Ahrcanum

” These are the times that try men’s souls,”  said Thomas Paine who also coined the phrase, “The United States of America.” 

Rich in character and history, Thomas Paine the revolutionary democrat has been brought back to life 200 years after his death in the new video entitled, We The People Stimulus Bill by Dr. Bob Basso.  See it here https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/  Innocuous enough, until the President of  The United States, That One, The One, Barry Baraq  Mohammad Hussein Sottero Dunham Obama, Jr., has a problem with it and summons Dr. Basso to the White House to discuss the disturbing nature of the videos, and tries to do it secretly- in a day and age of self proclaimed transparency in government.  

Why would Obama feel threatened by a patriotic message, let alone one delivered in the tone of Thomas Paine?  Could it have to do with his slip in the polls or the amount of Tea Party’s and revolutionary happenings?  The Hartford Courant summed it up nicely saying, “The movement takes its name, and much of its imagery, from American history. Participants — including home-schooling moms, Libertarians and Rush Limbaugh Republicans — compare themselves to the 18th century patriots who dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation. http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-tea-party-politics-0329.artmar29,0,2154911.story?track=rss

The Crisis is a collection of articles written by Thomas Paine during the American Revolutionary War. In 1776, Paine wrote the cornerstone of American democracy, Common Sense arguing for Independence from England. The essays constitute Paine’s ongoing support for an independent and self-governing America through the many severe crises of the Revolutionary War.  http://www.ushistory.org/Paine/crisis/singlehtml.htm  He also wrote the best sellers of his time,  The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.

Verso, the blog of the UK office of the radical independent publisher, http://versouk.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/revolutionary-paine/#comment-10  reported that the Socialist History Society and the Thomas Paine Society conducted a special meeting  this weekend to mark the 200th anniversary of his death.   Tom Paine’s legacy was examined  in an event at the Conway Hall in Holborn, London.   http://www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/paineflyer.pdf for details.

While Britain operates under a parliamentary system, both British and American stories of liberty are intertwined.   Heck, even the famed Beatles hailed from Liverpool, and came to fame with the song Revolution among other famous hits.  The youth today can probably name every Jonas Brother yet have no clue who Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison or Thomas Paine were.   

The British Library’s has a super free exhibition called Taking Liberties about the struggle for Britain’s freedoms and rights that uncovers the roots of British democracy over a period of more than 900 years.  It’ s interactive and available on line http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/interactive.html where you are placed right in the center of current debates about vital rights and freedoms in society: detention without charge, the right to privacy, devolved government, free speech and so on.  As you give your answers you can see, on clear and innovative 3D graphics, how your views compare to everyone else’s.  Are you content with things as they are or do you want change? How do you balance order with freedom?

“These rights didn’t simply happen. They were hard won, the product of hundreds of years of debate, struggle, bloodshed and war. Many people died for them: heroes, villains, and some who were both.   Nor are these rights ours forever. They can be changed or removed, and at various times in our history, they have been.”

America may have The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, but here you will find the Magna Carta of 1215 and taking in the death warrant of Charles I, the 1832 Reform Act, the Holloway prison diary of suffragette Olive Wharry, and concluding with the Beveridge Report and the Human Rights Act, this is the definitive story of British liberty told through the printed pages. 

What has Obama authored?  Dreams from my Father, The Audacity of Hope and oh yeah, he signed into legislation pork filled stimulus bills that even he, did not bother to read. 

Thomas Paine my be dead some 200 years but his legacy lives on.  Obama’s legacy is yet to be determined in the history pages of The New World Order.