Another year has gone by, and there will be no celebration of Revolution Day on Sept. 6, 2013. Which is a shame, because the people really need that story!
Will there be a celebration on the 240'th anniversary of the Worcester Revolution, on Sept. 6 2014? That may depend on you!
You can read the story in The First American Revolution, before Lexington and Concord, Ray Raphael, The New Press, New York, 2002.
You might want to read this book:
# If you love history and don't know about the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774;
# If you've ever wondered why the American Revolution, our Revolution, looked so different from everyone else's revolutions;
# If the story that the Revolution was a war never made sense to you;
# If the story that our Revolution was led by leading citizens - by merchants and bankers and guild-masters - ever puzzled or troubled you;
# If the story that our Revolution was a conspiracy hatched in back rooms and attics ever troubled you;
# If the story that the Minutemen were an armed conspiracy, that they rose up on call to overthrow the government and make a revolution, ever troubled you;
# If you thought that the biggest thing that happened in Worcester during the Revolution was that George Washington slept here, and you'd love to find out different;
# If it ever troubled you that almost no one from outside Massachusetts has ever heard of Worcester - the second-largest city in New England - or even knows how to pronounce it, and you'd like to see it put back on the map;
# Or even if you're just tired of always hearing about what happened in Boston in 1774 and 1775, and are curious about what was going on in the rest of the state.
This book is important not just for history buffs, but for all of us, and never more so than now.
People live out of their stories, and we need this story, now. And the official story we were taught about the American Revolution is seriously holding us back and leading us astray in dangerous ways.
Our economy and political system continue to collapse. The level of corruption in high places continues to explode, indeed it has become the system. Ever more of our wealth gets poured into foreign wars. The destruction of our environment accelerates and grows ever more outrageous. The great banks and corporations continue their leveraged buyout of our cities and towns, our homes and schools, as they suck the real economy dry. The government becomes ever more intrusive and controlling, and speaking the truth has become a crime - even treason!
The people are watching these things, and the conviction has grown in the hearts of millions that we need a revolution. But what does that mean? What is a revolution? Most people go to "peasants with pitchforks", "storming the Bastille", or rising up in gun in hand to fight the tyrants, and then back away. If a revolution is a war, who can blame them?
But the Revolution we learned about, the one whose images flash in our minds, wasn't the actual revolution! That official story starts with the Revolutionary War, the war to defend the revolution, that began with the British attempt to re-take its lost province of Massachusetts by force. That story leaves out the revolution itself!
Ray Raphael has uncovered and written a first installment on the story of the Massachusetts Revolution, a revolution that looked much more like Occupy than like the Tea Party or the militia movements! If you're a historian, there is certainly much more to do! The revolution of 1774 happened in every part of Massachusetts. Perhaps in every part of New England. Much of the story still lies buried and undiscovered in town archives, one-room museums and family albums, waiting to be woven together into a larger narrative.
And we, the American people, need that story! We really need that story! We need it to be the new American Story, the tale we tell each other about that critical juncture, the Revolution, that shaped who we are and how we got here. We need that story to help guide us into our future!
And we need someone who loves history and understands it's importance to step forward and organize a celebration for Sept. 6, 2014, the 240th anniversary of the Worcester Revolution. It's none too soon to start that work now!
Every part of Massachusetts could be involved in this commemoration, not just Worcester. And every part has its own special day, when the local citizens stood up to the British-imposed dictatorship of General Gage and shut it down!
Can you take the lead? Yes you. You found your way to this blog and you're reading this. Does it call to you? Does it feel really important to you?
Could you make the time for it if you had to?
One person who has the time, energy and will and who understands or senses its importance can make this happen.
Or, maybe it won't happen, because you didn't do it! It could have happened last year or the year before or the year before that, but it didn't. The time was ripe, but no one stepped up to make it happen.
I can't. My plate is full. But I'll be delighted to support a volunteer to take the lead, and glad to hook you up with the people I know who have an interest. Ray Raphael will be delighted too I'm sure!
