Democracy Chained
Wichita, Kansas
2003
This image actually appeared as a POTD back in it’s early days in 2003 when but a handful of people had access to it. I repeated it as a POTD in 2010 with the following comment:
“[This image] has been coming to mind lately as I read about all the efforts to stifle voting in the upcoming national election. Voting rights are or should be sacred in this country and what is happening right now is a scary omen of what may be to come. Folks, this is no way to run a democracy!” (Little did I know how true that statement was to become the following January.)
Now some six years later, this image again comes to mind as the country faces not only a renewed assault on voting rights, but also a whole host of other attacks on the ideas and principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. As a consequence I’m am truly ambivalent about whether or not celebrating this milestone for the country is what I want to do. Certainly what I said back in 2010 holds even more true today and is worth repeating. Folks, this is no way to run a democracy!
I like your photo. I like that you saw a photo op where most wouldn’t.
Regarding your text, I’m not sure the powers that be are trying to run a democracy.
Thanks Carol, and I don’t disagree with your democracy comment.
A very disturbing image. But…. it reflects the state of our nation. I felt hesitant to put out our flags today and decided against it. We are indeed a democracy chained down by greedy, selfish, horrible people who are robbing us of the joy of freedom. We must break that chain of oppression if we want to preserve what remains of our former democracy . There is no joy in Mudville today . Thanks for the thought provoking image, Larry.
Thanks Carol, and thank you for you thought provoking commentary. “Robbing us of the joy of freedom”–well said!
There is nothing predictive about the events of the past showing us the events of the future, but: 50 years ago I celebrated the 200 anniversary of 1776 on the Pacific Coast trail having climbed Mt. Whitney. The Imperial Presidency lay in ruins. I didn’t vote in the 76 election. Gerry Ford was president after Tricky Dicky Nixon resigned AND Spiro Agnew was convicted of bribery. Nelson Rockefeller was appointed VP. Carter was elected president in November. Popularism vs. Wall Street.
The Senate majority was Democratic and began proceedings of impeachment in 74. Forty government officials, including top aides to President Richard Nixon, were indicted or jailed for their roles in the Watergate scandal and subsequent cover-up. The key figures who served time in prison included:
John Mitchell: Nixon’s Attorney General and head of his re-election campaign, who served 19 months.
H.R. Haldeman: Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff, who served 18 months.
John Ehrlichman: Nixon’s Chief Domestic Advisor, who served 18 months.
G. Gordon Liddy: White House operative and break-in planner, who served about 4.5 years.
John Dean: White House Counsel who later cooperated with prosecutors, resulting in a reduced sentence of a few months.
E. Howard Hunt: CIA operative and break-in planner.
Jeb Stuart Magruder: Re-election committee official.
Charles Colson: Special Counsel to the President.
James McCord: Security Director for the re-election committee and one of the original Watergate burglars.
The Declaration of Independence states: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. …Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I voted in the primaries this year and plan to vote in the general election in November. As President Obama once said:
“Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.”
I’ve thought a lot about 1976 and the politics back then. (I was with you prior to the actual Independence Day celebrations.) Who would have thought that I’d look back on that time as being halcyon days of sorts compared to the lock hold the grifters and haters have on the whole government these days, not just all the president’s men.
I have always voted, even when it seemed (or seems) fruitless because I’ve never lived in a state that my political views dominated to any significant degree. But to poorly paraphrase your Obama quote, what else you gonna do? (Well, I did campaign for Obama in ’08 even though I knew he would not take Montana.)
I certainly agree with all the comments. Now I’ll watch some more soccer which I still don’t understand fully except for the boozing and singing (yelling). A certain FIFA rep made this statement. “Football is the beautiful game. It’s also the boring game.”
Well, I don’t know about football (soccer) being a beautiful game but I certainly agree that it is boring. But I’ll take a boring soccer game over watching reports on political shenanigans on TV any day.