This is number 4 in my series on writing the book - really a pamphlet. Here is the updated table of contents; there will be more to follow. I shifted a few things around to make it flow better. As always - I am interested in feedback and criticism:
“A Republic… if you can keep it.”
“to form a more perfect Union”
Civics
What Is Civil Society? (A Brief History)
Modern Democracy
Progress
Origins of Progressivism in the 19th Century
Progressive Era
President Theodore Roosevelt & His Shift to the Left
Progressives in the 20th Century & Reaction to Them
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
Civil Rights and the Great Society
Ralph Nader
Powell Memorandum & Evolution of Conservative Non-Profits
Neoliberals Come Into Power
Neofascism as a Reaction To Progress and the Enlightenment in the 21st Century
Project 1981 and Project 2025 – The Heritage Foundation’s Century Long Plan
Dark Enlightenment – A Threat To Democracy and Freedom
Useful Idiots – Dominion Theology, NeoNAZIs, and The Uneducated
21st Century Progressivism – The Fundamentals: What We Should Do To Evolve America as a People and a Nation – How to Make a More Perfect Union And Heal The Past
What Do We Stand For? This Is Our Line In The Sand.
What is Broken? Let’s Fix This First
What is Our Vision For The Future? Let’s Get Started Down The Path
Appendicies: 10
Appendix A: The Constitution of the United States of America
Appendix B: The Amendments to The Constitution
Appendix C: The Articles of Confederation
Appendix D: The Declaration of Independence
Index:
References & Further Reading:
About The Author:
End Notes
Here is the full text, so far - please comment with your suggestions, critiques etc:
An American Civics Primer For The 21st Century
By: [Resistance Radio]
The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (since renamed Independence Hall) from May 25th to September 17th 1787, longer than the attendees wanted or expected. The convention was initially intended to revise the system under the Articles of Confederation, which had been found wanting, but key proponents for the convention, including James Madison of Virginia, and Alexander Hamilton of New York, thought a new framework for government was needed. George Washington of Virginia and former commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War – who was a proponent of a stronger national government – was elected as President of the convention. Most of the delegates were in agreement that a new system was needed, but not all, which lead to lengthy discussion over the details which threatened to sink the whole effort. However, nearly 4 months later they finally were able to conclude their efforts.
On Saturday, the 15th of September 1787 the delegates at the Constitutional Convention completed working through each point of the committee of the second draft of the Constitution. As the day closed, Randolph of Virginia, Mason of Virginia, and Gerry of Massachusetts gave speeches against it as written; Randolph called for a second convention which was unanimously voted down. In a move that seems prescient to us today, he proposed to remove the President’s pardon power in cases of treason. Wilson of Pennsylvania disagreed. Presidents should be able to pardon all offenses, and treasonous Presidents could be impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted. Randolph’s motion failed, and would echo through time first with President Andrew Johnson, then President Richard Nixon’s Watergate debacle, and today as of this writing, we find ourselves with a treasonous and convicted felon President, twice impeached, sitting in the Oval Office against all logic as a corrupt majority in Congress allows his crimes to go unpunished even as he further violates his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
Gerry(MA) had a laundry list of objections, some of which seem relevant today:
• Senators were reelectable and their terms were too long.
• The House of Representatives could keep its records secret.
• Congress could regulate where elections happened.
• Congress controlled its own compensation.
• Massachusetts should have been given more Representatives.
• Enslaved Americans were represented at a three-fifths ratio in Congress even though they weren’t citizens.
• Congress could create commercial monopolies.
• The Vice President of the United States was the President of the Senate.
Finally at the end of that longest day of days of that hot summer (temperatures ran up to 85 degrees and stayed consistently in the mid 70s throughout that summer – particularly warm in an era without air conditioning), each state agreed to the document as amended, and Washington adjourned the group until Monday, giving time for the clerk to create a handwritten copy for the delegates to sign, and a number of printed copies of the document to be made. Most of the delegates made their preparations for travel back to their home states.
