Category: American Revolution

Usurpation: America’s We the People Represented According to Numbers Law is a Tool for Conviviality

3/6/2023

Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich

A 1973 book, Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich, argues our dream was to build machines to replace slaves, and instead we have become enslaved to machines.

“To formulate a theory about a future society both very modern and not dominated by industry, it will be necessary to recognize natural scales and limits. We must come to admit that only within limits can machines take the place of slaves; beyond these limits they lead to a new kind of serfdom. Only within limits can education fit people into a manmade environment: beyond these limits lies the universal schoolhouse, hospital ward, or prison.” (xii)

Fifty years on and Illich is still apt.

“The foreseeable catastrophe will be a true crisis – that is, the occasion for a choice – only if at the moment it strikes the necessary social demands can be effectively expressed. They must be represented by people who can demonstrate that the breakdown of the current industrial illusion is for them a condition for choosing an effective and convivial mode of production. The preparation of such groups is the key task of new politics at the present moment.” (114, bold added)

Illich argues the available convivial tool: “can only be the formal structure of politics and law.” (115)

Our foreseeable catastrophe is the true crisis of We the People not being represented according to numbers.

Our politics is the usurpation and its supporters.

Our law is Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution … and its supporters.

The choice is between usurpation, which is the law of rule, and the US Constitution, which is the rule of law.

Choose.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Front

10/22/2021

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': Telling

Part XIII of XIII

“… Here Yank?”
“Thanks Reb, I just …”
“Felt it too Gus.”
“I want to judge Benjamin Berry.”
“We must.”
“Then who judges us?”
“The present.”
“We didn’t treat women right Johnny.”
“We laughed when the idea of women voting was mentioned.”
“Derision.”
“Think of the flag here Gus, and how I once saw it.”
“Enemy.”
“And now?”
“Friend.”
“How’s that possible?”
“A higher value.”
“We the People.”
“We the People.”
“Represented according to numbers.”
“Our thirty Thousand.”
“Some southerners moved away, to places like Illinois and Indiana, to get away from slavery.”
“Burnside Johnny, his father, after the Revolution, moved from South Carolina to Liberty Indiana.”
“Telling.”
“Speaking of telling …”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': Somewhere

“… Arnold Burnside reminded me of our Somewhere unfinished business.”
“Ambrose.”
“Arnold to me.”
“Your laughing crow.”
“And Morgan said to start in Berryville.”
“We have started.”
“Now to finish.”
“Correct.”
“I think that means we go see the smudge.”
“I think so too Yank.”
“From here let’s poof over to Somewhere first, and then to DC.”
“I have a starting Somewhere place in mind.”
“Can we slow-poof it to Somewhere?”
“You want to walk through the Valley?”
“The Shenandoah Valley Reb.”
“Right on.”
“Walk-off some of this Berryvillin’.”
“I like it.”
“Let’s go to Harper’s Ferry.”
“And up to Shepherdstown from Halltown.”
“A.P. Hill’s march.”
“Then we’ll cross the Potomac Yank.”
“Garland?”
“On board seems.”
“Oh my Johnny ~ thanks for the Berryville time.”
“Berryvillin’ ~ thanks Gus.”

Next Up: 22 March 2022 and part one of the series Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Somewhere: Georgia Overlook.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Benjamin

10/15/2021

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': People

Part XII of XIII

“… Here’s Ben Gus.”
“Three hundred years.”
“Ben’s birth year was 1724.”
“So you found some Benjamin history too?”
“Did.”
“What of Kentucky Sarah?”
“The Berry family was in Kentucky before it was Kentucky.”
“How?”
“There’s a Berry’s Lick operating in 1786.”
“Salt mining.”
“Sarah’s 1827 will stated she owned a thousand acres in Green River, Kentucky.”
“Making salt … in Kentucky … slave labor.”
“Yes.”
“More slave coin Johnny.”
“So much slave coin Ben would …”
“What would Benjamin do?”
“The word doesn’t sound right Gus, correct I mean.”
“What word?”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': Gifted

