Today, the United States is experiencing a similar resurgence. Its economy is booming, its “deep state” is being confronted, and its friends and foes alike are showing more respect. We have an extremely divided nation . Our political system appears broken If we start to count from the date when the Declaration of Independence was adopted (July 4, 1776) by the United States of (1)>>America, it will be 243 years old in the year 2019. This 4th of July I want to write about this nation . Just where is it going ? So Let US begin with (1.2)>>French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America in 1831, said “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests—and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning— and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!” Indeed America can be a great nation . (2)>>HOW AMERICA really began, its history began at a gun barrel . A Rebellion that spawned an "idea" . Before the Americans officially declared independence, the British were worried about what King George’s response to the unrest there would be. After all, the Declaration of Independence was not the beginning of the American Revolution; the riot-provoking Stamp Act was passed in 1765, the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773 and the famous “shot heard ’round the world” that is seen as the start of the war was fired in 1775. The Revolution of 1776 was about Taxes , (3)>>The British government decided to make the American colonies pay a large share of the war debt from the French and Indian War. Through the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and other taxes, the British tried to collect taxes that the American people considered harsh. ON similar lines we look today how much we are paying taxes that mirrors what the British did to the colonists . The American Revolution was a big influence for the bloody French Revolution , the same idea was spanned around , but the influence of the American spirit . That the founding fathers wanted to export their ideas
Red , White and Blue became the color of Revolution . "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was defined as a "principle" of the Republic. (4)>>William Blake a poet who lived in England during the American Revolution , he saw the colonists as precursors to some fulfillment of a biblical prophecy . He wrote (4.1)>>"America: A Prophesy", In the opening of the "Prophecy" section, George Washington addresses America by pointing out the chains with which the country is bound by England. Washington, Franklin, Paine, Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Greene appear looking across the sea to England (whose the landscape is described in epic fashion and the characters mythologized). England is ridden with the blood of its prince, who is described as a dragon with glowing eyes. The Angel of Albion (a personification of England) summons his Thirteen Angels to fight against America. These Angels, however, have come over to the side of America and so do not answer Albion's trumpet call. The Angel of Boston speaks out in protest of Albion's injustices. Albion then resorted to sending plagues over the Atlantic to America; however, Orc (the shadowy figure from the "Preludium," described as "lover of wild rebellion") sends the plague back to Albion, where sickness prevails and fires ravage the city. (4.2)>> Urizen (elsewhere in Blake's poetry, the stern god of law and reason) is roused by the fighting and emerges from his shrine to pour snow and ice on the continent. At the poem's close, France, Spain, and Italy watch Albion smitten by plagues and its gates . In July 1776, Congress met and adop- ted the Declaration of (5)>>Independence from Britain. The Articles of Confederation was the first document uniting the citizens of all thirteen colonies into one country. Under the Articles, the central government was very weak and the states held most power, but it was a beginning. As a result of Shay's Rebellion, the Articles were disowned and the Federal Constitution was written in 1787. It is still the basic law of the United States of America.The violence took the form of the Revolutionary War and Congress became the leadership. American Revolution was the first anti-colonial, democratic revolution in history. Americans insisted on representation and when the British denied it, they fought their colonizers. Americans won and set up their own government, a republic. In 1789, the United States was the only large republic in the world; the others were a handful of small city-states scattered in Europe, and none of the larger republics in the history of the world had lasted very long. Like the ancient republic of Rome, they had collapsed and reverted to some form of tyranny, usually by a military dictator. Any one of those three gambles was an enormous risk. The miracle was that the revolutionaries pulled off all three of them, winning their war against the British, and securing a generous boundary in the peace treaty of 1783. This Created a nation that has endured serious questions about its morality in the last 200 years , while the question of Slavery , extermination of Native Americans , equality of women , gender issues , problems with it's immigration system and the current culture war is taking the Nation into uncharted waters in the next 4o years . There is some hope that America will wake up , become more peaceful in dealing with other nations , but the nation today is (6)>>Unlike what the Founding Fathers had envisioned .