And I'll be thrilled to join you on that day, Sept. 6, 2014, when the first crowd comes together around this event since maybe 1830 or 1840, and We the People start to take our story back and celebrate it!
Whose City? Our City?
Whose State? Our State!
Whose Country? Our Country!
Whose Revolution? Our Revolution!
Showing posts with label Worcester Revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Worcester Revolution. Show all posts
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Why Occupy Worcester belongs in the Commons
This is Part II of a column submitted to Worcester InCity Times, Oct 21, 2011:
On Monday night, Oct. 17, at a meeting in the Commons, the Occupy Worcester General Assembly discussed where to stage the Occupation, and the first choice was the Commons itself, a 300-year-old park behind City Hall.
The Worcester Commons is a place where people from all parts of Worcester would see us. It is surrounded by symbols of power - City Hall, bank buildings, State and Federal offices and the regional daily newspaper.
“Occupying the Commons” symbolizes the idea of moving the conversations that have been going on around millions of kitchen tables and barbecue pits all across America “into the commons”, with a goal of drawing us all – the 99% - together into a larger conversation. It is an attempt to create a “democratic space” where we can find each other and escape from the illusion that we are separate, outnumbered and on our own.
But beyond that, the Worcester Commons is a place with a huge historical significance - one we have every right to claim as our own! For it was one of the great stages on which the largely-forgotten drama of our American Revolution played out.
Much of the story of that drama, as reconstructed by historian Ray Raphael, was found in the vaults of the Worcester City Hall. In Raphael’s words:
"During the late summer of 1774, each time a court was slated to meet under British authority in some Massachusetts town, great numbers of angry citizens made sure it did not. These patriots were furious because they had just been disenfranchised by the Massachusetts Government Act. … They feared that arbitrary rulers might soon seize their tools, their livestock, or even their farms.
"Worcester was at the center of this massive uprising. It was the patriots of Worcester who first called for a meeting of several counties to coordinate the resistance. It was at Worcester, on September 6, 1774, that the British conceded control of the countryside."
http://www.worcesterma.gov/city-clerk/history/general/worcester-revolution
Unlike the storybook version of the Revolution, the one Raphael uncovered was not a conspiracy led by wealthy merchants, not an armed uprising, not a war. It was a profoundly democratic and largely nonviolent movement. The war came later when the British tried to reverse that revolution by armed force.
The Occupations are in the same spirit. They are very reminiscent of the seemingly endless debates and messy decision-making processes of 1774 as described by Raphael. Those debates spread to nearly every church, tavern and town commons in Massachusetts. By October 1774, when the Provisional Assembly met in Concord to form a new government, he estimates that nearly the entire population of Massachusetts had participated in this “direct democracy”, and well over 90% were in full support.
On Sept. 6, 1774, according to the archives in the Worcester City Hall, 4,722 unarmed militia from 37 towns in Worcester assembled in the Worcester Commons to stop the meeting of the Courts, an arm of what the people had come to see as an illegitimate government. In a profoundly democratic process that lasted all day and in which every person present participated, they negotiated the terms of surrender of the court officials.
Like the Occupations today, the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 had no prominent leaders, no special heroes, several scary face-offs with the British but no armed battles, and there is no record through the whole Summer and Fall of 1774 of any violent deaths.
The Occupations are the true heirs of that Revolution, beginning anew a great mass discussion by all the people - the 99% - of what to do about a government and institutions that are failing us and have lost their legitimacy.
The Worcester Commons would be a very special place for that!
On Monday night, Oct. 17, at a meeting in the Commons, the Occupy Worcester General Assembly discussed where to stage the Occupation, and the first choice was the Commons itself, a 300-year-old park behind City Hall.
The Worcester Commons is a place where people from all parts of Worcester would see us. It is surrounded by symbols of power - City Hall, bank buildings, State and Federal offices and the regional daily newspaper.
“Occupying the Commons” symbolizes the idea of moving the conversations that have been going on around millions of kitchen tables and barbecue pits all across America “into the commons”, with a goal of drawing us all – the 99% - together into a larger conversation. It is an attempt to create a “democratic space” where we can find each other and escape from the illusion that we are separate, outnumbered and on our own.