“Gift.”
“Benjamin Berry gifted people?”
“Via deed Gus.”
“An example?”
“Legal papers.”
“Say what?”
“‘Deed of Gift to daughter Sarah Stribling – 4 negroes.’”
“When?”
“1804.”
“No words for that Reb.”
“How slavery worked.”
“What else?”
“Sarah’s birth name appears to be Mary.”
“Mary Berry.”
“Sarah might have been a middle name.”
“Always something in Berryville Reb.”
“Always something Yank.”
“Let’s front.”
“Sure …”

Next Up: 22 October and the series finale Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Front.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Sarah

10/1/2021

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': 1775

Part XI of XIII

“… Sarah … I can’t find Sarah Gus.”
“What?”
“Well, word says she’s buried here, as Sarah Stribling.”
“Yet no headstone.”
“Correct.”
“Any history on Sarah Reb?”
“Lots.”
“Like?”
“Sarah Berry married John Humphreys.”
“Who’s that?”
“John Humphreys was KIA 31 DEC 1775.”
“KIA.”
“1775.”
“Where?”
“Quebec, Canada.”
“Reb … Daniel Morgan was there and surrendered on that date.”
“Humphreys was with Morgan’s company: First Lieutenant of Riflemen.”
“Sarah lost her husband under Morgan’s command during the Revolution?”
“Before independence was even declared.”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin': 1798

“So Sarah Humphreys is a widow in Berryville in 1776.”
“Well, there is no Berryville yet: that happens in 1798.”
“So what happens with Sarah?”
“In 1789, Sarah marries William Stribling.”
“Fourteen years after Humphreys.”
“Yes.”
“Who is Stribling?”
“William has money, is young and owns land next to Benjamin Berry’s (her father’s) plantation.”
“Children?”
“They have two.”
“Names?”
“Elizabeth and Dulcibella.”
“What else?”
“William dies in 1793.”
“Ach!”
“Something like that.”
“So Sarah Stribling inherits William’s land next to her father’s that then becomes Berryville in 1798.”
“Then there’s Kentucky.”
“Sarah goes to Kentucky?”
“After Benjamin … ”

Next Up: 15 October and part XII of the series Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Berryvillin’: Benjamin.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: On the Road Again

10/8/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Quietude

Part 13 of 13

“… What now?”
“You’re right about the quietude Gus.”
“Maybe Morgan was kidding?”
“About?”
“Snake and Turkey.”
“How so?”
“I was thinking maybe he meant we were Snake and Turkey.”
“I had the same thought.”
“I couldn’t figure out which one of us was which though.”
“Bit of both.”
“Seems like Morgan -”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Whoosh

[Whoosh.]

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Wind

“- The wind?”
“Likely Yank.”
“Morgan?”
“Don’t know.”
“How ‘bout we step to Berryville Johnny?”
“Let’s.”
“Well, we’ll be seeing you Morgan.”
“You and the thirty Thousand.”
“Lead the way Reb.”
“Here we go …”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Grace

“… Berryville USA.”
“Nice landing.”
“Benjamin Berry.”
“Revolutionary.”
“Probably knew Daniel.”
“Oh?”
“Morgan’s home is just a few miles away.”
“They knew each other.”
“And Sarah.”
“What’s next Reb?”
“Grace.”
“Really?”
“Looks to be a cemetery.”
“Our way.”
“Is on the road again.”
“First let’s people watch Reb.”
“Berryvillin’.”
“In Virginia.”
“Thanks Gus!”
“Thanks Johnny!”

