On this day in 1607, the first permanent English settlement in “the new world” was started in Jamestown. It was started in a bad location. The local native kingdom, the Tsenacommacah, didn’t want it because they considered it inappropriate for agriculture. I love reading about this stuff, because it always brings me back to Ayn Rand’s ignorant and racist claims that the Europeans had the right to take native tribal lands because they didn’t have a concept of private property and they weren’t using the land the way Ayn Rand thought they should. But the truth is that the native tribes were quite diverse, most definitely had the idea of property rights, and were generally quite willing to interact economically with the Europeans. The only thing that caused problems was that the Europeans had more advanced technology. So regardless of what Ayn Rand and her apologists claim, it was just a matter that might makes right.

Anyway, the colony was only in existence for twelve years before it got its first African slaves. They were put to work in the tobacco fields. It was too early for cotton. It was not until 1640, that slavery of Africans was codified with the trial of John Punch. He had been, supposedly, an indentured servant. He ran away with two European indentured servants. When they were caught, the Europeans just had their sentences extended. Punch became the first official slave. (But he certainly wasn’t the first de facto slave.)

I think these have something to do with the fact that we make such a big deal about the Plymouth Colony and the great big feast. But look around at our country, fellow Americans! Is the story of this country us getting along with the rest of the world? Or is it about us eating up every resource we come upon? The Plymouth story is another aspect of America: the aspect that ignores our bad behavior and makes up pretty stories about how wonderful and “exceptional” we are.

But lest you think that I am just another self-hating American: this is not true. I don’t think that America is worse than other empires. Given the times that we’ve lived, I would even put us slightly above average. What I won’t do is ignore our troubling history just because it is ours. The greatest thing about America is that I’m allowed to write this kind of article. (Of course there is a huge fraction of the people in this country who don’t think I ought to be allowed.) And the fact that I can write about this stuff means that we can improve. I love this country in an aspirational way. We are great only to the extent that we try to be great. And if we stop aspiring, we die. Those who think America simply is great, want America to die.

Happy continued birthday America…

On this day in 1924, J Edgar Hoover became the head of the FBI — then called Bureau of Investigation. And he stayed in that post for almost fifty years, leaving only when he died. Apologists for him note that he turned it into the modern and professional organization that it is today. But if that’s the best you can say about him, it’s sad. The FBI has recently admitted to using forensic pseudoscience for years. And now we have an FBI that seems to spend the bulk of its time “foiling” terror plots that it creates. See, for example: FBI Creates Terror Plots to Foil Them; FBI Makes Us Less Safe With Fake Terror Plots; and FBI Foils Another of Its Own Terrorist Attacks.

But the truth is that Hoover was a vile man. People think that Richard Nixon ran a crime syndicate. It was nothing compared to Hoover’s. The only reason he wasn’t replaced as head of the FBI was that he had so much dirt on those people who had power over him. And where did he get that dirt? Through his corrupt use of the FBI. As I will discuss later today, the government always gets screwed up when it works in secret. And Hoover was on the leading edge of that. He was also a bigot. He was a truly vile man.

So happy anniversary for the major mistake of giving J Edgar Hoover any power at all.

On this day in 1974, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee started formal hearings on the impeachment of President Nixon. When I think back on Watergate, I see a great defeat for democracy in America. The issue isn’t Nixon. Presidents do all kinds of illegal things and about the only thing that stops them from getting thrown out of office is that they have political support. What’s more, I think Nixon would have survived the whole thing if there hadn’t been the tapes. Since then, I’m sure that worse things have been done. But the way our media is, unless there is a smoking gun, it is treated as though nothing has happened. As it is, after everything that clearly indicates that Chris Christie is the most corrupt of politicians, he is set to announce a run for president.

But the reason Watergate was so bad is that it caused Democrats to turn against ideology and toward anti-corruption. Of course, all that meant was that they supported status quo while the Republicans pushed hard to the right. Meanwhile the Democrats pushed efforts to make the government more transparent. But as you may have noticed, the government is less transparent than ever. So even on that front, they failed. But it really did set up the environment in which neoliberalism could take over the Democratic Party. So when it came to economic policy, Americans are offered the “choice” of conservative policy competently administered or conservative policy incompetently administered. Gee, ain’t democracy grand. It reminds me of the democracy that existed in the Soviet Union.