But beyond that, the Worcester Commons is a place with a huge historical significance - one we have every right to claim as our own! For it was one of the great stages on which the largely-forgotten drama of our American Revolution played out.
Much of the story of that drama, as reconstructed by historian Ray Raphael, was found in the vaults of the Worcester City Hall. In Raphael’s words:
"During the late summer of 1774, each time a court was slated to meet under British authority in some Massachusetts town, great numbers of angry citizens made sure it did not. These patriots were furious because they had just been disenfranchised by the Massachusetts Government Act. … They feared that arbitrary rulers might soon seize their tools, their livestock, or even their farms.
"Worcester was at the center of this massive uprising. It was the patriots of Worcester who first called for a meeting of several counties to coordinate the resistance. It was at Worcester, on September 6, 1774, that the British conceded control of the countryside."
http://www.worcesterma.gov/city-clerk/history/general/worcester-revolution
Unlike the storybook version of the Revolution, the one Raphael uncovered was not a conspiracy led by wealthy merchants, not an armed uprising, not a war. It was a profoundly democratic and largely nonviolent movement. The war came later when the British tried to reverse that revolution by armed force.
The Occupations are in the same spirit. They are very reminiscent of the seemingly endless debates and messy decision-making processes of 1774 as described by Raphael. Those debates spread to nearly every church, tavern and town commons in Massachusetts. By October 1774, when the Provisional Assembly met in Concord to form a new government, he estimates that nearly the entire population of Massachusetts had participated in this “direct democracy”, and well over 90% were in full support.
On Sept. 6, 1774, according to the archives in the Worcester City Hall, 4,722 unarmed militia from 37 towns in Worcester assembled in the Worcester Commons to stop the meeting of the Courts, an arm of what the people had come to see as an illegitimate government. In a profoundly democratic process that lasted all day and in which every person present participated, they negotiated the terms of surrender of the court officials.
Like the Occupations today, the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 had no prominent leaders, no special heroes, several scary face-offs with the British but no armed battles, and there is no record through the whole Summer and Fall of 1774 of any violent deaths.
The Occupations are the true heirs of that Revolution, beginning anew a great mass discussion by all the people - the 99% - of what to do about a government and institutions that are failing us and have lost their legitimacy.
The Worcester Commons would be a very special place for that!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Did the American Revolution begin in Worcester?
(Published in InCity Times, July 2, 2010)
Revolution.
The word defines who we are as a people. Whether our ancestors came across the Bering Straits 10,000 years ago or just arrived here from Ireland or Nigeria, we are the people who inherited the Revolution we celebrate every July 4. We march up and down, shoot off fireworks, listen to patriotic speeches – and sometimes - more and more often of late - we sit around the barbecue pit talking about how out of control our government has gotten, and how we need a new revolution, or are headed for one - though most of us, for all our bravado, see it as something really scary that we’re not ready for.
Our Declaration of Independence starts with the assertion of our right to make a revolution when we need to, but most of us know very little about revolutions, and our minds are full of images that scare us away if we get too close. Because “we need a revolution” connects to “peasants with pitchforks” and Minutemen with guns – and that usually stops us. Because if we think that a revolution is a war, anyone who understands what a war really is knows that we don’t want one if we can help it.
Yes, we Americans celebrate the Revolution – our own special kind of revolution. We’ve all heard Jefferson’s quote about the Tree of Liberty needing watering from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. But the Revolution we know about, the one in our storybooks, is a strange affair. Our books tell of a revolution that was also a war, one that was started and led by wealthy Boston gentlemen and Virginia planters in powdered wigs who refused to pay their taxes, and who met in attics and back rooms and conspired to organize and lead an armed uprising,
I never understood just why average farmers and workmen cared enough about a tea tax to rise up in revolt against the most powerful empire in the world, risking death, ruin or exile. And as I read about what happened in other countries, and as I’ve watched history unfolding around the world over the years, I was always puzzled why their revolutions always seemed so different from our own.
