Inauguration Day

So. One year from today, January 20, 2013, one man or another will swear his allegiance to the Constitution and to the people. I don't even want to think about all of the speechmaking and TV ads - OUTRAGEOUS it is, all of the treasure squandered on bilious propaganda when there are people going hungry & homeless - and BS-ification betwixt now & then so I'll confine myself to saying that there will be a speech, a big whacking parade, and a boatload of crowded parties, after which the man of the hour will, depending on this election's outcome, either step into the elevator back up to where he & his glorious womenfolk have been living for the past four years OR the new guy will settle in under the mammoth, unaccustomed burdens whilst he & his family check out their new digs - what Gerald Ford, I think, termed the best government housing to be had...."the great white jail," according to President Truman. President _____ will get a faceful of what he bargained for, relentlessly campaigned for/be careful what you pray for. Or President Obama will adjust his grip on the load he's been carrying all the while. If you're reading this you probably already know that, up until FDR's second inauguration (in 1937, pictured here), Presidents used to take the oath on the 4th of March and of course, all the while, Big Money will carry on, business as usual, whoever, whichever, whatsoever happens in the next year.

Enough. I'm fixing to start a new book, just as soon as I sign off here, here, this bit o' blogposting being sort of the wind up before pitching in. A fine day it is, I was going to say, to inaugurate a new regime.

To get started.

To get the game on.

To swear allegiance to your cause, whatever it may be.

Inauguration

So, you precious few who take the time to see what I write here, have probably noticed that I've been writing nothing here whatsoever. Nor will I, not anymore than once a week anyway, unless I forget or change my mind. But this is too big a day, too much has happened here lately to neglect writing today. It's the old Inauguration Day, not to be changed to our customary I. Day until 1933, so it was that FDR was sworn in for his 2nd term on 20 Jan 1937. So. A fine day for inaugurating, beginning a new deal. A huge day it was, March 4, 1797, when one leader stepped aside for another - peacefully, by the consent of the people. Remarkable, no foolin'. Afterwards, ex-President George Washington headed home from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon by way of the half-built President's House. He gazed upon those stone walls on March 14, to see how the work was progressing. It'd be almost about three & a half years before John & Abigail Adams, President No. 2 & his Lady, could move into the place and even then, it wasn't entirely finished. Now the mansion is pretty much completed and decorated and wired to a fare-thee-well. The republic, now, it still needs lots of work. Probably will never made right, especially as 'We, the people' are unable to consent on anything other than the fact that things aren't going so very goddam well, not at all. Fourteen Presidents later, 136 years after Adams of Massachusetts took his Oath of Office, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois took his, 150 years ago this very day. And here's how he ended his first Inaugural Address: In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

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"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Wanna read the whole thing? Do! You won't be sorry. Would that those better angels would illuminate the minds & hearts of our current crop of well-tailored windbags, ever-media=&-moolah-conscious BSificators. "And," as President Adams said on his Inauguration Day, "may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence." And, as I say now, by the way, Rest in Peace Corporal Frank Buckles, gone well & truly Over There.