Walking the Berkshires

The Clouds Wept for Sabina (and the Sun Shines).

A young woman named Sabina was beaten, raped and murdered outside her home in north central Philadelphia last week.  As of today, there have been 28 homicides and 80 rapes recorded in Philadelphia this year, devastating to love ones and wrenching to communities.  As I write, hundreds if not thousands of people have gathered for a memorial send off for Sabina in the community-owned park and gardens called Liberty Lands, among them several who are very dear to me and are very involved in organizing the event. 

Local businesses, friends and neighbors have raised over $40,000 for Sabina, including $25,000 as a reward for the apprehension of her killer.  They have flown her family from Hawa'ai and will cover the memorial and funeral expenses.  They are looking out for each other the way sometimes happens in small towns and closely knit neighborhoods,which is what the Northern Liberties section of the city is today thanks to more than a decade of extraordinary grassroots locally-driven urban renewal.

The few young urban pioneers who put down roots in what was in the early 1990s a blighted region of abandoned industrial sites and decaying tenements came to invest in the neighbors as well as the neighborhood.  One of my friends who moved here at that time says they took a practical approach to building community in what was then a virtual combat zone.  They decided that they would support a single strip club that worked with the community and actively oppose any others.  They had no parks so they created some.  They organized.  And things began to change.

The real estate boom that peaked in 2007 absolutely transformed property values and attracted upscale residences and businesses, but many long-term residents remain.  The area is a mosaic, a patchwork of colors and textures, of building up and coming down, but it is vibrant and it is not on life support.  It is safe to park on the street.  But it is still not safe for a young woman to ride her bicycle home alone at night.

Sabina Rose O'Donnell technically lived in an adjacent neighborhood in North Philadelphia, but that does not matter to the many people from far and wide who are bravely bearing witness to her murder and celebrating her life today.  She was by all accounts a vibrant and much loved young person who moved freely through these neighborhoods until the night of her death,  and she loved Liberty Lands.  I am deeply moved by the massive show of support from so many there today, and very very proud of what they have done and continue to do. 

The clouds wept for Sabina yesterday, and now there is sunlight in the Northern Liberties.  In spite of everything.  And because of everyone.

"Evolving Standards of Decency." Or Not.

Here is an 18th century image that suggests that the sexual humiliation of detainees may have rather deep roots in the American psyche.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas rejects the concept of dynamic meaning in a "Living Constitution."  He and fellow Associate Justice Antonin Scalia adhere to strict constructionism and its focus on original intent rather than new interpretations of the Constitution in a modern context.  By the logic of Thomas's dissenting opinion this week in an 8th amendment case, he might deem the actions depicted in this image to be evidence of the standards of the day at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, and therefore Constitutionally justified. 

There are 100 years of precedent and case law regarding “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” that run counter to Thomas's opinion.  Sometimes interpretations that consider "the evolving standards of decency" are pejoratively dismissed as judicial activism. 

I'm not at all sure that such labels apply exclusively to those whose "liberal" judicial philosophy inclines toward pragmatic interpretation of the words and intent of the Founders.  Who is more activist than a fundamentalist, whatever his or her political persuasion?

In any case, whether or not the extra legal punishment depicted in that image of a tarred and feathered captive being threatened with diabolical sodomy is Constitutional under the 8th Amendment, it is clearly protected speech under the 1st.  Unless used to threaten a detainee.  Then it depends on the judicial philosophy of the majority of Supreme Court members.

Throwback

The NY Times has challenged CT Attorney General and candidate for US Senate Dick Blumenthal's representation of his military service during the Vietnam War era.  He is not, in fact, a Vietnam veteran, having never deployed to southeast Asia but rather serving as a reservist in Washington D.C.  

"what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events...the idea that he served in Vietnam has become such an accepted part of his public biography that when a national outlet, Slate magazine, produced a profile of Mr. Blumenthal in 2000, it said he had “enlisted in the Marines rather than duck the Vietnam draft." It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes."

As distasteful and damaging as these revelations appear, Blumenthal is hardly the first American politician to misrepresent his record of military service during wartime.  I wonder, however, whether future politicians in uniform today will fall as readily into the same seductive trap as some have done from Blumenthal's era? 