The story of what happened in Worcester in the Summer of 1774 holds the key to that mystery. The answer is that our revolution wasn’t so different after all. It’s just that what we’ve been getting is the rich folks’ side of the story, as seen from Boston!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Historian Ray Raphael, with the help of Worcester City Clerk David Rushford, spent some time digging around in the town and city archives of Worcester County, collecting town records and correspondence about the events of the Summer and Fall of 1774, about a revolution which reached a climax in the streets of the shire town of Worcester in the hills of rural Massachusetts on Sept. 6, 1774. This material was organized into the book “The First American Revolution, Before Lexington and Concord” (New Press, 2002). A 2-page summary, “Before Lexington: The Worcester Revolution of 1774”, is available at the City Clerk’s Office.
Raphael’s book tells a story, mostly in the words of ordinary people from letters and town meeting records, about that time, of a thoroughly democratic and non-violent revolution that came out of a summer of open discussions involving most of the people across the whole colony of Massachusetts. It is the story of a non-violent revolution that was not a conspiracy, not a tax revolt, not a war and not led by gentlemen in powdered wigs.
It tells of a revolution that was about regaining control of our local and provincial legislatures, governor and courts, after the British Parliament – controlled by the great corporations of the day such as the British East India Company – had placed Massachusetts under the direct rule of General Gates in the Spring of 1774. A revolution that was driven by ordinary people’s concerns and fears - not about taxes but about debts and foreclosures, and about who would have the power to enforce them and drive them off their land.
This Massachusetts Revolution in the late Summer and Fall of 1774 wasn’t centered in Boston. Rather it grew in the countryside, where 95% of the people lived then, and came to a head in Worcester. There, on Sept. 6, 1774, called together by the Committees of Correspondence, 4,700 mostly unarmed militia from 37 towns, assembled along Main Street in defiance of an ultimatum from General Gates and prevented the puppet government’s courts from meeting.
A week before the “Worcester Revolution”, the Committees of Correspondence had issued a declaration which stated that “The Citizens of Massachusetts are intitled to life, liberty and the means of sustenance, by the Grace of God, and without the leave of the King.” Note that they said not “pursuit of happiness”, but “means of sustenance”. This revolution was not about a lifestyle choice. It was about survival, for ordinary people.
The Worcester Revolution marked the end of British authority outside of Boston. The following month, in October 1774, delegates from across the Commonwealth assembled in Concord to organize a provisional government. Six months later, British troops marched out of Boston in a first attempt to re-conquer Massachusetts and reverse the revolution. The war we call the Revolutionary War, but which perhaps we should call the War to Defensd the Revolution, was on.
***
Historian Ray Raphael calls the events that unfolded in Worcester on Sept. 6, 1774 the “pivotal event in the Massachusetts Revolution”, and thus of the entire American Revolution that followed. He records that Sept. 6 was celebrated as Revolution Day in Worcester County up until about 1820. Perhaps that custom died out because it never got written into the school books, or perhaps it was because somehow it didn’t fit with the narrative of the people who had come out on top in the end.
Eight years after the publication of Raphael’s book, nine years after Rushford began distributing his pamphlet at City Hall, even most people who grew up in Worcester and have lived their entire lives here know little or nothing about this dramatic episode in our history.
When I ask people what they know about Worcester’s history they can list who was born here, but every place had someone famous who was born there.
They mention things that were invented here, but every city has something that was invented there.
They mention the fact that George Washington slept here, but every city and town east of the Appalachians can tell you about when George Washington slept there.
When I ask them why a visitor from Europe or Japan should make a side trip to see Worcester, or whether anything really important ever happened here, they generally never have an answer. Hardly anyone mentions that Worcester was where the first women’s rights convention was held, or that Worcester was where slavery was first abolished in the English-speaking world in 1781.
And hardly anyone knows that Worcester was where events that marked the start of the American Revolution – events arguably at least as important as what happened in Concord in 1775 or in Philidelphia in 1776 - took place.
So why does hardly anyone in Worcester know this history?
