Power, Illusion and America's Last Taboo

[henry]

Did anyone catch this is John Pilger's article posted on SOTT today?

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/192678-Power-Illusion-and-America-s-Last-Taboo

In referring to a speech delivered during the Vietnam War by an American officer to Vietnamese villager's, Pilger writes:

Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, even John Winthrop's "city upon a hill" got a mention. All that was missing was the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background.

Wikipedia has an interesting article on the phrase "City Upon the Hill" here;

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill

In recent years it has been used by JFK, Reagan, and by several Republicans during the 2008 election.

I thought it was interesting given the C's reference to the 5D city on a hill in the July 4 session this year. And Winthrop's name came up again in the Maypole discussion after the July 16 session here:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12993.msg94790#msg94790

And here is a short excerpt of the Wikipedia article:

City upon a hill is a phrase derived from the metaphor of Salt and Light in the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus given in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 5:14 states "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."

This phrase entered the American lexicon early in its history, with John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity," given in 1630. Winthrop warned the Puritan colonists of New England who were to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony that their new community would be a "city upon a hill," watched by the world:

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken... we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God... We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are a-going.[1]

The speech is believed to be given when aboard the Arbella not long before landing.

Winthrop believed that all nations had a covenant with God, and that because England had violated its religious covenant, the Puritans must leave the country. This was an expression of the Puritan belief that the Church of England had fallen from grace by accepting Catholic rituals. John Winthrop claimed that the Puritans forged a new, special agreement with God, like that between God and the people of Israel. However, unlike the Separatists (such as the Pilgrims), the Puritans remained nominally a part of the Anglican church in hopes that it could be purified from within. Winthrop believed that by purifying Christianity in the New World, his followers would serve as an example to the Old World for building a model Protestant community.

The Puritans, led by Winthrop, believed their community was 'specially ordained by God' and this concept had a powerful effect on the Puritan society of New England. Breaking a covenant with God has dire results. In order to avoid incurring God's wrath by breaking their promise, the Puritans sought to maintain perfect order in their society. Their institutions and conventions attempted to mold an extremely rigid society in New England, in contrast with the other loosely-bound colonies in the new land of America.

The Puritans wanted the freedom to practice their own religion, but their religious views were very strict and not necessarily compatible with contemporary notions of religious freedom. They forced everyone in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to follow the dictates of their puritanical faith, even those who were not Puritan.