For one thing, service in the National Guard or Reserves is hardly the means today to avoid a tour (or more) in Afghanistan or Iraq.  In an all volunteer army and a war that has lasted for close to a decade, the chances that a service member will not deploy to a conflict area would appear to be long odds.  When guarding military facilities against the tactics of terror, even the coast guard reserves are deployed in the Persian Gulf.  In these conflicts, those military personnel who are technically not combat troops are often under fire and may well become engaged in combat.  

What will it mean when a future politician claims to have been a service member during the War on Terror Era?  Does that necessarily imply that only those based in Iraq and Afghanistan will be considered war veterans, and what percentage of personnel are likely to have served at least one deployment in or near the main arena of conflict? If you spent your tour guarding enemy combatants detained in Gitmo, does that count?  Or guarding our cities, airports, and public facilities against domestic terror attacks?  Where will we set the bar?  Does it have to be an Orange Alert or greater?

Combat veterans and those whose units are recognized as having served in a war zone are quite rightly considered war veterans, though their experiences and actions may differ greatly.  Yet I suspect that the rub will come not in the eyes of the public (excepting, of course, flagrant misrepresentations of actual service) but rather in the bureaucracy of the VA as it sorts out veterans benefits claims from millions of service men and women.   It would be tragic if it all boiled down to what class of veteran is recognized as capable of developing PTSD.

What Blumenthal appears to have done says as much about the context of the times in which he served as the content of his character.  In an era when many Americans consider every person in uniform a hero, regardless of where and how they serve, it may be that when Blumenthal's son, a newly minted Marine Corps officer, considers a career in politics, the need to represent one's service record as a war veteran will seem less important than the fact of his service.  Or perhaps old habits die hard, and there will always be the temptation for some soldiers turned politicians to make their record appear to be more than it was.

Once and Future Holy Ground

During the American Revolution, the area in lower Manhattan now known as "Ground Zero" was then known as "Holy Ground".  This was a fire scarred district north and west of Broadway in the vicinity of St. Paul's Church - hence the name.  However, it was also a tongue in cheek reference, for it was at that time the largest red light district and open air brothel in North America.  Even before 1776, there were as many as 500 prostitutes on "Holy Ground."

When I was growing up during the later years of the Cold War and Nuclear Freeze movement, "Ground Zero" referred to the center of a hypothetical detonation of a nuclear weapon over a major city.  New York was almost always the illustrative case, with predictions of casualties and fall out from a direct strike on lower Manhattan extending four miles beyond a "Ground Zero".  Today, of course, Ground Zero has a different association in New York, but its linguistic roots come from the era of mutually assured destruction.

New York, more than any other United States city, builds on the ruins of its past.  All that remains of the notorious Sugar House prison where thousands of American P.O.W.s died during the Revolution is a small number of Holland bricks and two barred windows, one of which is not even at the original site.  The real estate that was once part of Holy Ground and now a hole in the ground is far too valuable to remain undeveloped, and far too imbued with modern meaning to be redeveloped insensitively.  For some, it is indeed sacred ground, and for many nearly a decade later it remains an open wound.

Abraham Lincoln understood the difference between where important events took place and the significance of what people did there;

"we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." 

Walt Whitman knew that the grass itself is not one thing but many, and sometimes "the beautiful uncut hair of graves." 

Although it is my profession to preserve land, and I understand the value of maintaining some places as they once were so that we who follow can connect with what transpired in that earlier time, even war graves lie beneath the city streets, and new buildings replace what might have been kept as shrines.  A symbol must stand for the whole, like the barred window of a colonial prison that people pass in their thousands every day without reflection. 

I once had the good fortune to sing with an American choir in Coventry, an industrial city in  the English Midlands that was  pulverized in an air raid that the British knew was coming but which they could not prevent without alerting the enemy that codes had been compromised.  More than 1,800 people were killed and wounded during the raid, and along with much of the city its cathedral became a bombed out shell.  A modern church was subsequently built, connected to the truncated columns and roofless walls and spire of the original medieval building, and the entire cathedral complex today is dedicated to reconciliation and remembrance.  There is a small museum in the lower level of the church that reconstructs the period of the Blitz, along with an interior of a bomb damaged house and its everyday contents covered in rubble, but nothing about the site is bitter.  There is a cross of charred beams in the ruined cathedral, and another of nails made from the roof lead that melted during the bombing, but no raised fist.

