tea shipments (can you say corporate greed and corporate crime?). Does any of this sound familiar?   Justice was requested and refused. This tax imbalance caused colonial tea importers to go out of business because they could not compete with the East India Company; unemployment and unrest grew among the colonists.  The decision was made by our ancestors to protest this immense injustice; they dumped tens of thousands of pounds of tea into the harbor to show their disagreement with this policy (a value of approx. $1.3-$3.1 million in today's dollars). As a result of this event, Great Britain closed down the port until the colonists paid back the losses which, of course, did not happen.  One has to wonder what would have happened if the tax structure had been rectified?  This was a turning point in the revolution.  What if Britain had acquiesced on certain demands? As it stands in history, a year plus later, the port was still closed, and then came the "Shot Heard Around the World" as the war truly started.

   The key point of this micro history lesson is that the true Spirit of '76 was the fact that we, as a young burgeoning nation, knew we had to fight these injustices running rampant.  We could have done nothing and none of us would be here today reading this - at least not in the world we know.  However, we stood up, we protested, we fought.  It was not pretty.  In reflecting on all the missed opportunities that the British had to placate the masses at the time, it also makes us contemplate our current situation.  If our leaders would listen vs. question, and act vs. react, our path could actually change for the better, without violence. This is truly a bizarro world.  Nothing is right or normal any longer.  Places and people we used to trust are untrustworthy.  Jobs upon which we relied are gone. Real home ownership is a "thing" of the past. Health care is unaffordable  Education is sub par.  This will get ugly. With luck, we can hope that our current leaders are slightly smarter that the British that ruled us in 1776.  In the meantime, as true Americans, we must fight and protest all the injustices we are being served.  All of us, including the 1%, will benefit from a normal world and all of us must demand change.