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I think that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and the other American Revolutionaries, settled this question once and for all, by declaring that the People are the sovereign--not one man, not a dynasty, not inherited power, not wealth, nor charisma, nor even a 'good king' reigns here, in this revolutionary country. The People are the king. The People are the sovereign and sacred entity that represents the land--the country, the nation--and the People rule themselves.
And they took great pains to write this radical new concept into the Constitution, by means of its very many provisions against executive tyranny.
Nuclear power has greatly undermined rule by the People. The president, beginning with Truman, has the power to exterminate all life on earth, with the push of a button. That is godlike power, and our democracy has been sorely burdened by, and even crushed under, its weight.
I was a young Kennedyite. 1960 was my first political campaign, at age 15. I even have a photo snap of JFK leaning on the open window of his car, as his car left the Los Angeles Democratic Convention, within a couple of feet of me and my little camera--the thrill of a lifetime. I was totally in love with JFK, and completely ignorant of both the meaning of his "Cold War" rhetoric (at the time) and of the dangers he faced--and we faced. Though I was born in the Year of the Bomb, I was never particularly spooked by it. I had faith, until recently, that our own leaders, and other world leaders, would never unleash that madness. And I did not realize, until fairly recently, how close we came in 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Faith in JFK, again. I was very young, and, at the time, I had total faith that he simply wouldn't let that happen. Period. End of story.
Why? I guess it was the Arthurian myth. I was already thinking of the president as the king. In that case, a good king. He wouldn't harm us. He wouldn't snuff out all life on earth. And even after JFK was assassinated (--I am convinced, now, that the motive was prep for the mass slaughter and war profiteering of the Vietnam War), and even as we suffered successively worse presidents, that aura of the 'good king' lingered. No matter how bad the presidents got, it was my belief that none of them would wreak total havoc on the world (--which Carl Sagan established, in "The Cold and the Dark," would occur with even a limited use of nuclear weapons).
But it is madness to posses such power, and it is extremely destructive of democracy. That is the heart of it, I think. The Bomb slew our democracy, or, at the least, ripped it to shreds--even though we only used it once (in the context of the extraordinary carnage of WW II, and fear of Soviet Russia).
JFK negotiated and signed the first nuclear disarmament treaty. He also, shortly before he died, issued an executive order withdrawing the U.S. military 'advisers' from Vietnam. He was a 'good king,' for sure--he lit a burning fire in the young, especially--and was harbinger to our massive revolt of the later '60s: revolt against unjust war, revolt against racial bigotry and segregation, revolt against millenia of restrictions against women, revolt against Puritanism, revolt against consumerism, revolt within the Catholic Church against centuries of myopia and chauvinism--so many revolts. But the one thing we did not learn was how to control the 'military-industrial complex,' and how to get rid of its most profound driver (and most profound threat): nuclear weapons.
King Arthur was said to be associated with a Magician--Merlin--and was said to be born of magic. A magical King. I suspect that Arthur was such an extraordinary individual that people, looking back at the ideas that he planted in western culture (for instance, a brotherhood of leaders, sitting at a 'round' table, with no one top-dogging it; generosity toward the poor and the weak; and knighthood--bravery--as a spiritual quest), through the filter of the Dark and Middle Ages, appeared magical. It was magical to love, and not to kill. It was magical to share, and not to hoard. Especially it you have the power to kill, and take, and hoard--not to do it. To aim higher.
But we have come a long way since then--thanks to Mr. Washington and Mr. Jefferson and others, both then and over the years. Now we have an entire people and culture capable of loving and not killing, of sharing and not hoarding, of having power to destroy all life on earth, and not using it. An entire people capable of collective nobility. An entire people who are supposed to be sitting at the Round Table, every one a noble, every one "created equal."
The Dream is not--or should not be--that the "once and future king" will return and save us from evil lords, and create Camelot again (eternal spring--prosperity, delight), but rather that We, the People, are the magical king, and must and will take our place at the "round table" of power, and create our own Camelot.
This is very difficult to do with the severely damaged structures and institutions of the past--all over-burdened with military power, the paradigm of which is nuclear power. As the evil lords have taken hold of these BAD powers, and twisted and strangled our democracy with these powers, so that it is barely recognizable, no champion has succeeded in challenging them. And I think the lesson of the '60s, as now, is that no champion can successfully challenge them, except the collective "champion"--all of us. Barack Obama--no matter how well intended he may be--cannot challenge them. If he does, they will eliminate him, one way or another (directly, by assassination; covertly, by Diebold; or by character assassination in the evil lords' media). We know this. This is our situation. Obama can only become president by permission of the evil corpo rulers. (They may have their own evil reasons for letting that happen.)
Our recovery of our democracy, and establishment of a good country, is going to be a difficult, long term project, requiring a determined, collective effort. No "king" is going to save us. We have to save ourselves. WE have to recover the Sovereignty of the People--that sacred trust--that was passed, by others, to us, and that has been violated--and near extinguished--on our watch. All of us King Arthurs. All of us "once and future" kings. All of us.
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