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
it was applied to what is now known as South America. However, some have suggested other explanations, including being named after a mountain range in Nicaragua, or after Richard Amerike of Bristol. Americus Vesputius was the Latinized version of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, the forename being an old Italianization (compare modern Italian Enrico) of Medieval Latin Emericus (see Saint Emeric of Hungary), from the Old High German name Emmerich, which may have been a merger of several Germanic names – Amalric, Ermanaric and Old High German Haimirich, from Proto-Germanic *amala- ('vigor, bravery'), *ermuna- ('great; whole') or *haima- ('home') + *rīk- ('ruler') (compare *Haimarīks). America is more than just a name taken by the founding fathers in 1780's , its deep rooted in Freemasonry & mystery, an interesting historical footnote. Haym Solomon an American Jew who was the primary financier of the American Revolution believed that the Eagle symbol of the USA indicated that the USA was the eagles wings plucked from the lion in Daniel seven (He saw this as the USA removed from Great Britain) and that this eagle with three branches of government was to become the three headed eagle of 2nd Esdras. 2nd Esdras , tells us that this three headed eagle is the fourth kingdom of Daniel which most scholars believe refers to Rome and many have tried to match the wings and heads with the various roman emperors but it does not quite fit. The
eagle is the emblem of the USA as it was that of the Roman Empire. So if we realize that the American Empire is the prophetic counterpart to the Roman Empire that grew out of Great Britain , at times combined with England to form a global colonial empire. [see this page on Daniel’s vision] we start to see how it all fits. There are many parallels between the three heads of this eagle and the three rulers of Daniel’s fourth kingdom described in Dan 11:16-30 .(1.2)>>French writer Alexis de Tocqueville. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its prisons and returned with a wealth of broader observations that he codified in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influential books of the 19th century. With its trenchant observations on equality and individualism, Tocqueville’s work remains a valuable explanation of America to Europeans and of Americans to themselves. (2)>>HOW AMERICA really began, its history began at a gun barrel . AS WE are told by the propagandists that America was founded on the idea "as a nation of immigrants ...". as a cliché . The original colonies were planted in the New World by conquest to rival the Spanish Empire . And displacing of the Natives at gun point . We we are taught so much nonsense with the images of Pilgrims , the nation began rather violently and the propaganda machine evolved to spiritualize America's birth .The United States took shape not only in coffeehouses and on the pages of political pamphlets, but also on blood-soaked battlefields. “I have no relish for civil Wars & there is no such thing as being a looker on,” one New Yorker wrote in 1775. “Scars of Independence” makes lookers-on of us all, forcing readers to confront the visceral realities of a conflict too often bathed in warm, nostalgic light. Yet the Patriots’ battle for independence was, to the British crown, not war but rebellion. From the perspective of George III’s ministry, the American cause was an insurgency: an uprising of once (and rightfully) loyal subjects rather than a conflict between sovereign rival nations. From the 1780's onward to 1900's the nation grew using every scheme avalable . (3)>>The British government decided to make the American colonies pay a large share of the war debt from the French and Indian War. 'taxation without representation' "that was to draw many to the cause of the American patriots against the mother country" .The reaction against taxation was often violent and the most powerful and articulate groups in the population rose against the taxation."Resolutions denouncing taxation without representation as a threat to colonial liberties" were passed . In October of 1765, colonial representatives met on their own initiative for the first time and decided to "mobilize colonial opinion against parliamentary interference in American affairs" . From this point on, events began to reach the point of no return for the colonies. In December 1773, the Boston Tea Party occurred as a reaction to the hated Tea Act of earlier that year. In 1774, the First Continental Congress met and formed an 'Association,' which ended up assuming leadership and spurred new local organizations to end royal authority. Because of the influence of these Associations, many people joined the movement, and collection of supplies and mobilization of troops began to take place. The leadership of the Association was able to fan "public opinion into revolutionary ardor" . (4)>>William Blake a poet who lived in England during the American Revolution. First, when reading Blake’s “prophecies” I would strongly suggest you put aside the popular culture understanding of what a prophecy is. It is NOT a prediction or foretelling of the future; it is a careful analysis of the present moment, socially, politically, psychologically, spiritually, with possible implications for what the current constellation of beliefs (the zeitgeist) will lead to in the future.With that in mind, Blake, as in other of his early poems, is struggling to unpack the implications of the social, religious, and political repressions of his era and his society, including sexual repressions. America was written in 1793, in the midst of the revolution disaster happening in France, and the repressive response in England, in which the government was aggressively trying to avoid a similar rebellion. And Blake was looking across the ocean to the new and idealized nations emerging there. So one important theme would be “repression and freedom.” With that in mind as a kind of anchor or ground, you should be able to unpack the full richness of Blake’s vision, which goes far beyond that one theme. (4.1)>>"America: A Prophesy". For those of us who love poetry , WILL BLAKE'S AMERICA is found here [ https://www.bartleby.com/235/257.html ] Blake's prophetic poem America is revolutionary in more ways than one. First printed in 1793 and reprinted only three more times in Blake's lifetime, it was the first of the Lambeth books (1) and the larger Illuminated Books. Together with Europe, and The Song of Los, America completes The Continental Prophecies -- a series of prophetic and mythological writings about the four continents of America, Europe, Asia and Africa. In creating America, Blake was inspired by both the French and the American revolutions, and he made a significant move both towards a new method of printing, and a new genre of poetic discourse (Dorrbecker, 13). A result of which is that America, with its intricate designs and vivid though obscure personal mythology, continues to be one of the most beautiful and intriguing works of the Romantic Age. (4.2)>> Urizen . A godlike figure, Urizen personifies reason and law, and Blake believed him to be the true deity worshipped by his contemporaries. Blake first told Urizen’s story, the struggle against the chaos caused by the loss of a true human spirit, in the so-called “Prophetic Books,” including America, a Prophecy (1793), The Book of Urizen (1794), and The Song of Los (1795), and then, more ambitiously, in the unfinished manuscript Vala, or The Four Zoas, written from approximately 1796 to 1807. In an engraving from Europe, a Prophecy (1794), Blake depicts Urizen as a grim scientist, creating the Earth with a huge pair of compasses. (5)>>Independence from Britain. While we "believe" that the United States won it's "independence" in 1780's , it was not until after the War of 1812 that America was finally really Free from Great Britain , but the War of 1812 almost destroyed the nation . While the war was declared against Britain by the American Congress, the British came vary close to have retaken the original colonies . The whole war of 1812 was foolhardy , was such a risk . Although the War of 1812 serves as an important turning point in the development of an independent United States, the war itself was mostly a political and military disaster for the country. If a peace treaty ending the War of 1812 had not been signed while the Hartford Convention was still meeting, New England may have seriously debated seceeding from the Union. (6)>>Unlike what the Founding Fathers had envisioned . Many of the Founding Fathers were instead more apt to describe the nascent government as a republic. The word "democracy" never once appears in the Declaration of Independence of the Constitution. The Federalist Papers, specifically Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, who would later become the fourth president of the United States, expounded on the differences between a pure democracy, defined as "a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person," which only offers no remedy for the "mischiefs of faction", and a democratic republic, which "promises the cure for which we are seeking." When our founders established our country, they envisioned a decentralized government that protected our God-given rights and was founded on the principle of self-governance. They risked their lives, fortunes and honor to create the greatest nation the world has ever known — based on the idea of limited government involvement in the everyday lives of Americans. They were also weary of centralized power, creating the 10th Amendment to restrain the federal government's insatiable desire to expand and grow. In recent times, our country has veered too far from this vision of government.
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| One of Blake's illustrations for America a Prophecy. |
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>America. The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when
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