Coventry is not New York.  This conflict is not over.  But for all its dead the city is not a tomb, though the remains of the fallen will never be entirely recovered.  It is as alive as Whitman's grass and Lincoln's words, and it will take on many forms in the years to come.  We all have a stake in that future, but none an exclusive claim on what is carried forward.

Tempest in a Tea Bag: A Campaign Ad Deconstructed

Courtesy of Tigerhawk; I was alerted to what my blogging cousin calls a "Wagnerian" campaign ad on behalf of a Tea Party candidate in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional district.  As a piece of political theater - strong on symbols, short on substance - it is an intriguing approach to candidate marketing.   Given the paucity of decent films based in the Revolutionary period, it may be too much to hope for the sort of Memorial Day blockbuster the ad is designed to evoke, but it does offer the opportunity to deconstruct the history on parade.  

Whoa, Nelly!  Let's go right to the storyboard.

"1775" - (fade to Revere's engraving of the (1770) Boston Massacre) "Americans pushed to the brink"

(fade to image of British grenadiers and condescending or possibly conciliatory officer standing between them and a ragged working class mob armed with cudgels) "Tired of not being heard"  I do not know the provenance of this image, which looks like a late 19th century magazine illustration. 

"Drained by taxes from Britain" (fade to image of a Revolutionary era protest demonstration complete with drum and bugle, effigies hanged and otherwise, various urchins, a pipe smoking female spectator and a sign in the background that reads "The Folly of England and the Ruin of America".  The image is reminiscent  of the style of a 19th century political cartoon, and in fact depicts a protest in New York against the Stamp Act of 1765 and comes from The Story of a Great Nation by John Gilmary Shea, published in 1886.

(fade to a close up of King George III in sumptuous ermine and the words "Angered by the Oppression").  This is Allan Ramsey's 1762 ceremonial portrait of the British monarch, and like all of these images it has been subtly enhanced for dramatic effect.  Comparing the original to the version used in the campaign ad indicates that the lips have been altered to appear more parted.

(fade to a close up illustration of the Congressional committee members lead by Jefferson, Franklin and Adams who drafted the Declaration of Independence) "A small band of Americans"  This looks like a 20th century illustration, presumably one in the public domain.

(fade to the Trumbull painting of the same committee presenting the Declaration before Congress in 1776) "Determined to Shrug off Tyranny"

(fade to a close up of the Preamble to the Constitution (1787) "To Provide a New Government"

These seven scenes occupy the first 14 seconds of this 1:41 minute campaign ad.  Now it picks up the pace and the images come too quick to register other than subliminally.  Let's break them down.

• a late 18th century or early 19th century depiction of the Boston Tea party complete with realistic "Mohawks" and well dressed spectators and the word "They"
• an image of Capt. Parker's Minutemen confronting the British Light Infantry on Lexington Common with the addition of the word "Rebelled".  This is a modern image by Don Troiani and therefore cannot be reproduced without permission.  It is called "Stand Your Ground" and was painted in 1985 and the original is owned by the National Guard Heritage Painting, Department of the Army, National Guard Bureau.)  Hope the private property copywrite was respected.
• An image of what looks like a successful British bayonet and cavalry charge against a routed and martyred band of patriots.  In fact, it depicts the death of General De Kalb at the Battle of Camden, one of the greatest patriot defeats in the southern campaigns or indeed in the entire war.  It is an engraving based on the painting by Alonzo Chapell (1828-1887).
• John Singleton Copley's famous painting entitled "The Death of Major Peirson" (1784)  depicting a British engagement against the invading French in the the Channel Island of Jersey, which did not involve any Americans and which prominently features a black soldier in the uniform of the Royal Ethiopians.  This loyalist regiment was not present at this battle, which was won by the British against America's ally. 
• A color painting of undetermined origin of a Continental army firing line wearing the red facings prescribed under Washington's regulations of 1779 for battalions from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.  It features a green flag with the red and white stripes of the Sons of Liberty in its upper left canton.  Possibly a rifle regiment, given the green, but they have bayonets, so who knows.  They are certainly well accoutered and very clean limbed. 
• Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware, with close focus on Washington.