Thanks All!
*Next Up: 3 November and a 2020.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Comitia Americana

10/7/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Comitia Americana

Part 12 of 13

“… Which Congress Reb?”
“Continental.”
“So the Continental Congress recognized Morgan’s military side.”
“Commemorative coin of Cowpens.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“A battle scene.”
“What’s Comitia mean?”
“It’s an old Roman word.”
“They’re all old.”
“It means an assembly of citizens, a gathering of the people.”
“For?”
“Making laws, courts and so on.”
“A congress.”
“Americana.”
“How many coins were made?”
“Eleven.”
“All military?”
“Yes.”
“The coins still around?”
“Rare and valuable.”
“Roman, Greek, and American represented.”
“Mount Horeb too.”
“Thunderbolt’s been quiet Reb.”
“Shhhh.”
“Right …”

*Next Up: 8 October and the autumn series finale of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: On the Road Again.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Hellenistic

10/6/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Hellenistic

Part 11 of 13

“… We weren’t done.”
“That wasn’t a native Gus.”
“Looked like one.”
“I saw what you mean.”
“Quiver right?”
“Maybe.”
“Who was it Reb?”
“It’s art Yank.”
“Let Art be Reb.”
“I mean -”
“- Who was it?”
“A goddess.”
“Who?”
“Athena maybe.”
“Athena?”
“Perhaps Artemis.”
“They’re Greek.”
“Hellenistic.”
“Greek to me.”
“The image is a circle because it’s a commemorative coin.”
“I was gonna embarrass myself in front of a goddess.”
“It looks like a native Gus.”
“Thanks for the diversion.”
“Sure.”
“Did that happen?”
“Like a story.”
“Why Cowpens?”
“Congress thought Morgan did a special thing.”
“Congress? …”

*Next Up: 7 October and part 12 of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Comitia Americana.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Daniel Morgan

9/27/2019

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Daniel

Part 7 of 13

“… There she is Reb.”
“Barely.”
“That’s plenty.”
“Agreed.”
“Let’s not turn our backs on Morgan this time.”
“What about Snake and Turkey Gus?”
“We haven’t done much with those signs he gave us.”
“No we haven’t.”
“We wore Turkey feathers.”
“Let’s not mention that.”
“We can say we’re working on them signs.”
“That’s true.”
“And we’ve just talked about them signs even.”
“Good one Gus.”
“Do you think he’ll say anything?”
“Last time was special.”
“So you’re saying no.”
“We’ll handle it either way.”
“Yup.”
“Forward Yank …”

Johnny Reb and Gus Yank RMH: Morgan

“… Halt.”
“Geez, don’t say ‘Present Arms’ Reb.”
“No rank, I remember.”
“Hello Morgan.”
[Silence.]
“Nothing Gus.”
“Smiling though.”
“Smiling last time.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“He was talking.”
“That I noticed.”
“I learned something Yank.”
“From a book or Tell-Lie-Vision?”
“Book.”
“Which one?”
“The Journal of the House of Representatives.”
“Real sleeper.”
“Zzzzs.”
“What’d you learn Reb?”
“There are Peacemakers and Mischief Makers.”
“Keep going.”
“Morgan was a Peacemaker, via war.”
“Okay.”
“Through revolution, made peace.”
“And you read about someone maybe mischief-making the peace?”
“Did.”
“Say more.”
“A Yank.”
“Who?”
“Representative …”

*Next Up: 1 October and part 8 of Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb: Mischief Makers.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

United We Stand 2020: Part 2 of Hannah Arendt, American Greatness and Constitutio Libertatis

7/20/2019

George Hammer and Ida Schiekoff's Wedding Day

Celebrate the Seventh Amendment on 7/20

Whatever great means, it includes the idea of something worth passing on.

George Hammer, my maternal great-grandfather, was born American from German immigrants.

George’s mother was born in Massbach, Bavaria, Germany and immigrated to the United States and Illinois’ Jo Daviess County with her family as a teenager in 1865.

George’s father came here as a five-year old from Zeitfeld Province, Germany (which is hard to find on a map) in the early 1850s as part of an immigrant family of five; they stayed with fellow Mennonites in New York for three years before homesteading in Jo Daviess County.