And why does it matter?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Almost all regular people agree: our government isn’t listening to us, and it’s out of control. People are suffering, fear and anger are growing, and there is a great feeling of hopelessness and desperation on the land. Foreclosures are continuing to increase, entire city blocks are being emptied and boarded up, the “recovery” isn’t happening for ordinary people, the foreign wars just go on and on, and our environment is becoming a disaster.
We managed to elect new governments in Massachusetts in 2006 and Washington in 2008 on campaigns of hope and change, but that change isn’t happening.
An overwhelming majority of the people supported a Medicare for All, solution to the health care crisis, but that was never even “allowed on the table” for discussion, and now Medicare is being gutted to pay for the Insurance Reform that we got instead.
Obama came in sounding like the reincarnation of Roosevelt, but gave those same banks - whose money helped elect him - a trillion dollars of public money with no strings attached, and now we’re getting a toothless “bank reform bill” that doesn’t touch their power!
The real unemployment rate is 20% or 25%, and Congress seems unable to reauthorize emergency extensions of unemployment insurance, which will dump 2 million long-term unemployed off the rolls and onto the streets, and in any case every week tens of thousands pass beyond the emergency 99-week limit and fall through the safety net.
We voted to end the wars, but the wars go on and on. We voted for transparency a return to the rule of law, an end to torturing prisoners - but the abuses go on and only get worse. Now Obama is openly ordering “hits” on American citizens abroad, without even a judicial review!
BP cut corners, took huge risks and produced a huge environmental disaster which could destroy the entire Gulf of Mexico, and our well-meaning President of the United States is exposed as powerless to do anything about it, reduced to the humiliation of playing “chief complainer and bottle washer!”
Governor Patrick in the meantime is running for reelection on excuses for why he wasn’t able to do much, blaming the Democratic legislature (!), the public workers, and “the economy”, yet he’s continued giving away money hand over fist to the large corporations. Under his Administration 97% of all corporate requests for tax breaks have been granted, but he can’t find money for teachers, fire, police or health care workers, stimulus money is sitting un-spent and the layoffs and violated union contracts continue!
The final straw for many of us was the Citizens United case the Supreme Court recently decided, which eliminates all limits on how much money a corporation can give to political candidates!
I could go on. The list of outrages against the people and against our democracy seems endless. But the upshot is that an overwhelming majority of ordinary people have concluded that we have lost control of our government, that the situation has become intolerable, and that something dramatic has to be done to take it back.
The best word we have for that kind of change is “revolution”. What stops us is perhaps that we don’t really know what a revolution is, and that the images we have of it scare us away.
******************
So as we celebrate Independence Day this July 4, the importance of learning about, talking about and celebrating the Worcester Revolution of 1774 is not just that it would put Worcester on the map, bring lots of tourists and give us a sense of pride and identity.
It’s also that it would give us a new sense of what is possible, a new sense of what democracy means, a new sense of the possibility the common people can reclaim our governments, our rights and our futures in a peaceful, democratic and dignified way.
Because the story of the Worcester Revolution of 1774 is a story of a time when ordinary people like ourselves, right here in Worcester, in a moment that was eerily like the present, actually did that and changed the world.
Let’s celebrate July 4 with real spirit, but let’s also plan to celebrate Revolution Day on Sept. 6, the way our forbearers used to!
Revolution.
The word defines who we are as a people. Whether our ancestors came across the Bering Straits 10,000 years ago or just arrived here from Ireland or Nigeria, we are the people who inherited the Revolution we celebrate every July 4. We march up and down, shoot off fireworks, listen to patriotic speeches – and sometimes - more and more often of late - we sit around the barbecue pit talking about how out of control our government has gotten, and how we need a new revolution, or are headed for one - though most of us, for all our bravado, see it as something really scary that we’re not ready for.
Our Declaration of Independence starts with the assertion of our right to make a revolution when we need to, but most of us know very little about revolutions, and our minds are full of images that scare us away if we get too close. Because “we need a revolution” connects to “peasants with pitchforks” and Minutemen with guns – and that usually stops us. Because if we think that a revolution is a war, anyone who understands what a war really is knows that we don’t want one if we can help it.