The phrase "They rebelled" is sustained for nearly all of the 4 seconds that it takes to flash through these six images.

(Zoom out from Edward P. Moran's 1911 painting of Washington at Valley Forge) "The turning point came at Valley Forge"  This ought to play well in Pennsylvania, although folks at Saratoga might quibble.

(Another image of the Valley Forge encampment from a 19th century lithograph in the Granger Collection, NY, featuring an African American lighting a fire in the lee of a stump while Washington and Lafayette survey the scene.) "Bloodied and freezing"

(Washington and Steuben inspecting the troops at Valley Forge, in a rather poor color engraving after noted Pennsylvania illustrator Howard Pyle's 1896 black and white version for Harper's, and incidentally also housed in the Granger collection)  "They increased their training."

(A bas relief Valley Forge National Historic Park plaque entitled General van Steuben drilling Washington's Army at Valley Forge) "and hardened their resolve".  Are you catching the virility in these verbs?  "Increased, hardened?"  Coincidence?  I think not.

(Trumbull's (1797) Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown) "Bringing them victory"

All this, in 30 seconds.  The scene now shifts to an apocalyptic present, to a frowning troika of Obama, Reid and Pelosi: "Now we face new tyranny".  Then there is an image of the Statue of Liberty suffering from an extreme case of sea level rise (does the candidate believe in global climate change?)  but with the confusing title "We see overtaxing cap & trade".  Another closeup of Pelosi and Reid follows with the tag line; "Overlegislating heathcare" (though those starving, ill-clad patriots dying of disease at Valley Forge might have benefited from a little socialized medicine).  Then we learn from a black and yellow sign on an arid landscape that an "overreaching" congress created (this) dust bowl (through the Farm Bill, perhaps?)

It is 8 seconds of hyperbole in the best bait and switch tradition of political advertising,  but is it good history?  Is President Obama an unelected imperial despot akin to "German George", abetted by a parliament that was not elected by the people it governs?  Is cap & trade another Intolerable Act that will do to private enterprise what the vindictive Crown did to the port of Boston?  Is the Statue of Liberty really destined to slip beneath the stormy seas?  Is the answer really blowing in the wind of that alleged dust bowl?

No time to linger on these thoughts; there is another full minute left to run!  Here comes handsome Scott Brown riding out of Massachusetts like Lady Godiva Paul Revere (in his old pick up truck, one assumes), and now it is time for the dominoes to fall revolution to come to Pennsylvania.  Here are the modern heirs to the tax resisters who founded this nation raising their fists before the nation's Capitol: "We will tell Washington We are in Control."  Mind you, there were a number of mutinies by the Continental Line where they tried to say that to the actual Washington but those didn't turn out so well; see also Daniel Shays revolt and the Whiskey Rebellion for other early examples of the suppression of counterrevolutionary activity in America.

At this point the ad verges toward parody of the blockbuster trailers that were its thematic inspiration, percussively launching one word at a time at the viewer as the unintelligible generic choral music swells.  I did catch the word "Liberty", which is less in vogue today than in the Founders' day, having been replaced by "Freedom" in Reagan's.  It will be interesting if we see an increase in the use of of "Liberty", which is not precisely synonymous with "Freedom", in the future.

1:22 seconds into the spot, we reach climax - a short but sadly realistic time frame for such activity - and we finally learn the identity of the candidate we are in bed with.   The self-styled "Pennsylvania Patriot", reminds us, almost as a post coital aside, that "Freedom is the only gift we must earn", so perhaps he is having it both ways after all, etymologically speaking. 