The land both families homesteaded was available because of the end of “Indian” hostilities in Illinois after the Black Hawk War. I’ve published a pamphlet that excerpts an Illinois history book (1878) with some details on how that war started and ended: see Fire-Water Ignites Black Hawk War of 1832 (and other things).

George, Ida and family (around 1920)

George wrote a few letters to a German woman in Canada named Ida Schiekoff; Ida was born in Arnhausen, Germany (in 1945 the village became Lipie, Poland) and immigrated to Canada as an 18 year-old in 1891. The two met by reading the same German newspaper and became pen pals. George then went to meet Ida and her family in Canada a couple of times; they soon got engaged, married, and moved to the family farm in Illinois. They lived a simple farm life, nothing fancier than good shelter and plenty of food, as there wasn’t any extra coin. Money showed up later, in the next generation, when their son and my grandfather, Willis (the child in the picture without a jacket), told me they started making money off the farm by selling surplus milk.

Maybe right there is a glimpse of the constitutional right within the Seventh Amendment and why it is there; it isn’t written for the rich in coin, or they would have used it: it’s there for the poor. It’s also constitutionally connected to the thirty Thousand, as the usurpation has organized the judiciary and our American sense of justice; the time to review (and amend) the Seventh Amendment, thus bringing to life its constitutional social justice bearing, is when We the People are represented according to numbers (say in 2021 or ‘22).

The same commentator that noted Arendt’s Constitutio Libertatis and honoring of the founders, also pointed out that she only thought the founders were a partial success; that is because, according to the commentator, the founders didn’t create space for We the People to participate. I don’t agree and think the evidence, our Constitution, shows otherwise; the thirty Thousand, the Enumeration, and the Seventh Amendment do provide ways for citizens to participate in their government at a “local” federal level via small districts augmented every ten years. It’s the usurpers fault, not the founders, who are keeping We the People from our constitutional greatness: us too, the people, as we haven’t shown vigilance until now.

Great means that something is worthy of being passed on, of giving to others as a legacy. The former Germans Hannah Arendt and Ida Schiekoff, and the children of German immigrants, like George Hammer, left us an American legacy. American immigrants are greater than the usurpers, and the usurpation of our right to representation, according to numbers, keeps us from our constitutional legacy … and that ain’t great America.

*Next Up: 17 September, US Constitution Day 2019, and Johnny Reb and Gus Yank Revisit Mount Horeb.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

2020: Part 1 of Hannah Arendt, American Greatness and Constitutio Libertatis

6/9/2019

American Greatness

Hannah Arendt said she wasn’t German.

The Germans didn’t want her anymore, ‘cuz, you know, they went nuts.

Why’d they go nuts?

One reason for sure is that American greatness was ignored.

Ask yourself, “How did Hitler come to power?” And the answer has to include the constitution Woodrow Wilson offered to Germany at the end of World War I.

Why didn’t Wilson offer the Germans a constitution like ours, like the one George Washington and the founders made?

Where’s the thirty Thousand?

Where’s the Enumeration?

Not in Wilson’s constitutional offering, so how could it be great? This is no small matter, given what happened to Hannah Arendt and millions of others.

When Arendt got to America she wrote about revolution. One commentator noted something new about her thoughts: “The new paradigmatic political actors are the American Founders, whose debates and deliberations concerning the drafting and adoption of the Constitution are presented by Arendt as every bit as exemplary as anything in Homer or Thucydides.”

As exemplary as anything in Homer or Thucydides: in other words, American greatness is not found in the boom-boom of rebellion and the 4th of July; American greatness is found in the law of revolution, the US Constitution, and 17 September.

*Next Up: A celebration of the 7th Amendment on 7/20 with Part 2 of Hannah Arendt, American Greatness and Constitutio Libertatis.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner