There is a gentle, cleansing rain that falls this morning—not at all like the summer squalls predicted. Bob the Stray has nudged his way inside and now occupies the ottoman, the air is lighter than it has been in some time, and all seems well in my small corner of the world as I ponder the meaning of patriotism. Beyond the obvious, jingoistic approach to how great a country this is, being American obligates me (on a rather personal level) to question the actions of the government that professes to act on my behalf.
I discovered this morning that in searching for the origin of the phrase "speaking truth to power," you will come across a wonderful entry by Blue Intrigue on our very own Daily Kos, The Truth About Speaking Truth to Power. In that diary we learn that the first acknowledged use of the term is in the 1955 book, Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence, published by the American Friends Service Committee. But the phrase may have a history richer than being the product of an unsourced Quaker saying from the 18th century (as was written in the original foreword of the book that popularized its use). In a short note by the writer and attorney John Green, we get a more nuanced history of the phrase:
In I Must Resist, a posthumous 2012 collection of African-American civil rights leader Bayard Rustin's personal correspondence, Rustin states in a 1942 letter that the role of a religious group is to "speak the truth to power," a phrase he attributes to a speech by future ACLU president Patrick Malin. However, these words are not in the text of Malin's speech, suggesting that Rustin himself coined the phrase. As the Committee notes in a 2012 appendix to Speak Truth to Power, Rustin was actually a co-author of the 1955 book, but his contribution was redacted after he was arrested on charges of committing a homosexual act in 1953. In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Medal of Freedom.
I've been reading Edward Said's series of Reith Lectures, which also deal with the idea of speaking truth to power and the core difficulty of expressing political
truth in a world seemingly adrift in moral relativism. Looking toward the arena of the intellectual as social provocateur, Said recognizes the disputatious nature of facts and their relationship to one's starting point when challenging authority. As he himself noted: "In the end, one is moved by causes and ideas that one can actually choose to support because they conform to values and principles one believes in." He speaks eloquently about the problems of imperial power generally and American aggression, particularly following the attacks of 9/11. For me at least, Said speaks some truth when he observes:
And, of course, fear and the normal limitations on one's time and attention and capacity as an individual voice operate with fearsome efficiency. And no one can speak up all the time on all the issues. But I believe there is a special duty to address the constituted and authorised powers of one's own society, which are accountable to its citizenry, particularly when those powers are exercised in a manifestly disproportionate and immoral war, or in deliberate programmes of discrimination, repression and collective cruelty.
Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I was watching a video stream of Mohammed Atta and others crash American Airlines Flight 11 into Floors 93-99 of the North Tower of The World Trade Center. Within a matter of minutes, I and one other habitually-early arrival at work were startled by an armed soldier at my office door demanding we evacuate the building immediately. I've never written about this time, but working in the shadow of the White House made that day particularly trying for me—with phones down, the subways closed, traffic all but paralyzed, and no information to be had, I weaved through throngs of pedestrians and headed toward the Adams Morgan neighborhood—obsessively working out in my head how long it would take me to walk the 36.3 miles back to my home in Annapolis: pace and time, mathematical computations designed to stave off the panic of not knowing the fate of my wife, my child, a sister that lived in Manhattan, friends that worked at 90 Church Street, where I had been only days before.
But we each have a story of that morning and mine is certainly no more or less formative of my present character than any of the millions of stories that can be told of that day. Perhaps despite my politics, I consider myself a patriot and someone who loves his country. On anniversary days such as today, I am reminded that the important voices are those of my peers speaking out against inequality, against violence and racism, against the corrupting influence of money and the very idea that power is what defines truth.
We can choose peace over war and reconciliation over retribution; and doing so doesn't make us less patriotic or even weak. There are voices out there, many drowned out by the noise of power, that are worth listening to and remembering on days that call out for reflection. Messrs. Rustin and Said point out, we have a moral duty to speak. To that I add that we likewise have an obligation to listen.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?
Courtesy of Officebss, the word of the day, for September 11, 2015, is sardonic.
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