Where It All Began

The most current issue of Time magazine did a special on Jamestown, the place that gave birth to the ideals and contradictions that the US stands for today. The month of May marks Jamestown's 400th anniversary, and yet 400 years later, the problems that surfaced then are still unresolved today.

What is it about the iconic believes that mark this country as being so glorious and so pure -- even angelic -- that they eclipsed an ugliness that has been poisoning this country for the past 400 years, but kept only as an undertone?

Liberty and democracy as presented by representative governance was only a ploy to expand greedy business ventures at its onset.

Foreign diplomacy and peace meant guns and blood and death and conquest.

Survival meant taking more than your fair share and some more.

Justice meant retribution of suffering equivalent to extermination.

And sins were not sins if they were done by slaves and indentured servants.

The roots of the country were rotten, its foundation weak, its trunk hollow -- but, undeniably, many fruits have grown on its tree. Yet, can this country still grow and sustain without facing up to the storms of the past and without evaluating what ideals have we been hailing as glorious? Are liberty and democracy now so different -- renewed! -- from what it was before?

What does this mean in regards to the war in Iraq now? What about those poor and starving at home and abroad? What about those still indentured in the ghettos of cities? What about our enterprises that are decendents of the Virginia Company 400 years ago? While the colonists have gained what they seek, what about the surviving Virginia tribes that are still struggling to seek federal recognition? What have we learned -- or, have we?

What do you stand for in relations to the country's history and its present?