The United States was founded on principles that many hoped would sustain it through the difficulties that all nations face. Some who helped write our Constitution, who fought for our separation from Britain, hoped this would be a place that a new way would be lived, where all could have a chance for a good life. That's what we celebrate with the Fourth of July. Not just our independence but independence from old ways and the forging new ones.
It had been years since I had watched Camelot. I saw it the first time in the theater when I had one child probably being babysat with her grandparents. We didn't do a lot with babysitters, but there were one or two times; so maybe it was even that. I remember seeing it on the big screen and loving it.
When it returned to my memory was when Vanessa Redgrave lost her daughter. I thought why haven't I watched Camelot? Why don't I have the DVD? Eventually I rectified that and ordered it from Amazon (they are having a sale). We watched it Sunday night and I cried my way through it.
My tears weren't for the three-way romance (which polyamory might have helped although guess not in those days). I had expected that tragic event. No, what made me cry was the dream that King Arther tried to forge, the divine experiment where men would rule themselves with wisdom and debate, where might would help make things right, not take power.
I cried because in Camelot the wonderful dream was lost because of human weakness. Not just Lancelot and Guinevere's but also Arthur's. He knew what was happening between his wife and best friend, and he let it happen without trying to intervene sooner. Then he let his son manipulate him into the disaster it all became.
Arthur let his dream be destroyed by his own human weakness. And that dream is one we are still working toward today where all men have a chance, based on a fair playing field and their own efforts, to build a good life for themselves. In the end of Camelot, Arthur expresses his hope that if the idea lives, then there is yet hope.
Human nature doesn't seem to lend itself well to settling political problems without violence or deceit. We just saw that most recently in Honduras. Power is all some care about and they don't care who is hurt in the process. Arthur had a wonderful dream and parts of it came to pass-- courts to settle disputes; but for some we are still waiting.
Republicans have been scared ever since Obama became president that he would undo all for which this country has stood. What gets me is why didn't they care the last 8 years? Why did they keep voting for a leader who was dismantling the principles under which this nation claimed to stand, step by step, justifying it as being for physical safety? Lucky the original founders weren't so concerned about their physical safety, wasn't it?
People are such sheep and raising sheep, let me tell you, that's no compliment. When you lose freedoms, you have to fight even harder to get them back. Hey righties, how'd you like Obama's recent signing statement? Bush taught him that one.
It's not enough to find fault when it's someone else's party in control. People have to speak up even when it's theirs or they will lose all.
The Fourth of July should not be just an historic event, not just family picnics, parades, or fireworks (if anybody can still afford fireworks), but rather about a resolve to make a just and fair society work . The Fourth of July is about a beginning, not an end. If it doesn't work here, where would it work?
The flag is ours and we fly it at important times. My mother gave it to me. She thought people should fly their flag. She's right. We should also remember for what it has stood, the dream behind it. It's up to us to make that dream reality. It is not too late but someday it might be.Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.
26 comments:
I do plan to write about Sarah Palin but I had this already prepared and felt like this is a day to be hopeful,not analytical :). The other is coming through
Good Morning Rain . . .Like all of your essays Camelot is excellent - and also timely. Today is one of those days that Americans stop for a moment and think about freedom,integrity and honesty etc.
We wonder why so many of our elected officials sail right by July 4th without thinking of these things?
Yet, despite it all America wobbles forward. Most of the people we elect are of the highest caliber and work hard to make the right choices. They deserve a pat on the back - and today is a good day to recognize them.
Camelot is a dream we can try to attain - but never will. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.
Dixon
It is interesting that it was a "bastard" son who proved the undoing of King Arthur. Is this a puritanical poke at King Arthur's original sinning - that it produced his downfall?
The local musical theatre presented Camelot last week. Each musical number is a jewel. It had been a few years since I'd last seen a live production. In that production, also at the Music Theatre of Wichita, Robert Goulet played King Arthur.