Was it over the top?  Does all that virile, throbbing sound and fury really signify nothing?  Frankly, I thought it was somewhat understated and restrained.  I mean, where is God in all of this?  Why no image of Washington praying at Valley Forge (whether the deist CinC really did so or not)?  Why no Molly Pitcher or Betsy Ross, both (allegedly) Pennsylvania heroines?  Aren't there women in the modern Tea Party movement?  You think all they think about after Scott Brown is "Where's the beefcake?' Why not pull out all the stops?  When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

NRA Backs Nancy Pelosi over Condoleeza Rice and John Bolton on 2nd Amendment

I swear, that is what I had to conclude from a very enlightening call I received this evening from someone at 703-656-9940 which is listed as an NRA number who very much wanted me to listen to a prepared tape by the Vice President of the NRA about how representatives of the UN from Canada, Australia and some European countries were conspiring with the Obama administration to take away my guns.  It turns out that Secretary Condoleeza Rice and John Bolton were engaged in just this sort of activity back in the 2nd Bush administration, at least to hear the person on the other end of the line tell it, and yet at an NRA Freedom rally somewhere in South Carolina, Nancy Pelosi attended and defended my right to bear arms.

All I can say is, Hallelujah!  I told them that the day they sent me their magazine standing arm in arm with Nancy Pelosi and exposing the Bush era UN conspiracy to take away my guns lead by Rice and Bolton would be the day I would join the NRA.  I asked why they had not taken this incredible information to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh instead of calling me about it, and the fellow on the other end of the line said that Rush was being careful and I said that sure didn't sound like him.  Ol' Rush isn't afraid to call out Republican traitors, especially on such an important issue as our constitutional rights.

We talked for about 15 minutes, which I am sure is much longer than the NRA propaganda tape this poor telemarketer really wanted me to listen to instead of him.  I hope, for his sake, that the call was not monitored for quality.  We both agred that Charlton Heston must be spinning in his grave, but I suspect for different reasons.

White Earth No More.

Back in the waning days of Apartheid, Eugene Terre'blanche was the bearded white power face of the militant right wing in South Africa.  With a name whose Huguenot origin translates as "White Earth", how could he not be? 

I remember watching images of him and his boer commando riding in on their horses prior to the so called "Battle of Ventersdorp" in 1991.  They were beefy men in bush hats and khaki camouflage, emblazoned at the shoulder with the three armed emblem of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), a blunt knock off of its near relative the swastika. 

Terre'blanche and the AWB remained militant during the years since South African independence.  In 2001 he was convicted of attempted murder of a black security guard and served three years in prison.  After his release, he revived the AWB and announced plans to apply to the UN to form a breakaway Afrikaner republic.

A violent man, a fascist anachronism in the New South Africa, he met a violent end last Saturday, reportedly at the hands of two of his black farm workers in a dispute over wages.  A predictable death, perhaps, but a martyrdom that South Africa does not need. 

Racial tensions were already elevated after the leader of the ANC youth league publicly sang an old resistance song with the lyrics "Dubula amabhunu baya raypha", which in Zulu means "Shoot the boers, they are rapists.", although South Africa's Human Rights Commission has ruled the song hate speech.  Concerns about the country's high crime rate are already a challenge in advance of the World Cup which South Africa will host in a few months time.  And President Jacob Zuma , who has appealed for calm, himself lacks credibility.  He sang the ANC song "Bring me my machine gun" to supporters during his trial for rape in 2005.  The court found him not guilty, declaring it was consensual sex, and the woman involved was subsequently granted asylum in the Netherlands.  Mandela, he is decidedly not.

A CNN story puts it this way:

For many here, the atmosphere now smacks of those scary, dark days before South Africans voted for a new democratic South Africa in 1994 -- when the white man and the black man were so suspicious of each other that many thought this country's transition to democracy would be violent and bloody.

But South Africans were led out of the twisted spectre of racial hatred by Nelson Mandela -- whose leadership and calm management prevented a potentially explosive conflict.

Mandela is now an old man, who cannot be expected to quell another rising tide of hatred and it is now left to a new generation of South African leaders to heed the lessons which he taught them 16 years ago.

But the bonds of nationhood that Mandela strived to build are still fragile and many in South Africa fear that Terreblanche could be even more divisive in death than he was in life -- and tear apart a nation still struggling to let go of the past.

I sincerely hope not.  But I would look for some gesture from Mandela in the coming days, particularly if things do not settle down.  Old habits die hard, for good or ill.

Who "May Little Note" the Civil War at 150?

The Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War is fast approaching.  Where does commemoration rank as a priority for Americans today?  To judge by the number of formerly combatant states which have established Commissions to plan for Civil War: 150 - just 16 counting WVA (admitted in 1863), not even half those in the Union at the outbreak of the war -  most of us are consumed by more pressing matters.  Either that, or we feel estranged from the sort of commemorations we have come to expect. The sort that dodges the issue of slavery and racial prejudice, for example.