Yes, we Americans celebrate the Revolution – our own special kind of revolution. We’ve all heard Jefferson’s quote about the Tree of Liberty needing watering from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. But the Revolution we know about, the one in our storybooks, is a strange affair. Our books tell of a revolution that was also a war, one that was started and led by wealthy Boston gentlemen and Virginia planters in powdered wigs who refused to pay their taxes, and who met in attics and back rooms and conspired to organize and lead an armed uprising,
I never understood just why average farmers and workmen cared enough about a tea tax to rise up in revolt against the most powerful empire in the world, risking death, ruin or exile. And as I read about what happened in other countries, and as I’ve watched history unfolding around the world over the years, I was always puzzled why their revolutions always seemed so different from our own.
The story of what happened in Worcester in the Summer of 1774 holds the key to that mystery. The answer is that our revolution wasn’t so different after all. It’s just that what we’ve been getting is the rich folks’ side of the story, as seen from Boston!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Historian Ray Raphael, with the help of Worcester City Clerk David Rushford, spent some time digging around in the town and city archives of Worcester County, collecting town records and correspondence about the events of the Summer and Fall of 1774, about a revolution which reached a climax in the streets of the shire town of Worcester in the hills of rural Massachusetts on Sept. 6, 1774. This material was organized into the book “The First American Revolution, Before Lexington and Concord” (New Press, 2002). A 2-page summary, “Before Lexington: The Worcester Revolution of 1774”, is available at the City Clerk’s Office.
Raphael’s book tells a story, mostly in the words of ordinary people from letters and town meeting records, about that time, of a thoroughly democratic and non-violent revolution that came out of a summer of open discussions involving most of the people across the whole colony of Massachusetts. It is the story of a non-violent revolution that was not a conspiracy, not a tax revolt, not a war and not led by gentlemen in powdered wigs.
It tells of a revolution that was about regaining control of our local and provincial legislatures, governor and courts, after the British Parliament – controlled by the great corporations of the day such as the British East India Company – had placed Massachusetts under the direct rule of General Gates in the Spring of 1774. A revolution that was driven by ordinary people’s concerns and fears - not about taxes but about debts and foreclosures, and about who would have the power to enforce them and drive them off their land.
This Massachusetts Revolution in the late Summer and Fall of 1774 wasn’t centered in Boston. Rather it grew in the countryside, where 95% of the people lived then, and came to a head in Worcester. There, on Sept. 6, 1774, called together by the Committees of Correspondence, 4,700 mostly unarmed militia from 37 towns, assembled along Main Street in defiance of an ultimatum from General Gates and prevented the puppet government’s courts from meeting.
A week before the “Worcester Revolution”, the Committees of Correspondence had issued a declaration which stated that “The Citizens of Massachusetts are intitled to life, liberty and the means of sustenance, by the Grace of God, and without the leave of the King.” Note that they said not “pursuit of happiness”, but “means of sustenance”. This revolution was not about a lifestyle choice. It was about survival, for ordinary people.
The Worcester Revolution marked the end of British authority outside of Boston. The following month, in October 1774, delegates from across the Commonwealth assembled in Concord to organize a provisional government. Six months later, British troops marched out of Boston in a first attempt to re-conquer Massachusetts and reverse the revolution. The war we call the Revolutionary War, but which perhaps we should call the War to Defensd the Revolution, was on.
***
Historian Ray Raphael calls the events that unfolded in Worcester on Sept. 6, 1774 the “pivotal event in the Massachusetts Revolution”, and thus of the entire American Revolution that followed. He records that Sept. 6 was celebrated as Revolution Day in Worcester County up until about 1820. Perhaps that custom died out because it never got written into the school books, or perhaps it was because somehow it didn’t fit with the narrative of the people who had come out on top in the end.
Eight years after the publication of Raphael’s book, nine years after Rushford began distributing his pamphlet at City Hall, even most people who grew up in Worcester and have lived their entire lives here know little or nothing about this dramatic episode in our history.