Cop Car
"Why did they keep voting for a leader who was dismantling the principles under which this nation claimed to stand, step by step, justifying it as being for physical safety?"
Not that it will make any difference in this forum because you never admit it when others make a point, but...
What choice did we have?
In 2000, Democrats gave us a candidate that was so well respected he couldn't even carry his home State. (And now that we are daily seeing evidence of his man-made global warming lies, God knows where would our country be today if he had been elected!)
And then we had Kerry-Edwards!
Kerry the "Viet Nam Veteran" that literally made me want to vomit.
And John Edwards...
Typical politician.
Now we've elected a Chicago thug we knew nothing about and we're surprised at the way he's handling the office?
Oh please!
"Wanta keep gettin' what you're gettin'? Keep doin' what you're doin'!"
Until we cease rewarding stupid, negative behavior and failure in politics AND life, we'll keep gettin' what we're gettin'.
I didn't care much for GWB but I knew electing a democrat would be worse. You mention Honduras. Have you seen how he's handling Iran? North Korea?
We're now about to reap the whirlwind.
Naturally I think Kerry and Gore were good choices as you thought Palin/McCain were. Remember Gore carried the country (even if not the South) and lost the election to fraud in Florida (not those famous hanging chads but voting booth people who punched out two names-- Buchanan and Gore). That election was lost by a few hundred votes in Florida but won by 3 million in the United States as a whole. Gore would have been a far better choice as president than having us sucked into a war we may never quit paying for which had NOTHING to do with 9/11 but a lot to do with profit for a certain group in the US. As for global climate change, that's a long way from decided (although I didn't like the recent energy bill either as it doesn't seem to me to be anything but another moneymaker for a certain segment-- typical though of government right and left).
As for what Obama is doing about Iran and North Korea, what do you think he should do? Start another war? How did you plan to pay for that, like you did the Iraq war putting it on the tab to China? Other countries are getting tired of paying for our mistakes. It amazes me how you on the right keep thinking we can resolve all the world's problems with brute force.
It's getting harder and harder for right and left to even see the same world. I wonder how Matalin and Carville manage it? Maybe not discuss politics at all?
I was going to take the day off from discussing politics. So I will only say this about Honduras. I do not understand why we are propping up a leftist dictator that wants to be Hugo Chavez. I would hope that if our president tried to usurp the constitution and stay in office for a third term that the military with the approval from Congress would remove him from office. From what I have read Obama and the UN are way off on this one.
It is the domino theory all over again. But this time our president wants to help. Maybe we could sell some weapons to the moderate elements in Iran to raise money to support the anti socialist elements in Honduras. Where is Oliver North when you need him?
Are you aware that the Iran/Contra connection led to our problems with Iran and all the drugs that flooded into this country, ingineer? We encouraged a group who were selling drugs already to get an illegal operation going. If this is the way you want to see the country operate, you don't believe in democracy or anything this country has claimed it believed in when it was founded. What Oliver North helped happen was typical of US actions in the past that has caused so many countries to not trust what we say. It also came very close to a dictatorship in this country when you ignore laws to do what you want regardless of what is right. I guess it is what a lot of righties like but I am surprised you are one of them. It might be what this country is heading toward with those who think with enough might you can take over and run things without the will of the people because after all the only people you can trust are yours and what they tell you. Very scary to me
As for Honduras, the world has decried what happened there. Who likes it? Neo-cons is about all I have heard and they do like wars-- unless they have to fight them. Look for more of this as Nicaragua and Guatemala are also reportedly unstable. Someone is encouraging unrest there. Who benefits from it?
The Oliver North part was tongue in cheek since we still have a similar situation in Iran. I know that in the past the United States propped up drug runners and other despots because they were anti-communist. We did so in South East Asia and in Central and South America. Look at Noriega in Panama. As soon as we won the Cold War we took him out as a drug runner. Apparently it had been fine all along for him to run drugs until we switched from the war on communism to the war on drugs. I am not proud of everything that our nation has done in the last 233 years, but it is still the best place in the world to live. At least for now.
