Why Jefferson said: “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing.”

In 1786, the new democratic government of the United States of America wasn’t quite working out like some Revolutionary War veterans expected.

Many had not been paid for their military service as promised. But when they went back to their family farms, they found they had to pay heavy state taxes imposed to help fund the new state government and pay off government war debts owed to rich merchants.

Farmers who couldn’t afford to pay their taxes and other debts had their farms seized and were thrown in debtors prison.

In response, angry veterans in Massachusetts began joining together to take over and shut down local courts. One group tried to take over the local armory.

This mini-revolt — called “Shays’ Rebellion” after one of its leaders, Daniel Shays — was quickly and forcefully crushed by the state militia, under orders from Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin.

Many of the “rebels” were put in prison. Some were executed, as recommended by Founding Father Samuel Adams, who argued:

“Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.”

Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris at the time, disagreed. Two of Jefferson’s most famous quotes are from letters he wrote expressing his opinions about Shays’ Rebellion.

One of those oft-cited quotations — “I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” — was in a letter he wrote to James Madison on January 30, 1787.

Jefferson said in the letter that a democratic government like America’s “has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has its evils, too, the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing.”

He continued:

“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.  Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them.  An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much.  It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Later that same year, Jefferson penned another famous quote that referred to Shays’ Rebellion:

In a letter to Col. William Smith, dated November 13, 1787, he said:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Both of Jefferson’s famous quotes about Shays’ Rebellion are still frequently cited by people who are mad as hell about something the government has done.

Few people today actually believe the sentiments Jefferson expressed should be acted out literally. However, the gun-toting protesters at last year’s Tea Party protests against the Democrats’ health care plan may be among those few.

Perhaps some of them are descendants of Daniel Shays.

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Further reading and viewing about Shay's Rebellion...

The birth of “the vast right-wing conspiracy”

On January 26, 1998, President Bill Clinton held a press conference in which he famously and vehemently claimed: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky!”

The following morning, on January 27, 1998, First Lady Hillary Clinton appeared on The Today Show and uttered what soon became another famous quotation.

She was interviewed on the show by Matt Lauer.

He politely but persistently asked her tough questions about Bill’s “alleged” affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and about the so-called “Whitewater” investigation into the Clintons’ past financial affairs, which was being conducted by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Hillary gamely defended her husband, just as she did six years earlier, during the Clintons’ game-changing January 26, 1992 interview on 60 Minutes, when she famously huffed: “I’m not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette.”)

In the Today Show interview, when Lauer asked her about Lewinsky, Clinton said (apparently unaware of the multiple ironies): “I think the important thing now is to stand as firmly as I can and say that, you know, the president has denied these allegations on all counts, unequivocally.”

She went on to say she was “very concerned about the tactics being used and the kind of intense political agenda” of people who were criticizing and investigating the Clintons.

“It is,” she told Matt, “this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

Hillary Clinton didn’t coin the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy.” It had been used years before in some news stories unrelated to the Clintons.

But her use made it a common term — and it became one of her most famous quotes.

Political pundits have since debated whether there really was or is “a vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Most of the harshest critics of the Clintons obviously do fit the term “right-wing.” Rush is still pretty vast, even after losing weight. And, I suppose it could be called a conspiracy when like-minded people work together against their political enemies. So, maybe…

Of course, I suspect the Democrats would love to have a vast left-wing conspiracy — if they could ever figure out how to work together.

The ironic dual anniversary of two famous Clinton quotations

Hillary Clinton looms so large in the political landscape today, it’s hard to remember when she didn’t.

But, in fact, she was relatively unknown to most Americans until January 26, 1992.

On that Sunday night, Hillary and her husband Bill Clinton appeared together on 60 Minutes, in a heavily watched interview with Steve Kroft that aired right after the Superbowl.

Their goal was to defuse “rumors” about Bill’s extramarital affairs with Gennifer Flowers and other women.

They didn’t quite directly address the “bimbo eruptions” issue.

Bill did admit he had “caused pain” in their marriage. But they both tried to make it clear that they loved each other and their marriage was sound. 

“You know, I’m not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette,” Hillary famously huffed. “I’m sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And, you know, if that’s not enough for people, then, heck, don’t vote for him.”

In other words, Hillary was standing by man — like in Tammy Wynette’s hit 1968 country music song “Stand By Your Man.”

The Clintons’ politically-adept performance that night boosted their public profile and Bill’s campaign. He went on to receive the Democratic nomination and get elected as President.

But Tammy Wynette made it known that she was “mad as hell” about Hillary’s insulting comment on 60 Minutes, saying: “Nowhere in that song did I say, ‘be a doormat, take any abuse.’”

The soon-to-be First Lady of the country quickly apologized to “The First Lady of Country Music.”

Six years later, Bill was back in the hot seat over a new bimbo eruption. Reports had surfaced that he’d been having an affair with a young White House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

So, on January 26, 1998 — exactly six years after Hillary made her famous Tammy-bashing remark — Bill held a press conference to address the issue.

