Did they send a wagon for the bodies?

by Steve Consilvio

Yesterday I took my children to visit some of the historic sites at Lexington and Concord. Like most children, they thought it was boring. A bunch of old stuff from the past holds little interest to them. My youngest daughter shrugged when I pointed out a Native American doll. I was fascinated at how tiny the beads were, and how many there were. A lot of work and love went into a child's toy.

Everything I witnessed confirmed my theory of history. Fear, Pride, and Interest rules man.

The Redcoats marched twenty miles inland for their battle. Many lives were lost. After the battle, they needed to march back again. It would not have been an easy day's work when dressed in full uniform with a pack. I guess being a soldier has never been an easy day's work.

Lexington has a lot of beautiful homes, and it is clear that many homes in 1775 were similarly grand. The complaint against the king's taxes was obviously born of hypocrisy. The townspeople chose to spend their money on arms. They had decided that the king was taxing them too much, and instead of sharing their surplus with him for the common good, they would withhold their surplus and assemble an arsenal. It was that arsenal that the King's men were looking for.

The British were easily outclassed. Not only had the colonists learned how to fight like the Native Americans, but they were also on their home turf. Where the Redcoats needed to try to separate a rebel from a loyal King's subject, the rebels knew who was who. Had all the Redcoats been mounted on horses, the fight that day would probably have been different. Had the American casualties been higher, the bravado of rebellion might have subsided. After all, this was four years after the Boston Massacre. Fear does not keep people loyal, it simmers, as does a lack of forgiveness.

The ability to move troops and firepower is one key to success in battle. In Vietnam, America was well equipped with helicopter gun-ships. They could arrive from nowhere into a small village like Lexington, shoot to kill anything that moved, and disappear as quickly. Firepower has its limits, however. What the British learned in Boston, we learned in Vietnam. Subjugated people always find a way to resist. Fear only lasts so long. Those who grow up in fear learn the weakness of their masters.

In Iraq, as in World War I and II, America has mastered the art of moving their troops and supplies. I guess that makes us smarter than the King militarily, but we think just like him politically. Every population will resist subjugation. The rebel always wins, because eventually his complaint will fall on the ears of somebody willing to listen. In war, God is not on either side, but in peace He is on both sides.

9/11 was an example of the rebel refusing the subjection of the strong. The strong, of course, claim moral superiority, political wisdom, and practical concerns as the basis for their authority, the same as the rebel. War, ultimately, is a failure by the parties involved to communicate. This is quite ironic, since most advances in communication are developed for military purposes.

Both sides are always at fault in war. Fear, Pride, and Interest seduce men, which is why the attack on 9/11 attempted to hit our military, political and economic centers. Like the Boston Tea Party sixteen months before the battle at Lexington-and-Concord, 9/11 was a foolish attempt to use force and abandon negotiation. Who hit who first is immaterial. To strike back is as immoral as striking first.

The debt of the East India Company drove their officials to seek financial privilege and us to rebellion. The British government issued a marketplace monopoly to the East India Company, and that was the cause of rebellion against the King, but the King was not the problem, the monopoly was. American copy-write and patent protections offer the same monopoly status to international corporations, which is why America has been in a perpetual state of war since 1776. Our banking and private property laws have given birth to a ponzi scheme we call Wall Street. It is a global financial virus, that has weakened the body politic. Nobody can make these numbers add up because unfair contracts, while legal, are still a form of slavery. Even with a monopoly, corporations go bankrupt from the inflation this system creates. Great wealth and great poverty stand side by side, unmoved by democracy. The effect of inflation was not something either the East India Company or the rebels understood.

Soldiers walk into war on the basis of faulty communication of political intelligence, on both sides. Preachers who preach that killing is acceptable betray God, country, and all the future's children. We revere Sam Adams as a hero, but was he really?

<?/x-tad-bigger><?x-tad-bigger>Thousands of Bostonians watched as tea was dumped into the harbor. When all was through, Lendall Pitts led the patriots from the wharf, tomahawks and axes resting on their shoulders. A fife played as they marched past the home where British Admiral Montague had been spying on their work. Montague yelled as they passed, "Well boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven't you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet!"

At the end of the day on April 19, 1775, the British soldiers walked home. Building a cache of arms in Lexington was the same as building a cache of death. The rebels reaped their harvest, and it continues to this day. I couldn't help but wonder, did they send a wagon for the bodies? The ghosts still walk amongst us. The shrill crash of four airplanes was another fiddler.

Steve Consilvio www.behappyandfree.com   is a small business owner with a history degree. He is also co-owner of a start-up software developer www.augursoftware.com developers of eCalculator. A MacIntosh aficionado of political philosophy, he wants to change the world with a Constitutional Convention.  His body roams Massachusetts, but his mind is years away.  He can be reached at steve@behappyandfree.com  Yes, he knows he is a hypocrite.