And it is for those same reasons that Truth and Reconciliation of the crimes of the Bush Administration is so important. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and those to whom history is hidden and redacted, cannot learn from it.

Here's an attempt:

We the People
Lifelong Members of the Fourth Branch
of the United States of America
pledge allegiance to our Constitution
To ensure:
Unity,
Justice,
Domestic Tranquility,
Diplomacy before Defense,
General Welfare Rights - of Work, Healthcare, Education
and the Blessings of Liberty
For ourselves and our Descendents.

Admitting is always the first step.

{I'm pretty sure I gt something like an Amen from TheraP on that one.}

I would like to point out that Germany has been exemplary about owning up to its history and teaching the correct version in its school system. If there is any sense among the younger generations that the past events do not concern them, it is quite probably precisely because of a fairly profound internalization.

The Constitution is a grossly outdated, vague and inconsistent document that has been of marginal importance to the success of the United States (mind you, it is still one of the better basic legal frameworks.) The type of worship frequently lavished on it is extremely counterproductive, however.

Thanks for this. Despite my joking response to your previous posting, I do agree with your take on this. I too am sick of being told that being a Liberal makes me anti-America.

Aside: Your reference to the picture of Stalin and cronies, reminds me of a passage in one of Milan Kundera's novels, I think it was "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting"... it mentions a photograph of two politicians taken during the 1968 Czech uprising. The were standing on a balcony and just before the photograph was taken, they decided to exchange hats. Later, one of them 'disappeared' from both the photo and the history books, so that all that remained of him was his hat on the other man's head ... I think I read that book about 20 years ago, but that image remains with me.

Awesome blog DD. You paint the American spirit with your words. It's a beautiful thing.

This is how a Patriot Acts. :)

Yes, the info is out there, but do you know what info to get?

For example:

It took over fifty years for our country to recognize that half of its citizens were denied the right to vote.

And yet, 14th amendment didn't give the Native Americans citizenship. Even their children -- who were born here.

That didn't happen until 58 years later in 1924.

I would also be somewhat hesitant to talk about the Japanese or the Germans "coming a long way" when the US is barely 250 years old. This country has never really had to face a true crisis due to its relative isolation from the world, its abundance of natural resources, and never having lost a war to a major power. (The Great Depression was nothing compared to what happened in Germany during the same time, for example.)

That day of reckoning is coming -- when we run out of cheap energy and (a little bit later) sufficient, cheap drinking water. It remains to be seen how the country will react. But as George Carlin points out, at the exact time that the Japanese-Americans needed their rights the most (in 1941) they were taken away. And anything that can be taken away is not a natural right. We would well be reminded about how the Senators post-9/11 lined up for the Patriot Act... many of whom didn't even review the document in detail.

Well put DD! Very well put indeed!

Good post. Some of our current problems stem from our government moving away from the Constitution. The NSA for starters. The ability for a President to use military force without a formal Congressional declaration of war is another. The Federal Reserve Act also subverts the Constitution.

We still have a long way to go. Part of being pro-American is to push for progress and criticize its flaws.

Obama thinks we should look only forward, and that spending our energies looking back to investigate the war crimes of the Bush era will distract us in our time of crisis. So, isn't the U.S. of A. acting like Germany, Japan, Russia, etc., and leaving it's evil deeds in an unexamined past? Failure to prosecute Bush and his cronies will damage our country.

TheraP (and friends),

You've crafted a beautiful two-score and ten
brace of words, expressing deep and abiding
truths of our time.

I thank you.

I also hope that you won't object to a possible
editorial amendment. We should get this right,
as we launch, yet again, our revolution.

A second take:

We the People,
lifelong Members of the Fourth Branch
of the United States of America,
pledge allegiance
to our Constitution
in order to ensure
Unity, Justice,
Domestic Tranquility,
Diplomacy before Defense,
the General Welfare Rights
of Work, Healthcare, and Education,
and the Blessings of Liberty
for ourselves and for
our Descendents.

Thank you again,
you moved me out of lurking,

-BC

Google Fourth Branch of Government. Read some of the links. You may be very surprised. Indeed: The Fourth Branch is We the People!

Here is one link only related to explaining this concept:

http://www.perkel.com/politics/issues/fourth.htm

there are time when the Government does not represent the People and that the interests of the Government are not the interests of the People. There are times when the People have to assert their will directly and overrule the Government and assert the supremacy of the will of the People over the will of the Government.

Again:

The Government Exists for the Sole Purpose of Serving the People, not Ruling the People

Some would have us ignorant of this. Some would have us believing that the government is in charge of "us." But this is not so. The govt is there to serve us!

Again:

The supremacy of the People is preserved throughout all the documents and papers used in the formation of the Government by the People. The preamble to the United States Constitution states, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Clearly the Constitution was created to form a government who's sole purpose was to serve the People and for no other purpose. The founding fathers went to great pains to ensure, through the separation of powers and the balance of power that no branch of government would ever become dominate and become a force that rules the People rather than serves the People.

And here:

The Declaration of Independence establishes the supremacy of the People and the Right and Duty to defend the Rights of the People over the Acts of the Government.

And here:

When the Government violates the Constitution, it is the duty of the People to rise up against the Government to bring the Government into compliance with the Constitution.

We the People, the Fourth Branch, have a duty, under the Declaration of Independence, to insist that the government serve us!

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.