At the national level, the 110th Congress failed to act on a bill during its 2008-2009 session that would have established a Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.  It was reintroduced earlier this month by Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois, who has long been an advocate of recognizing slavery's central role in the war.  In 2000, Congressman Jackson included language in the appropriations budget for the National Park Service  "to confront slavery directly at the Civil War sites."  Interpretation is no longer just about battles and the movements of armies.

HR 4771   was introduced earlier this month (with a $5 million price tag).  The bill lists among its findings that:

(1) The American Civil War was a defining experience in the development of the United States.

(2) The people of the United States continue to struggle with issues of race, civil rights, heritage, and the politics of federalism, which are legacies of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

(5) The sesquicentennial of the Civil War presents a significant opportunity for Americans to recall and reflect upon all aspects of that conflict and its legacy in a spirit of reconciliation and honest reflection, through exploration, interpretation, and discussion.

This is the sort of bill that ought to get passed eventually, especially with the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter just a year away, but I would not expect any rapid movement by Congress given what else is on its plate.

The economy is still on the ropes as measured by shaky consumer confidence, high unemployment, reduced charitable giving  and the budgetary disarray of most of the states of the Union.  Congressmen have not yet resorted to beating each other with canes over health care reform, but the level of hyperbole and polarization in American politics may remind some of the US on the eve of Secession.

And of course, race matters.  If President Obama wanted to restart a national conversation on this topic as he was compelled to do during the campaign, it would get more attention, certainly.  He, however, like the African American governors of Massachusetts and New York, seems to have made the political calculation that this is a political minefield and has not taken such a step.

As for whether the 150th matters at a regional or local level, this would seem to depend where you are along with who you are.  Among the New England states, only Connecticut has set up a Sesquicentennial Commission.  Vermont may be getting around to it.  That's it.

Our neighbor New York not only has failed to act, but it has zeroed out an annual $100,000 appropriation to conserve the largest collection of Civil War flags anywhere in the country that it holds in its care.  Governor Patterson also vetoed a bill last year that would have established a Bicentennial Commission for the War of 1812, which unlike the Civil War took place within the boundaries of the Empire State and just across its border with Canada.  New York is facing a fiscal meltdown of epic proportions, and when the needs of the past and the needs of the present compete for scarce resources the outcome is clear.  The dead don't vote (or at least they aren't meant to).

The Mid Atlantic and Midwestern states are better represented among those in the north making official preparations for Civil War 150.  The border states and Upper South are weighing in as well. but deep in Dixie as in New England and New York they are taking their sweet time, though I would hesitate to say for precisely the same reasons.

What is in it for states to make an investment in the Sesquicentennial?  For some (Virginia and Pennsylvania among them), the potential economic benefits of heritage tourism make this look like a smart play. But they also have to grapple with the relevance of the war for those who live amid hallowed ground today - the Wilderness Wall-Mart being a prime example.

How about for Connecticut?  Close to 5,000 men from the Nutmeg State died in service during the war (3,000 to disease).  The number of battlefield deaths alone are more than those from this state who died during WII.   In rural Connecticut, you would be hard pressed to find a town green that didn't have its granite soldier perched on a pedestal inscribed with the names of local sons who fought for the Union.  Many of those names carry forward in the community today, but there are plenty of names that do not, particularly in urban areas where there has been more immigration and population turnover.  I often wonder about the relevance in those places of old monuments with anonymous names.

There are many opportunities in my state to use the Sesquicentennial as a chance to relate to the past and see its relevance today.  We have the birthplaces of Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown, and the final resting place of General John Sedgwick.  We have the contribution to the war effort of Colt sidearms and Waterbury brass and other once prosperous industries that have since faded.  There are the grave markers of the 29th colored infantry that one regularly finds by the margins of rural cemeteries, and the countervailing stories of "Peace Democrats" or "Copperheads" like former Governor Thomas Seymour who challenged McClellan for their party's nomination at the Democratic Convention in 1864.