Did you see that now Colin Powell is suddenly worried about Obama's big government and spending and tripling the deficit? Powell has always been a small government guy for some reason he backed Obama and now he is surprised that Obama is doing what he said he would do.
It is not a war in Honduras. It was the military protecting the constitution with the approval of parliament. I do not know who is want unrest there unless it is Chavez trying to expand his power. Or it could be the drug cartels trying to distract everyone from Mexico or they are moving from Mexico so they need to take over some governments. Other than fairly recently, Central American politics has been pretty unstable for the last 150 years.
I saw that on Powell and good for him to speak up. The Republicans need a leader to rise up, which may not be what he wants to do, but they need someone who is respected and willing to speak out for the principles they always said they believed in. Powell has said despite what Limbaugh claims, he's a Republican. He would give Obama a real run for his money in 2012 if he wanted to run. Of course the far right would never support that as he's not socially acceptable to them and he backed Obama against McCain. The fact that he followed his principles doesn't count to them. He might run as a third party if he wished and that would sure make it interesting
I think what Powell didn't want was McCain and the way McCain shot his mouth off about Iran is all the proof we'd need for why he'd have been a disaster as president. Likely for Powell it was more about that then about totally thinking Obama had all the right ideas. Obama himself says he worries about the debt that is being built up. The question is what do you do with the state problems we are seeing and all the jobs disappearing? Those problems aren't ones Obama created since January...
So what happens if they have an election and Zelaya wins it? Will there be any possibility of free elections? For anyone not knowing what to think and that's hard even if you read about it due to the left right conflicts down there also, here is a start: Honduras's swift coup was months in the making
C'mon Rain, read and respond to what I said...
NOT what you wanted me to say.
You know damned well I didn't like the choice of "democrat lite" McCain as republican nominee and would not have voted for him. The only thing that kept me from voting for "none of the above" was his choice of your bugaboo Sarah.
And I said nothing about "climate change." I used the same term Gore used...
"man-made global warming."
There is a difference, and you either know it, or need to be made aware.
And as to Gore winning the election? Even the NY Times investigation showed that to be a lie. Don't propagate that.
I'm looking forward to your post on Palin.
Will you speak to the unbelievable nastiness directed at her, even here? Letterman's cruel "joke" got laughs from his liberal audience...
Once again, rewarding nastiness nets more nastiness.
Where's the change we can believe in?
I shouldn't intercede in the debate with Ingineer, but I would like to point out that the facts are on Rain's side. Ingineeer's arguments are the same old Right's rants. My favorite quote is from John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things." I follow that with, "Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind's made up."
A recent memo has just surfaced from Cheney's camp proving that the Iraq war was planned a long time before 9/11 and was all about oil. I believe in documented truths and do not take any credence in innuendo's and distortion of facts.
If you are going to make a point in a debate you should be prepared to document it with proof.
Like suddenly the NY Times is your source for reliable information. The exact truth about Florida was that there were some chads not pushed out but there also were double votes which were not counted-- for Gore and Buchanan. Did you really think someone meant to vote for both? I brought up Florida because you seemed to be implying that Gore lost the country, and reality is he won the popular vote and lost the election. That is a fact.
As for global warming. I have said that I don't agree with Gore on his use of manmade global warming although it's possible he's right. I just don't think the evidence proves it right now-- either way. I prefer global climate change because Gore calling it warming seemed to confuse those who cannot understand how the planet warming up could lead to colder temperatures some places. I do not personally know what is going on other than this planet has certainly had its changes and man can impact weather locally. I still say Gore would have been a better president than Bush. Looking at all of our problems today, who could have been worse?
