Happy Fourth, Brief Note on Events in Philadelphia, Travel Day

Yes, I'm headed back to California this morning; should arrive tomorrow evening. May catch the parade in town before I leave, but I've missed it (by "that much") in the past, and that may happen today as well. If my memory hasn't failed me, this is the second year in a row that I've traveled on the Fourth; what I recall of the journey is that there are a lot of motorcycles and hot rods on the highways, and that's always cool, daddy-o. (Note to youngsters, yes, we really did say that in the 1950s, though when we did, it was usually with a wink....)

A brief note on yesterday's extended march in Philadelphia: a couple of chants got things into a muddle. The "A-Anti-Anticapitalista!" chant has become very popular because it is so energizing and fun, but it appears that many people don't understand it and as they try to repeat it, or even start the chant, they garble it. This happened several times in Philadelphia. The first time I heard it, a woman started the chant with something like this: "Ah-a-tea-a-tea-a-lee-a-lees-ta!" Well, the rhythm was right anyway. It took a while, but eventually some people who knew the correct chant joined in and cleaned it up.

The second time I heard the "A-anti..." chant in Philly,  I laughed out loud. It went something like this: "Ah, I need, I need a slice of pizza!" That was great, but few joined in, sorry to say.

Then I heard the "A-anti" chant again, done very dramatically, at the Comcast or Verizon headquarters, starting out very soft and low, with the crowd crouched down. It built to a crescendo, as everybody jumped up and down and shouted lustily in an echo-y canyon of tall buildings. If the people in the offices above could hear the plebes below at all, I'm sure they were perplexed if not stunned.

Finally, near the tail end of the march yesterday, someone tried to start the chant again and mangled it, much as happened the first time I heard it in Philadelphia. I was watching Nate's livestream, and he became impatient with the woman who was trying to start the chant. He said, "You know, it's 'A-anti-anticapitalista!" She tried it and mangled it again. Nate again tried to demonstrate the correct chant, and several people nearby picked it up. The first woman still couldn't get it quite right. Nate tried again, and then, exasperated, said, "Anticapiltalista! It's 'anticapitalist' in Spanish."

"Ohhhh," said the woman, and from then on, she got it right. This tells me that somebody needs to explain what this chant means...

Then there was the "Shit's fucked up, shit's fucked up and bull shit!" chant, which I've heard several times during the Philadelphia festivities. It is often joined in quite lustily by the crowd, other times not so much. During yesterday's march, the chant was started and joined in by the crowd as they marched along, and I saw a bicycle cop grab onto a guy in the crowd and say something to him. The guy seemed stunned and said something to the people nearby but I couldn't hear what he was saying. The chant got quieter and then stopped as the guy ran ahead to the front of the march. Eventually Nate caught up to him and asked what was going on. The guy said, "We were passing by a daycare..." Oh. Heh heh. Maybe not the most appropriate chant then... (actually, I imagine kids would love it.)

Despite occasional intense encounters with the "Po-Po" in Philadelphia, the Occupy National Gathering seems to me to be for the most part a very festive event, one that celebrates the success of a Movement Becoming Revolution (or Revoluja, as the Reverend Billy would put it) that came out of nowhere and is blazing the trail to the future.
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The Fourth always puts me in mind of my father's birthday. He would be 111 years old tomorrow -- if he were alive. Born on the Fifth as it were, and yes, he made jokes about it. He was both a patriot and a rebel, something Americans still have trouble reconciling. He gladly served in both world wars (though let it be said, not in combat) yet he was eager to denounce injustice in America. He rebelled against convention and institutional corruption, defied the Church and at least part of his community, lived his own life and died his own way.

Tip o' the hat, Dad.
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When I heard the rotors in the distance yesterday evening, at first I thought it was some kind of strange thunder. It's Monsoon season after all, and there was heavy cloud cover in the east and south. But thunder doesn't keep on and get louder, and I could tell at some point this wasn't thunder, there were Chinooks in the sky, though what they were doing in my neck of the woods was anybody's guess.