On Monday the 17th of September 1787, the day began with a speech written by Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and presented by Wilson of Pennsylvania in preparation of signing. It was also an effort to convince the three holdout delegates, Gerry(MA), Randolph(VA), and Mason(VA) to abandon their opposition to the Constitution:
“...having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.” He admitted that the men in the room were all well-reasoned and had a diversity of opinions, making it difficult to find common ground. “From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does.... Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention, who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”
“Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, &c. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.”
This did not sway Randolph, and in his apologetic way he gave a speech refusing to sign the document, but left the door open to supporting the Constitution when Virginia considered ratification. Randolph thought that presenting the Constitution to the American people to only accept or reject in total, without amendments, would cause all the “anarchy and civil convulsions” which the soon-to-be signers professed to want to avoid. Gerry gave a speech to the same effect. (Later, it was ratified by the states after contentious debates that made amendments – the bill of rights – a necessary requirement. Only North Carolina and Rhode Island waited for amendments from Congress before ratifying.)
Franklin again begged Randolph to sign, but he again refused, and that was the end of that. Mason, Randolph, and Gerry refused to sign after Franklin’s form of signing was passed by the majority, and the remaining delegates signed the document that would become our national system of government.
When asked by Elizabeth Powell, wife of the Mayor of Philadelphia and mutual friend of George Washington, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Benjamin Franklin is said to have replied, “A republic... if you can keep it.”
As the delegates found, perfection is not a destination; it is really a journey of improvement. Perfection is arbitrary and essentially unobtainable. One person’s perfection is another person’s starting point, and even if you attained the highest point of perfection in your life, there is always tomorrow to go higher still, or fall, and the next day rise again. Life is a continuum of change.
Voltairei is credited with the aphorism, “Perfect is the enemy of good” which is exactly what Ben Franklin was trying to get across to his friends at the convention. Progress, on the other hand, is possible, and to any reasonable person desirable, and was the real goal of forming that “more perfect union.” Even as egregiously imperfect the system was at its outset for native Americans and slaves who had no rights under its initial incarnation, it was designed with improvement in mind and improve it we did - but not without battles along the way. There is still more progress to be made, and progress by definition has no end.
The goal of this pamphlet is to tell the story of the Constitutional crisis we are now experiencing in the beginning of the 21st century that threatens democracy, present remedies to this situation, and in the process guide you, dear reader, to the realization that civic education and engagement is not optional if we are to maintain freedom and a healthy democracy.
There is also further reference material in the appendices at the end, including the full text of the Constitution and its amendments, the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, indices and references/URLs to external resources including the full text of the federalist papers, and end notes where clarification might be needed.
This is not meant to replace the existing body of civics education and research that exists, it is merely an introductory text that can also be a reference you keep close when questions arise.
noun
1. The branch of political science that deals with civic affairs and the rights and duties of citizens.
2. The science of civil government.
3. The study of good citizenship and proper membership in a community.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
If you were not a European immigrant or the children of these immigrants, the last five hundred and thirty three years have been a living hell, as your people have been killed, your lands taken, your culture and languages erased. And yet, most civics courses I see focus on the mechanisms of government in sterile isolation, without giving real context for what got us here in the first place. Empathy and understanding is missing from the largely clinical discourse on civics in the academy.
Civics starts with a simple question: What is civil society?
At a very basic level, civil society is not government or business – it is the people in the private sphere. It is the first words in the Constitution: “We The People.” It is or should be the primary purpose for the creation and maintenance of a system of government – for the people, by the people, and of the people. Its origins go back to Greek and Roman times and the term ‘republic’ stems from the Latin “res publica” (public affair or people’s affair). A republic is a state where political power rests in the hands of the people, through their elected representatives, though the definition of citizens did not always encompass all the people in ancient times.