In it, he created an ironic dual anniversary of two famous Clinton quotes when he forcefully claimed: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky!”

Of course, as we all learned later, he did — depending on what the meaning of did is.

The origins of “The Year of Living Dangerously”

The first time most people heard the phrase “The Year of Living Dangerously” was when it was used as the title of the movie of that name, released in the United States on January 21, 1983.

It starred Mel Gibson (when he was still cool and hot), Sigourney Weaver (who is still cool and hot) and Linda Hunt, in a breakthrough, Oscar-winning role as a man.

Although the film was only a modest hit, its title was catchy. It soon became a commonly-heard phrase that has since spawned many variations.

For example, if you Google “the year of living *” -dangerously (using Boolean search techniques to look for versions of the phrase that don’t include the word dangerously), you get thousands of results, such as:

• The book title The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.
  
• A Time magazine article about how Americans are tightening their belts to cope with the current economic downturn, titled “The Year of Living Cheaply.”
  
• An entry on the Talking Points Memo blog titled “The Year of Living Presidentially: Obama’s First 365 Days.”

And, so on...

The movie title was not the first use of “The Year of Living Dangerously.” It comes from the 1978 novel by Christopher J. Koch that the movie is based on.

The book is set in Jakarta, Indonesia at the start of the bloody coup that overthrew the country’s long time dictator, President Sukarno.

Author Koch took his title from Sukarno himself, who had a custom of publicly giving a name to each year.

In a speech in 1964, Sukarno called the coming year “the year of living dangerously,” due to the challenges he knew he faced from his political enemies — which included both hard-line Communists and radical Muslims.

Sukarno is said to have taken the name from the famous Italian phrase “vivere pericoloso” (“living dangerously”).

It turned out to be more prophetic than he may have expected. In September of 1965, a coup began that soon led to the overthrow of Sukarno’s government.

Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed in the power struggle. But Sukarno survived and was allowed to live out the rest of his days under “house arrest,” until his death in Jakarta in 1970.

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P.S. Happy Birthday to my oldest, closest friend and the first reader of this blog, Matt Eckstein! I hope this is The Year of Living Blissfully for you and Pam, at your At Home the the Tropics Bed & Breakfast in St. Thomas.

The origin of the slogan “Sisterhood is Powerful.”

In 1970, feminist leader and author Robin Morgan edited an anthology of articles about the growing woman’s liberation movement titled Sisterhood Is Powerful.

That book quickly became a bestseller and made the phrase famous, but it wasn’t the origin of it.

“Sisterhood is Powerful” was actually coined in 1968 by another pioneering feminist leader, Kathie Sarachild, who was then known as Kathie Amatniek.

It was part of something Amatniek wrote for a leaflet distributed at an anti-Vietnam War event by the Jeanette Rankin Brigade (named for the first woman elected to Congress from Montana in 1917).

The event was held on January 15, 1968 in Washington D.C.

One of the best recollections of what happened that day was written by another well known feminist and peace activist of the era, Shulamith Firestone. She said:

A coalition of women’s groups united for a specific purpose: to confront Congress on its opening day, Jan. 15, 1968, with a strong show of female opposition to the Vietnam War...

Peg Dobbins wrote a long funeral dirge lamenting woman’s traditional role which encourages men to develop aggression and militarism to prove their masculinity. There were several related pamphlets, including one written by Kathie Amatniek which elaborated on the following Progression:

TRADITIONAL WOMANHOOD IS DEAD.
TRADITIONAL WOMEN WERE BEAUTIFUL...BUT REALLY POWERLESS.
“UPPITY” WOMEN WERE EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL...BUT STILL POWERLESS.
SISTERHOOD IS POWERFUL!
HUMANHOOD THE ULTIMATE!

Finally, by way of a black-bordered invitation we “joyfully” invited many of the 5,000 women there to attend a burial that evening at Arlington “by torchlight” of Traditional Womanhood, “who passed with a sigh to her Great Reward this year of the Lord, 1968, after 3,000 years of bolstering the egos of Warmakers and aiding the cause of war...”

[NOTE: You can read more of Firestone’s account of this event by clicking this link.]

“Sisterhood is Powerful” went on to become a popular slogan of the feminist movement.

Shulamith and Amatniek went on to found the famous/infamous “Redstockings” women’s lib group.

Amatniek, known today as Kathie Sarachild, is now the director of the Redstockings “Archives for Action.” 

Further reading and viewing...

“We don't need no stinking badges!” – the misquote that became a famous quote

“We don’t need no stinking badges!” is one of the few famous lines that is both a famous quote and a misquote. It’s also the source of many variations about stinkin’ things we don’t need.

The evolution of this line began in 1927 with the publication of the novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a tale of greed, betrayal and madness written by the mysterious author and leftist/anarchist B. Traven (c. 1890-1969). 