So that’s what Watergate brought us: less choice in politics. I still look back and find it strange that three consecutive Republican administrations could be shown to be corrupt, and yet the American voter keeps on giving them power. And then you can add to that the George W Bush administration that got appointed by a partisan Supreme Court and then went on to be both corrupt and incompetent. Yet the American people, in their wisdom will certainly make Scott Walker the next president if everything lines up the right way. And then, when he signs a federal “right to work” law, everyone will be shocked — Shocked! — that he would do exactly what he had campaigned on.

Nixon may have run a crime syndicate out of the White House. But as we’ve seen, there are much worse things that the president can do. And if the American electorate is clueless enough to elected another Republican, we will see more of them.

Happy anniversary to the House of Representatives standing up for something while they allowed the country to go to hell over the next forty years.

On this day in 1970, the Hard Hat Riot took place. It was a clash between students who were protesting the Kent State shooting and construction workers who were supporting the Vietnam War. Once the student protest was announced, Peter Brennan, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, decided to call a counter protest. Just to be clear: it was not the students who rioted; it was the All American construction workers. The power elite must have loved seeing it.

The two sides of this protest were in agreement on the one thing that mattered: economics. By 1970, the Vietnam War was lost and Nixon was just looking for a way to break the news to the American people. But if you want to set the date for the end of the New Deal, it was this day 45 years ago. This was when liberalism became the domain of the pointy headed intellectuals and the scum of society. It was when those unionized workers started voting in a way that assured that their children and grandchildren would not have union protections.

On good days, I imagine that all the workers of the nation will put aside their other disagreements and work together for some small amount of economic justice. But it was only a couple of years ago that I almost came to blows with a family friend over Occupy Wall Street. This particular guy has a great union job. But I know that in 20 years, that job will be non-union. He didn’t like the Occupy protesters because they inconvenienced him. It didn’t matter that they were protesting for him. If he lost his job, he wouldn’t be able to find one that paid half what he makes now. But he’s got his, so screw everyone else. That’s the Hard Hat Riot.

Forty-five years ago, economic liberalism came apart.

My colleague over at The Reaction, Infidel753 took his moniker from the fabled founding year of Rome, 753 BC. And today’s date — 21 April — is said to be the very day. It sounds a bit like the Sermon on the Mount in Life of Brian, “Judea AD 33. Saturday Afternoon. About Tea Time.” Of course, this is all myth. You see there were supposedly these twins, Romulus and Remus. It’s not a very interesting myth. The brothers decide to found a city but they disagree about the location. So Romulus goes ahead and starts to build his city and constructs a wall encircling it. Remus mocks the wall, jumping over it. He dies — in the more exciting of the versions because Romulus kills him. I guess the point is that nobody better infringe upon Rome or they will die — very true for many centuries.

I’m more interested in our own founding myths. Because that is what we have — among the vast majority of people. I’m very fond of this quote spoken by John Adams in 1776, “Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them — Franklin, Washington, and the horse — conducted the entire revolution by themselves.” That isn’t quite how people think of the Revolutionary War, but it isn’t far off.

Of course, the worst are the Christian conservatives who have merged the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, and the Bible into one big myth about God’s will. Pretty much written out of our country’s founding is the radicalism. I really do wonder if the war would have been won without “Common Sense.” And now Thomas Paine is almost a non-person in American history. Of course, there is the other side. A lot of the southern aristocracy wanted to get away from England because they were afraid that if they stayed, their slaves would have been taken away from them. The founding of the United States was, shall we say, complicated.

Maybe we are better of with something simple like Romulus and Remus — or Franklin and Washington. But somehow, I think the genocide of native peoples and slavery ought to be included in the story. Since this was before Nietzsche and so God was still alive, let’s just say that He didn’t give a damn. But I have an idea for a song:

And the land of the slaves…
And the home once of braves!

Play ball! And happy mythical birthday to Rome!