The idea of republics and democracy date back to ancient Greece with the writings of Aristotle; in his work “Politics” he defined the city state as a political community established for collective survival. Later Roman writers would expand on these ideas. Rome at it’s height was the prime example of these ideas in the ancient world, with it’s Senate and empire that controlled the Mediterranean Sea and the lands surrounding it at its height. Yet it didn’t go far enough or see the true potential of egalitarian democracy. In its fall, it reminds me in some ways of America today; as the power of Rome waned, and its armies began to lose to barbarian armies in the west, Goths began to cross the frontier borders, and seek refuge in Roman towns and cities, young Goth men joined the struggling Roman armies, and their families made homes. Xenophobia and stereotyping followed, and this lack of acceptance spread to all parts of life as Christian Roman emperors banned pagan temples and forced Christianity on the population. This led to a split between the Western and Eastern parts of the empire further hastening its demise. The last emperor to grant citizenship to outsiders, thus protecting them from lawlessness, died in AD 217, and society collapsed in slow motion as Goths were enslaved, and died on the streets and battlefields of the dying empire over several hundred years. The refusal of the Roman people to embrace change, tolerance, and empathy led to their ultimate downfall as the central power in the world.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, the far flung regions of the former coalesced into feudal states lead by monarchs: kings. By AD 630 the Roman Senate collapsed, and its seat, the Curia Julia was made into a church. The peasants who provided the labor had no rights and little was made of civil society beyond the edicts of kings and their vassals until the late middle ages with the reemergence of public law for landholders in contrast to monarchical law.
By the end of the Middle Ages (5th through 17th centuries) the Age of Enlightenment emerged, and the value of knowledge regained prominence through rationalism and empiricism, and public recognition through significant works starting with scientific works of such luminaries as Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton followed by the philosophical works of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and John Locke. Enlightenment was concerned with a range of social and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The spread of these ideas was the beginning of the end of the Monarchical system and the absolute power of kings.
The American Revolution, and then the French Revolution followed and people began to rule themselves for the first time in modern history in a way that we today would recognize as democracy and the rule of law.
The origins of what a government of and by the people should be and do was under consideration by the founders and others at the beginning of the early modern era.
[ more to follow in this section - construction zone ]
noun
1. Forward or onward movement, as toward a destination.
"We made little progress on our way home because of the traffic."
2. Development, advancement, or improvement, as toward a goal.
"The math students have shown great progress."
3. A ceremonial journey made by a sovereign through his or her realm.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Progress is one of many seemingly innocuous words who’s meaning has been twisted over the years in the pursuit of regression and darkness because of who it threatens. Progress has been maligned as ‘communist’ and ‘anti-capitalist’, by those corporate and monied interests, and those elected representatives who are propped up with their billions – who want low corporate and wealth taxes, while at the same time gaining subsidies through corporate welfare and contracts the rest of us end up paying for. For these people, progress is their downfall because it puts regular people at their level.
To those of us who grew up in post Civil Rights Act/Voting Rights Act America, there was little thought of any encroaching darkness, as we were told: progress had clearly won the long struggle between the light and dark. We lucky generation who grew up in that time since 1970 had a peaceful childhood – we went to school in desegregated schools, and appreciated the progress of universal suffrage, civil rights had really freed everyone hadn’t it? Had it not ended, once and for all racism, and placed white supremacy in the guise of Neo-NAZIs and the KKK on the lunatic fringe? The truth is, sadly, many of us fell asleep at the wheel – and America in the course of 50 years was nudged, pushed, and finally turned hard off the path of progress by the rollback of laws that protected us and the election of people who were not for America at all – but for a darker purpose.
In the long arc of history, we see now that humans have always lived under the threat of darkness, from early prehistoric times when people huddled in caves behind firelight that kept the wild creatures at bay, to the dawn of city states and their organized systems that protected some, and enslaved many, to post enlightenment empires. Today we have fallen once again towards the darkness, abandoning progress in the name of power and greed in an attempt to return to the days of rule by a privileged few at the expense of the majority. This is not the American way. The lesson we must learn from this is progress cannot be assumed, and darkness cannot be ignored: every generation must work as a civil society to protect and advance progress, and defend against the darkness that would only serve wealth hoarders at the expense of all else.
