Time Machine to Betrayal.

A Brief Comment on Paine's LETTER TO GEO. WASHINGTON

The general rule on this blog is to hold posts to three or four minutes at most. The previous post - Thomas Paine’s Letter to George Washington - is a notable exception.

This letter is, however, a treasure-map to the history of the early American republic; an interpretive key to the period that historians refer to as the Federal Period [roughly 1789-1801]. It is a document that has at various points been suppressed and intentionally overlooked; de-emphasized. Once familiar with it - and this tends to take more than one reading - it is easy to understand why; it contradicts the triumphal and exceptionalist narrative of American history. After all, who could possibly criticize the pure and peerless paragon of virtue, the patriot “father of our country,” the immortal George Washington?

Exceptionalism: the idea that the United States of America is a unique and even morally superior country for historical, ideological, or religious reasons. Proponents of American exceptionalism generally pair the belief with the claim that the United States is obligated to play a special role in global politics. [Source: Encyclopedia Britannica].

On several occasions a subtitle or description has been added in this series of posts on the letter: a “time machine to betrayal.” The betrayals were and are several. There is surely the betrayal of Paine by Washington and his administration. But more deeply there is the betrayal of the ideals of the American Revolution - Paine refers to it as the “Spirit of ‘76” - liberty, equality and justice; a betrayal of the men and women who struggled for it. And there is the betrayal of the trust and support of America’s French allies in the Jay Treaty. You may perhaps find others.

This letter can and should be used as a key or study guide; an outline from which to broaden and deepen one’s understanding of our origins; how we got from “there” to “here.”

Spend some time with it, return to it. Explore it. It may take weeks, months, years, or in my case, decades. You can of course print it out and notate it. In weeks to come, perhaps you’ll share some insights or quotes that particularly struck you (as Karen McFly did in the last post). Closing for today, here is one that caught my eye:

”It was with pleasure that every sincere friend of America beheld, as the natural effect of union, her rising prosperity; and it was with grief they saw that prosperity mixed, even in the blossom, with the germ of corruption. Monopolies of every kind marked your administration almost in the moment of its commencement. The lands obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans; the interest of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator; injustice was acted under the pretense of faith; and the chief of the army became the patron of the fraud. From such a beginning what else could be expected than what has happened? A mean and servile submission to the insults of one nation; treachery and ingratitude to another."

[Three flags of three nations, All of them red, white and blue;
the colors of republican revolution].

”Submission to the insults of one nation” was Britain then; Israel now. Ingratitude to another was France then; it might be Russia today who sacrificed MILLIONS of its people to destroy the Nazi war machine so that we cold take credit for winning the war and scorn them today. Think about it.

The seed of betrayal sown at the beginning of the American project continues to bear its poison fruit. .