The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Citizen Responsibility

    By Barth on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 2:36pm |
    If you are of a certain age, you have heard this so many times, you can probably probably feel the beat when it gets played again and again.

    As we watch a nearly dysfunctional legislative process try to accomplish what strong majorities of Americans want them to doagainst the will of the torrent of money dangled as campaign contributions before the very eyes of those privileged to serve as our Senators and Representatives, those words, from a cold and snowy January day more than 48 years ago, deserve another reading:

    In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

    Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need -- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

    Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?..

    I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

    And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

    My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

    ...[W]hether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

    He did not serve long enough to be our greatest president, but he was the most inspirational of my lifetime. And the message he sent, that the success of our "endeavor" is the hands of our fellow citizens as much as it is in any president, is not only in keeping with the republican form of democracy under which our nation was established, it is true and proven to be so on issue after issue after issue.

    Did Brown versus Board of Education change the racial climate of this country, or the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 or 1964, or was it the Voting Rights Act of 1965? And if it was a court decision, or important legislation, how did that come to happen? Was it because of a particular leader, or was it that the American people finally demanded that it be done (partially, and sadly, as a memorial to its murdered president).

    What finally ended the Vietnam War? How was the the expansion of that war into Cambodia stopped? What made Congress pursue a Watergate scandal many of them would rather have swept under the carpet?

    Us.

    Of course, before "they" make "a statute of Us" we are going to have to do something. We can stop letting some guy who knows about our fleeting attention spans distract our attention by pretending his son is flying around in a aluminum covered helium balloon. We can even stop arguing about whether FOX News is a "news organization" or a "talk radio" outlet (or a dessert topping which doubles as a floor wax).

    It is dangerous to talk about politics as if it were war. They are not the same; not even close except when politics fails and war ensues as when our nation was born. But Winston Churchill's famous exhortation to Commons when he was asked to form a wartime government at one of the worst moments in Britain's history has some application to our present situation in describing our collective responsibility:

    I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat [but] I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."


    Our founders explained to "a candid world" that governments 

    deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed [and t]hat 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


    That does not mean, as Senator Coburn and his ilk suggest, that when one disagrees with the government, that resort to violence is justified. But it means that government has an obligation to be responsive to the will of the people assuming that it does not want to oppress those who disagree. A government that does not do that, is an invitation to anarchy. We cannot allow that to happen.

    The loud noises of the summer were, we know now, not functionally different from the story of the boy supposedly flying in a shiny baloon. They were designed to attract the attention of the blow dried cutie pies on television (such as the one who could not tell the difference between Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton), and away from the issues at hand.

    That easily performed magician's trick works to allow those with money to flash it around members of Congress who have every reason to consider whether their future in office will be better assured if they vote as the electorate may want, or the way the people with money demand. If the voters are passive, show interest only at election time, and decide which candidate to support based on campaign commercials, the "earth tones" of the clothing worn by the candidate or who is better company while drinking beer, then common sense dictates that one's political position should be up for grabs for whoever can pay for the commercials and consultants that can secure an election.

    If, on the other hand, we make noise, we support our candidates not because they agree with us on every vote, but they are honest, and share our general outlook, we can change the world. We can. We have done it many times before. 

    When one of, our perhaps the, greatest of our presidents assumed office during a financial crisis so deep that banks had to be briefly closed lest 
    they collapse as Americans panicked into thinking their money was safer in mattresses, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the unprecedented step of using radio to speak directly to the nation and, in doing so, explained each person's responsibility for resolving the crisis:

    It has been wonderful to me to catch the note of confidence from all over the country. I can never be sufficiently grateful to the people for the loyal support that they have given me in their acceptance of the judgment that has dictated our course, even though all our processes may not have seemed clear to them.



    Many years later he said this, too, at the height of World War II as he looked ahead to a world to which, sadly, he did not survive to see:

    This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights--among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

    As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however--as our industrial economy expanded--these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

    We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 

    "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

    In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

    Among these are:

    The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

    The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

    The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

    The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

    The right of every family to a decent home;

    The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

    The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

    The right to a good education.

    Our course has been set. We know what our mission is. Only we can achieve it. Let's do it, in the memory of our great leaders, but, more importantly, for ourselves and our posterity.