The main characters are three American prospectors searching for gold in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains: Fred C. Dobbs, Bob Curtin and an old-timer named Howard.

In a scene later made famous by the movie version, the prospectors run into a group of shady-looking, heavily-armed Mexicans, who they suspect are bandits. 

Indeed, they are bandits. But, initially, just before the confrontation ends up in a gunfight, the bandit leader claims that he and his men are federales — the local “mounted police.”

Dobbs says skeptically: “If you are the police, where are your badges?”

In Traven’s book, the bandit leader replies angrily (and colorfully):

“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabron and ching’ tu madre!”

The answer given by the head bandido is a bit different in the classic 1948 film version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which most sources say was released in the U.S. on January 7, 1948. (Some sources say January 6, 1948, but I think that is either the premiere date or simply wrong.)

In the movie, Dobbs is played by Humphrey Bogart. He asks the same question as in the book: “If you are the police, where are your badges?”

The bandit leader, called “Gold Hat” in the script and played by actor Alfonso Bedoya, responds sneeringly:

       “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges!
       I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of the greatest and most popular movies ever made. So, it’s no surprise that Bedoya’s famous “no badges” quote spawned some humorous parodies.

What is unusual is that one of the parody versions became far better known than the lines in the classic film. In fact, many people mistakenly think it comes from the 1948 movie.

This renowned version is, of course:

       “Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!”

If you’re a Mel Brooks fan, you know those lines are in his hilarious movie, Blazing Saddles, which was released on February 7, 1974.

What you may not know is that the same lines were first spoken by Mickey Dolenz in 1967, in the comedy TV show The Monkees.

Mickey says it in the episode “It’s A Nice Place To Visit,” originally aired on September 11, 1967.

In that episode, Mickey and two of his Monkees bandmates, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith, dress up as Mexican bandits to save their singer Davy Jones from a “real” Mexican bandit.

Before they leave to find Davy, Michael Nesmith says: “Wait a minute, don’t you think maybe we oughtta take something out with us, like a club card or some badges?”

Mickey replies with a heavy Mexican accent: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”

I don’t know if Mel Brooks was a Monkees fan, but seven years later he made those words immortal by putting them in the script for Blazing Saddles.

In a now famous scene in that movie, the corrupt State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr, played by Harvey Korman, has a sheriff’s badge given to one of his Mexican bandit henchmen, played by Rick Garcia. 

Hedley tells the bandido: “Be ready to attack Rock Ridge at noon tomorrow. Here’s your badge.”

The Mexican bandit throws the badge away and replies: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”

After Blazing Saddles became a hit, humorous uses of “We don’t need no stinking badges” (or stinkin’ or steenking badges) multiplied and continued.

Today, it’s common for people to say “we don’t need no stinking [whatever]” as a joking comment about almost anything.

To read some funny variations on the famed “stinking badges” line (like the cult favorite “We don’t need no stinking badgers!”) see this post on my Quote/Counterquote blog.

You can also click this link to see some recent examples from news stories and blogs — unless, of course, you don’t need no stinking examples.

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Further reading and viewing…

The mother of all cliches

In the Middle East and Greece, the phrase “the mother of all” has been used to describe the biggest or ultimate example of something for over two thousand years.

But it wasn’t a commonly used phrase in the United States until Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein uttered his famous line “The mother of all battles” shortly before the First Gulf War in 1991.

A few months previously, in August 1990, Saddam had ordered Iraqi troops to invade Kuwait.

For the next five months, the United States and United Nations tried using sanctions and threats to get Saddam to withdraw, ultimately giving him a mid-January deadline.

Saddam was not impressed. On January 6, 1991, in a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the modern Iraqi Army, he boasted that Kuwait was eternally part of Iraq and predicted a long struggle in the Persian Gulf against the “tyranny represented by the United States.”

“The battle in which you are locked today is the mother of all battles,” Saddam told the people of Iraq. “Our rendezvous with victory is very near, God willing.”

News reports about this speech immediately made “the mother of all battles” a famous quote and soon gave rise to many variations.

On January 17, 1991, American military forces and troops from a coalition of other countries, launched Operation Desert Storm, with massive airstrikes on Iraq.

That day, Saddam claimed to be confident that Iraq would repel the coalition forces. Once again he used his newly famous phrase, boasting “The great showdown has begun; the mother of all battles is under way!”

Saddam went on to predict that “the dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins...The evil and satanic intentions of the White House will be crushed and so will all the blasphemous and oppressive forces.”

Of course, Saddam was wrong. Iraq lost the First Gulf War, rather quickly.

However, President George H.W. Bush decided not to force Saddam out of power. That miscalculation later resulted in a second Gulf War, which started in 2003 and may or may not yet be ended (depending on what you call what U.S. forces are doing there now).

The Second Gulf War also resulted in Saddam’s capture and eventual execution by hanging.

But, in addition to being remembered as a ruthless dictator, he will continue to be noted as the father of all modern “mother of all” clichés.

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