The Rude Pundit:For Independence Day, Let's Remember a Leak That Helped Spur the American Revolution

[meegbear]

By the end of his life, no one loved former Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson. A loyalist's loyalist, Hutchinson led the state during both the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. He was hated by the Americans and never fully accepted by the leaders of Great Britain, where he lived after fleeing the gathering war fever. After he died, John Adams pretty much called him a dick.

But the man wrote letters, tons of 'em. Someone gave Benjamin Franklin a stack of letters that Hutchinson, as chief justice and then governor, along with province secretary Andrew Oliver, wrote to Great Britain in 1767-1769, letters that said things like, "I wish the good of the colony when I wish to see some further restraint of liberty rather than the connection with the parent state should be broken," as well as asking for more British troops to help squelch the nascent rebellion. Hutchinson implored the receiver to keep the communications secret.

For his part, in 1772, Franklin showed the letters only to the leaders of the Revolution, but Adams said, "Fuck that," and printed some of them in the Boston Gazette in 1773, which, of course, caused a huge public uproar against Hutchinson and fanned the flames against the British. When three people were charged by the British with the leak, and two others were going to duel over accusations of who stole them, Franklin stepped up and said he did it. It cost him his job as Postmaster General. Hutchinson put himself into exile in England for the rest of his life rather than face impeachment at home. He became something of a right-wing troll for the crown, as one letter of his criticizing the Declaration of Independence demonstrates.

In his confession, Franklin admitted to the leak of the letters, but he defended his intentions: "They were written by public officers to persons of public station, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons who might be influenced by them to produce those measures." And then Franklin concluded with a great middle finger to those accusing him of some kind of treason: "The chief caution expressed with regard to privacy was to keep their contents from Colony Agents, who the writers apprehended might return them, or copies of them, to America. That apprehension, it seems, was well-founded; for the first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents."

Franklin thought that the people deserved to know what their leaders were plotting against them. That we honor him today must mean we believe there is some good to such actions.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[Berlum]

1. "I have one of my famous Wise Sayings for consumers of Fox 'News' Propaganda (R)." - Benny F.

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." - Benny F.

[newfie11]

2. Love it. Lol

[zeemike]

3. Yes buy 911 changed everything.

Even history.
the Rude one is awsome...

[dotymed]

6. I do not believe

that was a coincidence.
Many well respected and highly successful physicists voiced their doubts about how the laws of physics were broken
on 9-11.
The same with many of our top national security people, the odds were better in the lottery than betting on the
colossal failures of our in-place security to not thwart 9-11.
Even the MSM was discussing the improbabilities for a day.
Prove my statements? I can. I bookmarked them long ago.
Reich stag anyone?

[zeemike]

7. Well I don't ether

But they have a shut up card called conspiracy theory that they can play...And then no news program will dare touch it.

[chimpymustgo]

16. Or even this website. Shameful, you know.

[zeemike]

17. Yes but you do understand why don't you?

Because if they did not then the trolls would turn this place into a circus.
So it is for self protection....I don't like it, but I understand why.

[L0oniX]

18. Well DU is already full of jack asses...

[heaven05]

8. +1000

[Poll_Blind]

15. 1776 > 911

PB

[Demeter]

4. That's EXACTLY What the Fascists in Charge are Afraid WILL Happen, Again

and all their efforts to nip it in the bud are making revolution more and more probable on a daily basis.

They've already lost the armed forces...despite the Xtian brainwashing that they inflicted on the volunteer army...through the blatant abuse of multiple tours, no meaningful healthcare, food-stamp qualifying pay, and the like.

They lost the intellectuals, and tried to cut them off at the knees by defunding everything. But there are reasons why intellectuals exist...they can think outside the box, have a grasp of history and how things work, and can talk to non-intellectuals around them. The Internet is a big help here.

The American culture, underneath all that couch potato laziness, still harbors the rebellion. It cannot give up teaching it in grade school, for otherwise, why would the US exist in the first place?

For any number of reasons, squeezing the egg that is America will break its shell.

[MisterP]

22. hence the fake revolutionary astroturfers--the corporate-created "Western Revolution," the

sham "Reagan Revolution," the manufacturer-created "NRA Revolutionaries," right-wing "populists" pushing tort reform (remember that one from '99), the Kochs' Tea Party, Dems adopting the Contract on America

[Augiedog]

5. Threat

When the governors see those they govern as a threat instead of the partners in governing that they really are, at least in this country, then the ideals promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and expressed as law in the constitution become mere anecdotes rather than the steel bulwark of American aspiration. That the U.S. government's NSA has become this free radical,cancerous element is not surprising, to survive in the form it has mutated to, it must kill its host, not realizing that in the act of killing the host it kills itself. Secret laws, secret courts and secret renditions all add up to a kind of death of spirit in this country. Whether you think Snowden is a traitor or not matters little when you hold prima facia evidence in your hand that demonstrates that a secret coup has occurred in this country, and that the Constitution is now rolled up and placed in a holder in the national toilet (aka congress ).