If commemorating the Civil War becomes a special interest rather than in the national interest, then special interests will control the debate.  This is not to say that would be necessarily a bad thing, nor that only the government can interpret the past.  Those who pay for public monuments, however, and for field trips, and for museums and their collections, shape what we see and how we remember.  In these times of cutbacks and watching backs, I have to wonder whether we will make the investment in the broader conversation, beyond local interests, of listening to each other about the meaning of this war and its aftermath rather than merely an excuse for cost cutting on the one hand, or laying claim to our own versions of the past on the other.

The Words We Etch in Stone; Tim's Take on the SC Secession Ordinance Monument Controversy

The South Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans hit a roadblock in their plans to erect a monument to commemorate the December 1860 signing of that State's Secession Ordinance.  This Tuesday it failed (by a split decision 3-3) to win approval for placement at a public site under the jurisdiction of the Patriots Point Redevelopment Authority. 

Brother Grant and I thought this would be a good inaugural topic for our occasional series of posts for the Civil War Sesquicentennial - no shrinking violets, we - so I will leave it to him to give us the inside perspective from the local SCV in which he is a proud member.  I'll offer my thoughts from a less proximate, though not necessarily strictly Northern perspective.

Memorials are for the benefit of the living.  The problem with the words we etch in stone, as with all symbols, signs and signifiers, is that they really are artifacts of the present.  They say more about what some of us want remembered than the people and events themselves.  When these involve monuments intended for public viewing, they are by their very nature meant to inform public understanding and shape collective memory.  They help some of us bond with each other and identify with the past, and may alienate others (whether by intention or inadvertently).

They may also be provocative, like the staring faces of servicemen on the black, mirrored wall of the Korean War Memorial on the National Mall.  One cannot view this monument and fail to see it in counterpoint - in response, really -  to the Viet Nam wall on the other side of the reflecting pool: two raw 20th century wounds at the feet of Abraham Lincoln. You cannot explain the different between them as a simple matter of one having names and the other faces, or their placement as simply a matter of the mall running out of room.  You cannot see them in isolation from the time of their creation.

Is it important for Charleston visitors today and in the future to know the names of the 170 men who signed the Ordinance of Seccession?  Maybe Grant can give us his take on that question.  Meanwhile, let's turn it around and look outside this specific circumstance.  After all, during the Revolution's Bicentennial, folks in my parents home town of Andover, Massachusetts felt it was important to publicly list the names of everyone in the community who had turned out for the Lexington Alarm.  That is the seminal moment in the collective history of Massachusetts towns in four counties surrounding Boston.  If  Andover can do this for its big day, how is it different for Charleston?

Let me up the ante.  I had an ancestor in one Andover minute company that marched when they heard the Regulars were out, and another who fought at Concord's North Bridge with the Bedford Militia.  That is information I am glad to know that helps connect me to the past. I'm not sure it matters to most modern residents of these communities, though, that someone named Nathaniel Abbott or Samuel Lane was there on that April morning.  Nice to know about these individuals, perhaps, but not something they feel the need to know that intimately.  History is many things, not the least of which is personal.

Nobody in Massachusetts erects monuments to the Shayites, however.  We may stick a marble rock in the ground by some country road in the Berkshires where the last fight of Shay's counter-revolutionary rebellion took place, but we did so a couple of generations ago because folks at that time thought it worth remembering that their local militia put a stop to it. 

I would have no objection to an interpretive display that tried to make sense of the causes of Shay's revolt, of its significance as a goad to forming a strong federal Constitution, and of the way it has been remembered as part of our regional and national narrative and been given meaning by subsequent generations and historians.  That is a lot to ask of one sign or stone. 

But I would not be enthused to see an uncritical monument erected on public ground to pitch a one-sided, partisan version of the conflict, or one that was insensitive to the need to address what the very existence of such a monument might represent to a public audience.  Words matter, but sometimes it is what we do not say that is the most telling, and leaves us open to other interpretations.

For me this is not a question of the 1st Amendment, or political correctness, or whether the winners or losers get to write the history books.  It is about the importance of finding the best way to share and learn from the past.  It is about finding better words, perhaps, or broadening the initial vision.  My line of work is all about collaborative action.  Although there is nothing that would require them to have done so, I wonder whether the SCV might have found other partners, with other perspectives, willing to work with them to find a fitting, credible way to acknowledge the events in the months before the onset of the war.  Might that have met their needs, been a bit less polarizing and perhaps even resulted in site approval?  It might have been harder going initially, but maybe the outcome would have been something greater than the sum of its parts. 

