REVOLUTION!

(the american one)




The fourth of July came like a brilliant climax to a week of Carnival. But besides the fireworks what is Independence Day really about?
Imagine a group of ragtag farmers, political radicals and free thinkers who dared to challenge the largest, most fearsome military on earth. People who dared to imagine a different kind of society; one based on freedom, self determination and the liberation of desire. What kind of revolutionaries would be insane enough to believe they might overthrow a superpower in favor of their own free society?
Of course you know their names already: Thomas Paine, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and thousand of rebels who today would, no doubt, be labeleled terrorists and probably enjoy free room and board at Guantanamo
Bay or Colorado’s Supermax prison along with Theodore Kaczynski and other politically motivated criminals.
In 1776 Thomas paine, sat down and wrote a little pamphlet entitled “Common Sense.” Today Barnes and Noble wouldn’t carry it and Borders Books would pressure the publishers never to print it but at the time it had a massive circulation large enough to inspire, well, a revolution. What was Mr. Paine saying?

“Society in every state is a blessing, but
Government, even in its best state, is a
necessary evil; in its worst state, an
intolerable one.”

In America we have a kind of double standard. Erecting a monument to Thomas Paine in Washington while villanizing revolutionaries all over the world. Given our history we should be embracing revolutionaries, making allegiances with anyone championing humanity over capital and tyranny.
Shortly after our successful revolution a group of Massuchesettes farmers and veterans of the Continental Army marched into Springfield. They were opposed to the new State Constitution which was heavy with polling taxes, property taxes and effectively blocked the poor from voting. One time radical Samuel Adams, now part of the Establishment, drew up a “Riot Act” allowing authorities to jail anyone without trial. He said in its defense.
“In Monarchy, the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”

The rebels who were acting against the same excessive taxation they had suffered by the crown were captured, imprisoned, hung and a lucky few were pardoned. Shortly after, the “Alien and Sedition Act” was passed which stated,
“If any person shall write, print, utter or publish...any false, scandalous and malicious writings against the government of the United States...than such person...shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.” Revolutionaries who had so bravely fought for their freedoms just a few years earlier were now jailed for criticizing their new government.
While St Croix considers secession from the Virgin Islands government, much the same way American colonies did, the territories are put on high alert for terrorism after three bombs explode in the London Underground and a fourth rips the top off a bus. We are put on code orange, which to Virgin Islanders means that no one can get on the ferry without identification. All of a sudden the chain link fence that protects Cruz Bay from the terrorist infected world doesn’t look high enough. A policeman patrols the dock along with our homeland security guard. Perhaps now is not the time to start our own revolution, maybe we should be happy under the protective umbrella of Uncle Sam and just keep quiet. Then again as Thomas Paine put it so eloquently when considering the American Revolution,
“We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.”

And the truth rolls out like a terrorists oily tongue. The efforts for Homeland Security on St. John aren’t for the safety of St. Johnians. We are an extremely unlikely target. After torching the World Trade Centers and most recently London, targeting a marginal territory of the U.S. would be laughable. We are more likely considered some sort of gateway - a hole in the border to the land of the free.
Fourth of July parade St John style

What the attacks against the U.S. have done, their real triumph, one that reaches much deeper than the original tradedy, is to make America less free. A place where, like communist Russia, one must carry one’s “papers.” we have sacrificed freeedom in the name of security.
Meanwhile in Perthshire, Scotland thousands of people gather in popular protest of the policies of the G8, namely the industrialized nations of the UK, the US, France, Germany, Japan Italy, Canada and Russia. As the world leaders gather behind a militarized zone with a 150 million dollar security budget to protect them from thier own citizens, the folks outside dance and chant and maybe some of them might quote Mr. Paine when he said,
“Society is produced by our wants, and government
by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness
positively by uniting our affections, the latter
negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The
first is a patron, the last a punisher.”