When I ask people what they know about Worcester’s history they can list who was born here, but every place had someone famous who was born there.
They mention things that were invented here, but every city has something that was invented there.
They mention the fact that George Washington slept here, but every city and town east of the Appalachians can tell you about when George Washington slept there.
When I ask them why a visitor from Europe or Japan should make a side trip to see Worcester, or whether anything really important ever happened here, they generally never have an answer. Hardly anyone mentions that Worcester was where the first women’s rights convention was held, or that Worcester was where slavery was first abolished in the English-speaking world in 1781.
And hardly anyone knows that Worcester was where events that marked the start of the American Revolution – events arguably at least as important as what happened in Concord in 1775 or in Philidelphia in 1776 - took place.
So why does hardly anyone in Worcester know this history?
And why does it matter?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Almost all regular people agree: our government isn’t listening to us, and it’s out of control. People are suffering, fear and anger are growing, and there is a great feeling of hopelessness and desperation on the land. Foreclosures are continuing to increase, entire city blocks are being emptied and boarded up, the “recovery” isn’t happening for ordinary people, the foreign wars just go on and on, and our environment is becoming a disaster.
We managed to elect new governments in Massachusetts in 2006 and Washington in 2008 on campaigns of hope and change, but that change isn’t happening.
An overwhelming majority of the people supported a Medicare for All, solution to the health care crisis, but that was never even “allowed on the table” for discussion, and now Medicare is being gutted to pay for the Insurance Reform that we got instead.
Obama came in sounding like the reincarnation of Roosevelt, but gave those same banks - whose money helped elect him - a trillion dollars of public money with no strings attached, and now we’re getting a toothless “bank reform bill” that doesn’t touch their power!
The real unemployment rate is 20% or 25%, and Congress seems unable to reauthorize emergency extensions of unemployment insurance, which will dump 2 million long-term unemployed off the rolls and onto the streets, and in any case every week tens of thousands pass beyond the emergency 99-week limit and fall through the safety net.
We voted to end the wars, but the wars go on and on. We voted for transparency a return to the rule of law, an end to torturing prisoners - but the abuses go on and only get worse. Now Obama is openly ordering “hits” on American citizens abroad, without even a judicial review!
BP cut corners, took huge risks and produced a huge environmental disaster which could destroy the entire Gulf of Mexico, and our well-meaning President of the United States is exposed as powerless to do anything about it, reduced to the humiliation of playing “chief complainer and bottle washer!”
Governor Patrick in the meantime is running for reelection on excuses for why he wasn’t able to do much, blaming the Democratic legislature (!), the public workers, and “the economy”, yet he’s continued giving away money hand over fist to the large corporations. Under his Administration 97% of all corporate requests for tax breaks have been granted, but he can’t find money for teachers, fire, police or health care workers, stimulus money is sitting un-spent and the layoffs and violated union contracts continue!
The final straw for many of us was the Citizens United case the Supreme Court recently decided, which eliminates all limits on how much money a corporation can give to political candidates!
I could go on. The list of outrages against the people and against our democracy seems endless. But the upshot is that an overwhelming majority of ordinary people have concluded that we have lost control of our government, that the situation has become intolerable, and that something dramatic has to be done to take it back.
The best word we have for that kind of change is “revolution”. What stops us is perhaps that we don’t really know what a revolution is, and that the images we have of it scare us away.
******************
So as we celebrate Independence Day this July 4, the importance of learning about, talking about and celebrating the Worcester Revolution of 1774 is not just that it would put Worcester on the map, bring lots of tourists and give us a sense of pride and identity.
It’s also that it would give us a new sense of what is possible, a new sense of what democracy means, a new sense of the possibility the common people can reclaim our governments, our rights and our futures in a peaceful, democratic and dignified way.
Because the story of the Worcester Revolution of 1774 is a story of a time when ordinary people like ourselves, right here in Worcester, in a moment that was eerily like the present, actually did that and changed the world.
Let’s celebrate July 4 with real spirit, but let’s also plan to celebrate Revolution Day on Sept. 6, the way our forbearers used to!
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