Not unlike our federal Union.

The People Shall Govern....But Not in Their Backyards: The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act

There are very few environmentalists who would argue against the importance of reducing our economic dependence on fossil fuel with renewable alternatives.  Yet the implications of this priority often place us in opposition to strategies and policies which would have regional benefits (economic as well as ecological) at the expense of locally valued resources.  This situation often sets up a dichotomy between the needs of biodiversity conservation and the needs of economic development.   It also puts us on the defensive, for quite often what is proposed as the greatest public benefit is often imposed on those who must bear the burden of its localized negative impacts and who have limited political influence.  Ask an ovaHimba pastoralist in Namibia about a proposed hydroelectric dam on their ancestral land, or an Appalachian landowner in coal country about the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal for examples of the power dynamics that are often at play. 

The fact remains that we cannot wean ourselves from fossil fuel without finding viable alternatives to fill the void. None of these alternatives is without cost and all of them - even solar - involve some environmental impacts as well as benefits.  Whatever policies we adopt, everything hinges on changing individual and collective behavior, and that puts us squarely in the realm of competing interests.

In Massachusetts, the Patrick Administration has made renewable energy generation a top priority.  It has embedded this mandate within the reconstituted Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which means that the same state agency that houses a division with a mandate for providing clean water and protecting rare species also has one with a mandate to promote renewable energy development.  Whether this creates synergies or silos is a matter of debate. but it certainly sets up situations where the needs of one give way to the other.  When it involves the use and management of state owned lands, all of these intersecting interests come into play.

A 2009 Commonwealth report found the potential for 947MW of renewable electricity generation from wind on state lands.  A map included with the report identified 86 MW of potential at three sites in north, central and south Berkshire County, but downplayed the potential for offshore generation because - surprise - these far more productive areas are offshore and not on state owned properties.  Furthermore, places like Mt. Everett Reservation may indeed have 15 MW of wind generating potential, but are also extremely ecologically sensitive and there have been bloody battles fought there for decades to prevent the industrialization of the mountaintop.

I have a dog in this fight both as a longtime Berkshire resident and a landowner of coastal property in SE MA.  I am aware of the noise, nuisance, aesthetic, landscape fragmentation, habitat destruction and bird strike concerns, as well as the need to be able to find some sites where the proximate impacts can be mitigated.  I have come to feel that offshore wind generation in Buzzards Bay and Nantucket Sound could have fewer negative ecological impacts and greater benefit than mountaintop development of wind installations in the Berkshires. 

I place a lower value on the aesthetic concerns of wind turbines and a greater one on the biodiversity impacts.  I would prefer a few large industrial generation installations offshore to many of them in the mountains.  This is how I add up the costs and benefits of wind energy siting in Massachusetts as I understand them.  I represent one reasonably well informed and pragmatic perspective, and there are countless others who bring their own values and perspectives to this question.  They deserve a place at the table. 

Yet the state senate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has found it expedient to bypass local regulations and pass the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act in February, 2010.  Local government oversight can be messy and inefficient, but it also is part of the bedrock of New England-style government.   We recognize that even the town crank has the right to speak her mind in open forum, and that those who live closest to the resource have valuable perspectives that may be completely undervalued at the macro level.  It can be frustrating for investors and can make for a more complex business environment, but the alternative is top down, high power politics that undermines individual communities.

Since the Commonwealth has demonstrated a low level of environmental oversight for its forest management actions on state owned lands, it is naive to think that it will weigh the costs and benefits of the local environmental impacts of wind generation on state lands with any greater sensitivity.  There must be a way for environmentalists and renewable energy developers to find appropriate sites and design the best installations with the least negative impacts to meet our energy needs and safeguard existing environmental and community values.  This cannot be done by state government and private industry in a vacuum.  Governor Patrick will lose environmental voters he can ill afford to alienate if he signs this bill into law, and environmentalists will continue to be branded as NIMBYs unless we make it clear that we want to be part of the solution and deserve seats at the table to find them.