[heaven05]

10. +1000

good one.

[Dustlawyer]

11. You can have an Amen on that! Our government is not ours and it has turned against "We the People!"

[Le Taz Hot]

14. Excellent post.

And welcome to DU. Looking forward to more.

[L0oniX]

19. +1

[HardTimes99]

25. You have enough posts now that you can and should launch this as its own OP

(Original Post) and build upon its themes.

An interesting tangent you might wish to consider: if the secret surveillance state has not been put in place to protect us, what is its real purpose and whose interests are served by its continuance? These are questions I have been pondering and darkly brooding upon these past few weeks.

[DeSwiss]

9. Damn straight! - K&R n/t

[WillyT]

12. K & R !!!

[Poll_Blind]

13. Franklin, as always, for the win! nt

PB

[SpankMe]

20. Hutchinson may have been a right-wing troll for the crown,

...but his letter criticizing the Declaration of Independence (linked to in the article) is pretty interesting and can't be totally dismissed as a troll job. Some of the revolutionaries of the time, in Massachusetts, were acting Tea-Party-like with at least some of their accusations against the crown. Some of the Massachusetts Bay legislature's bitching about the crown sounds a lot like today's Tea Party gripes about Obama and America and just everything.

It's long, and it's in that old timey English. But, he makes some valid points.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/strictures-upon-the-declaration/

[Hatchling]

21. OMG. You did not just go there.

American Revolutionaries= Tea party?!

And don't try to weasel out of it by saying some of their actions were tea party like.

Must be the lastest talking point to undermine our Founding Fathers and those of us who believe in the constitution.

[sabrina 1]

24. Wow! If you were an Imperial oppressor, sure he makes sense. The Brits always did 'make sense'

when they were running around the globe stealing people's resources. But people didn't agree with them on the whole, as is apparent from the crumbling of the Empire. Independence is and always will be such a valued thing that even the most oppressed people of the world have struggled, sometimes for centuries, to obtain it.

In the end, all Empires have collapsed for obvious reasons. Which is why the FFs warned against this country engaging in 'foreign adventures'.

[HardTimes99]

26. Sabrina, I almost always agree with your posts whole-heartedly. But here I feel I must

put in a pitch for the British Empire. Whatever its many and manifest flaws and crimes and whatever the stench of its legacy in various trouble-spots around the globe today, the British Empire left a tradition of parliamentary democracy, such that the world's largest democracy today (India) inherited that tradition from the British Empire.

Contrast the British Empire's legacy of parliamentary democracy with the American Empire's legacy of Golden Arches (not to be confused with the real arches of the Roman Empire), Biebers and Kardashians and the British Empire comes off as not the worst thing the world has ever seen.

For that matter, one can make an argument at least from the perspective of the indigenous people of North America, that it would have been better had the 13 colonies remained possessions of the crown. At least we might have been spared that sanctimonious 'Manifest Destiny' drivel. Was ever a more obnoxious rationalization for land theft ever invented?

[sabrina 1]

27. I wouldn't disagree with that at all. And the Independence that was achieved back then was never

intended to turn this country into the monstrous, oppressive Empire it has become. Yes, the British did leave a tradition of Parliamentary democracy, and not all Brits were unaware of or supportive of some of the policies of their own country. Just as is happening here.

Thanks for reminding me that not everything is so black and white.

[HardTimes99]

29. It's so weird the twists and turns that history takes. Many of the same people who

yesterday most piously celebrated the legacy of Ben Franklin and his colleagues have been yelling 'coward' and 'traitor' and other imprecations at Snowden and Greenwald the loudest.

Psychologists call that phenomenon 'cognitive dissonance' and it can produce some mighty torturous twists of logic to ease the anxiety it causes.

[sabrina 1]

31. Yes, it has been fascinating to watch. I remember when it was possible to hold discussions

and to learn a lot about world affairs and history, on Democratic forums. Before the knee-jerk anti 'left' contingency showed up around 2004. People often disagreed but I learned more on those early forums about everything, from economic to art to history, than I ever learned in college.

[Matariki]

23. Fantastic history lesson!

It would be amusing to read the character assassinations of Franklin and Adams if we could send the internet and DU back in time.

[Johonny]

28. Benedict Arnold on the other hand we like not so much

our spying good, their spying bad.

Same old * different century.

[DefenseLawyer]

32. Benedict Arnold wasn't a spy.

He was a general who switched sides and fought against his own country in a war. I'd love for you to explain to me how Eric Snowden or his actions are at all similar to Benedict Arnold.

[felix_numinous]

30. K&R!!

Awesome thread people