As for Palin, I will be writing about that in two days. There were some jokes about her as there are about Obama but nothing nearly as vicious as Obama has received from the right nor death threats that i have heard although I suppose that kind of thing always happens to polarizing figures. The thing she made so much about regarding the photo that had the image of a blogger fan of hers put into it as though she was babying him, that one was used as though it was a put down about her baby, not what it was saying. To me the photo was stupid but it's not why she quit. She might like to make out as though it is as that makes her even more popular with the right who hate the media anyway. Nor do I suspect the piece that will be in the new Vanity Fair (another for your enemy list) is why she quit. Maybe she's facing criminal charges for taking money from that company. Maybe there is a sex scandal in their family which there have been rumors there is. You know it wouldn't matter to Dems but to Republicans, the candidates have to be pure as the driven snow-- or would a plea for forgiveness cover it?
This is all why I say that the right and left cannot talk to each other. I especially don't get it with Sarah Palin. To me she used her family to say how wonderful she'd be as a president (which doesn't make sense but is logic to a right winger), and she then complained when people pointed out all of the problems in that family. She claimed how she believed in less taxes when she instigated a windfall profit tax on oil companies. She claimed she believed in small government when she enlarged Wasilla's debt hugely. Noting that she said was validated by evidence but because she said nasty things about Obama and the left, she was loved by the right. Amazing to me.
Sarah Palin has never demonstrated one single thing to make anybody think she had the ability to be president. This latest resignation is a complete example of that, and yet the right flocks to her.
Fortunately Letterman was on your list of boycotts; and I never stay up that late for anything, but from what I saw later, he apologized all over himself and he was speaking as much against A-Rod (who has a reputation now as after any woman he can get close to) as against Palin's daughter who yes had gotten herself pregnant, but has now gone around the country speaking about how abstinence is the total answer to teen sex. The daughter put herself out there. I do not believe that Letterman thought she had brought her 14 year old with her. But I don't know. I am not a watcher
Rain . . . You got my attention. For such a bright person it is sad (and remarkable) that you could vote for Al Gore and John Kerry under ANY circumstances.
Greybeard has it about right and I think he would agree with me that Mr. Obama is the worst political disaster America has ever faced. The guy is wrong on virtually every front. He and his ultra liberal administration are taking apart our country piece by piece.
George Bush has nothing to do with it. It's Obama's party now. Forget Florida. Forget Gore/Kerry. Forget the Contras. Forget McCain/Palin. Instead take a good look at our President.
Consider his short time of exposure to world politics. His reluctance to take advice from aanyone. The huge ego. Consider that his programs have crippled America's monetary system for decades into the future. Consider that your children's children will still be paying for something called a multi-trillion dollar stimulus bill that the President raced for approval before ANYONE read it.
Yes, conservatives do think about these things - and so should the liberal left. Our independence, liberties, and traditions are worth protecting. We don't need to apologize for them. We need to honor them.
Dixon
And, Dixon, it's equally amazing to me that you would figure anybody wouldn't have been better than Bush for the damage he did to this country. The right and left do see this all so very very differently.
What I see is people who didn't worry about a trillion and probably end up two trillion to fight a war in Iraq and who knows what that went to in terms of money that went there and nobody knew where it ended up. That was okay with the right and yet health care for Americans is not.
Obama may or may not make the right choices as he goes along but he has not been there long enough to do the damage you might wish to claim. That can be all laid at Bush's door and to those who defended him no matter what.
How you could think that McCain with his hair trigger temper and Palin who had just quit for who knows what reason would have been good for this country, well that's the difference between right and left.
I hope you do read some left wing stuff as I do some right. You might find a totally different perspective. If I can read columns by people like Karl Rove or Bill Kristol, even if I do gag, you can read Andrew Sullivan who is btw conservative but not supportive of the neo-con agenda.
If we only read one side, we can't really claim to be informed and all of us could stick to our own comfort zone. I don't think that serves us well in the end.
Darlene I am not sure what debate you are talking about? What facts support Rain?
The president of Honduras said he wanted to change the constitution to allow him another term. The Congress and the Supreme Court said no you cannot do that and ordered the military to remove him from office. All in accordance with what should have been done. It is illegal for him to run for another term.