The rotor-noise got louder and louder, shaking the windows. There must be four of them at least, I thought. And my God, are they going to land? What the holy fuck! As the rotor-thunder got louder, I knew they were directly overhead, and I peered out the side door to see just how low they were. Sure enough, through the drought ravaged tree branches, four, then five Chinooks, painted non-reflecting black, made their stately way across the sky, maybe 1000 ft above the ground, shaking everything below, an unfathomable convoy in the air, headed west, perhaps back to Kirtland. Or... somewhere. I've seen these black helicopters (and they are painted black, if anybody is wondering) in this area before, flying in low formations over the fields and houses for reasons that are never clear. They always feel like a threat.

Doughoregan

A collateral relative lives in the formerly rural Maryland Manor House seen above. He is a direct descendant of a Signer of the Declaration of Independence who went on to serve in the United States Senate after the Constitution was enacted. The house was built by the Signer, beginning around 1760 and continuing with various additions and adjustments until about 1820. It sits on 100 acres or so, all that is left of the formerly vast plantation acreage that once surrounded it. You can see DC/Baltimore suburban development encroaching.

This house is the only Revolutionary era residence still in the hands of descendants of the Revolutionaries who built it. And the current descendant bars public access entirely, not simply barring access to the house, but even to the edges of the property itself, having closed off the formerly public road that passes well beyond the house. In fact, the house is invisible from the road. That the public can no longer traverse. He not only bars the public, he bars other family descendants!

Yet he has the nerve to demand millions of dollars from the county and from the State of Maryland to preserve the house and its grounds, or else, he says, he'll sell it for what he can get and tell Maryland and the county to go hang. Well. All I can say is that he is true to the spitfire character of his ancestors, and to their tendency to withdraw into hermitage as they enter their dottage.

In fact, his behavior is so much like my own father's as he got up in years, I have to laugh.

My ancestors were the only Catholics who served in the Congresses that declared independence and created the Constitution. I like to think they had something to do with the urge to Revolution (they being dispossessed Irish Catholic aristocracy and all) and with the Bill of Rights, and I've read some indications that that's the case, in that their money funded the Revolutionary armies, their sense of outraged honor informed the Declaration, the religious persecution they endured led to their strong belief in freedom of religion and religious conscience, something almost unheard of, even among persecuted Catholics, back in the day.

You can see the chapel attached on the right to the manor house above. It was for many years the parish church for the area, when the manor was in more accommodating hands. But it was built as part of the manor when Catholic churches were illegal and celebrating Mass, even in private, was forbidden.






















It was built in defiance, in other words, of British restrictions on Catholic observance. A crypto-Revolutionary act well before the outbreak of hostilities between the Colonies and the Crown.

There would be many others and there would be more after Independence. The stories I heard when I was young about the conflicts and feuds between my ancestors and Thomas Jefferson -- disputes that went on for decades -- were certainly illuminating. And of course the genetic contrariness in my make up is often apparent in my own life.

I know where it comes from.

But every Fourth of July, I do think about the world my ancestors came from and the world they sought to create through the vehicle of the United States of America. It was to be, and it largely is, something better than the world they came from but only partially left behind.

As grotesquely as it has been perverted by the characters infesting the White House and its offshoots throughout the government, the idea of America, and the ideals of the Founders still resonate among the People and around the world. The Founders started us on a path that had many pitfalls, and from which we have too often veered. We may not be able to revive the Republic the Founders left us, but perhaps, just maybe, we can create a New Republic based on their model.

Right now we're stuck with Empire and all its many enervations and disasters. Americans do not do Empire well. The Republic is gone. Finding the right way forward will take time, dedication, and clear vision, something we may be blessed with eventually, but not something we can command into being.

It's a desultory Fourth all in all. I wish it weren't.