The darkness I refer to has many faces. Before the dawn of history it was the literal darkness: large predators stalked the darkness in search of easy prey. Children were instructed not to leave the light of the fire at night, and then we learned to build walls and roofs against the darkness. At the dawn of the age of sail in the 1400s-1600s, it was the fledgling global corporations and explorers who were given authorization by European Monarchs through royal charters to not only control trade for different parts of the ‘new’ world that they cut up like a pie or jockeyed for among themselves, but also included usurping and controlling native populations through war, cultural and physical destruction, kidnapping, and subjugation. This was justified by branding native people and cultures as savage, uneducated, immoral, unholy and heretical; xenophobia run amok - and this would become standard practice over hundreds of years as the tentacles of European monarchical control spread across the globe like a disease.
Even after the formation of the first modern democracy in America, a cloud of darkness that was the scourge of plantation slave industry hung over the nation with acceptance of the 3/5ths compromise, leading to a Civil War and rampant racism afterwards as the South clawed back control through Jim Crow laws that kept black people poor and subject to new masters even as they were ‘freed’ by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This exception was codified and weaponized against people of color. Even in the industrial North Robber Barons of the Gilded Age made new harsh demands on the workers and immigrants who flooded into the country to escape economic turmoil, ethnic cleansing and other political abuses in their homelands. The poor were not spared the ravages of this age, and today the regime’s targeting of immigrants makes a mockery of the inscription at the base of the statue of liberty from the sonnet “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887):
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
[ Under Construction Below ]
Wide Range of Interests and Solid Middle Class Support
Voting Rights
Anti-Trust Focus As Abuses Become Public Knowledge:
Corporate Abuses
Public Health – Food and Medicine
Child Labor
Worker Safety and Hours
Pollution of Air and Water
Trust Busting
Protection of Natural Resources
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
Civil Rights and the Great Society
Ralph Nader
Powell Memorandum & Evolution of Conservative Non-Profits
Neoliberals Come Into Power
1981 Reaganomics
1991 Clinton New Democrats – Branding as Centrist to Progressive – while pandering to corporate and monied interests.
Mortality, isolation, meaning of life, and freedom.
Project 1981 and Project 2025 – The Heritage Foundation’s Century Long Plan
Powell Memorandum
Dark Enlightenment – A Threat To Democracy and Freedom
Russia
Singapore
Useful Idiots – Dominion Theology, NeoNAZIs, and The Uneducated
“You might be fascist if...”
What is our responsibility as a citizen?
We take steps forward, never backwards.
Recognition that , like Jim Crow, the modern laws and jail system – including immigration detention, are all for profits of corporations. This must end.
Money In Politics & The Congressional, Military-Industrial Complex
The USA Should Be A Leader Among Peers and Embody Our Values
Uphold International Law – No Wars Of Aggression Or Support for Same
No US government should support aggressive conquest of any nation – particularly given the past evils of previous administrations abuses.
Busting up big corporations. Tackling Wall Street’s greed. Getting big money out of politics. Strengthening unions and fighting for higher wages. Medicare for all, paid family leave, universal childcare. Homelessness and structural/systemic problems that lead to working homelessness.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/series.htm?id=08B51EF5-A34F-4D2A-4406A816B6CEF699 (Series: The Constitutional Convention: A Day by Day Account for September 1787 )
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-day-the-constitution-was-ratified
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text
https://www.consource.org/document/appendix-the-weather-during-the-convention-1787/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/why-did-rome-fall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassal
[ Resistance Radio] is a citizen of the United States of America, and a former soldier and airman serving his country in both the Air Force and Army National Guard branches of the military. He has raised his hand and pledged an oath to support and defend the American Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic upon enlistment and re-enlistments for over a decade of service. He firmly believes that is an oath which has no expiration date. He has also worked in corporations including a Fortune 100 company, and in a nonprofit organization. He has been a volunteer on several political campaigns and is a consistent voter, and a lifelong student of history.
Unless otherwise stated in the note, all notes are sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
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