The leftist president of Honduras is trying to become a dictator for life just like Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez and the other two branches of government do not want that. They want democracy. And for some reason the leftist president here is not backing democracy he is backing the dictator.
If Obama wanted to run for a third term and Congress and the Supreme Court here told the military to remove him they would be doing the correct thing also.
And the news about going to war with Iraq is not new. It was reported a few years ago that we were going to war with Iraq no matter who won the election in 2000.
That is not quite the situation, ingineer. He wanted to vote for whether Hondurans would like to have the option of having a president for more than one term. He was elected president in 2006. He wanted to be able to run again.
He is not liked by those who thought because he came from a wealthy family that he would favor the wealthy in policies. Instead he started having more sympathy for the poor and the average and that upset a lot of those who have a stake in keeping the wealthy wealthy. Yes, he was following after Chavez but that is what Chavez has done. Now whether or not these dictators stay helping the average people, once they get power, that's another issue totally. Anybody though who favors the poor or working class is called leftist by the rightists. So does that make the rightists the party of the rich?
We shall see how this plays out and whether there is a real election but the question is what if the people did want to vote him in for a second term? Would the junta allow that? Or is there something else going on here?
The policy of limting terms to one was begun in the 80s, I think; so it had been changed to prevent dictators gaining power. Something else sometimes happens though when the elected leadership doesn't have much power for long-- someone else runs things. Is that what happened there? I don't really know but I do know only the extreme right here think the coup was a good thing. My experience with them is they rarely actually give power back but this might be an exception. Maybe. They are talking to the OAS to determine if there was legitimate justification for their actions. If the OAS decides not, they are kicked out which likely would hurt them in terms of trade, not sure how much real power is in the OAS
Your wasting your time here guys if you think Rain will ever say, "Well, I can see your point there"...
She's incapable.
I keep trying to talk logic, but it really is a "Don't confuse me with facts" situation here.
No more wasting time for me. There is no such thing as a "Di" alogue here.
Because I read your points and don't agree with you, that means no dialogue, graybeard? Basically I have dealt with your points. What exactly did you respond to me about why you think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president?
It is true that the right and left have a very hard time communicating and if i commented in your blog, I'd not find a warm reception from your other readers. I have tried that. It's a huge divide and I don't disagree with that part of what you said.
As for ingineer, he and I have been friends apart from here. I don't know Dixon personally but suspect he and I could have a potential to be friends also but we'd have to be able to agree to disagree. Sometimes one side cannot convince another and if it takes someone admitting they are wrong, that's not likely to happen.
Incidentally that blog, which you say you won't be reading, that deals with Sarah Palin, it is called Emotion vs. Logic. Not surprisingly I see it quite different than you as to which side uses logic...
Don't give up Guys!! Some times logical people disagree because the terms they use have the same words..but different meanings. I have learned in business(contracts and patents) that the legal, the local and the scientific meaning of phrases are all "unique" and often confusingly different. Thus the definition of "patriotic" will be different. Rain is very logical, conservative economically ,very American, centerist, but not-a-push-over!
FARM BOSS
I don't understand why there isn't a discussion of how the stimulus money is being distributed. I guess we are not used to having information as available as it is on www.recovery.gov. http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/investments-agency
The break down reflects my values with the Department of education having the largest sum available but only has paid out about 1/5th of what is due to them. The Department of Veteran Affairs have been paid 86% of what they will be receiving - the highest percent of what they are going to get of any department. Department of labor has been paid a third of what they will get. NASA hasn't been paid any of the stimulus money being do and the National Endowment for the Arts has spent less than 4%.
If you have a real issue with the way the money is being missused there is a whisle blowing procedure given on the web site.
I am going to have to back up Farm Boss here. Rain is way more liberal than I am, but when the rubber hits the road she really is a true American. Even if she thinks John Kerry would have made a good president. We all make mistakes sometimes. :-)
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