Back in grade school, I fancied myself an author. I worked meticulously over the elements of a book in order: the cover, the title, the table of contents, and finally the first few pages of text. I recall starting a book titled Sisters. It featured four sisters, of whom the second-born most resembled me, in keeping with Little Women and the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Another, still on my shelf, offers this creation story:
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                           The Pig, the Sheep, and the Cow
In the beginning was nothing . . . nothing; no earth, no water, no sky: nothing. . . .
   And in this vast nothingness lived the only three animals of the universe: namely, the pig, the sheep, and the cow. These, the only three animals of the universe, did nothing . . . nothing; they did not speak, they did not create: in fact they did nothing but turn around and around, and over and over, as there was no up or down.
   One time – there was no day, no night – the cow thought, “I am very dizzy.” The sheep thought, “I am very tired.” And the pig thought, “I am very bored." And although they could not speak, their thoughts were transmitted from each one to the others.
   So then did they create the earth: and they divided it between them, into three parts. The cow, wishing no longer to go up and down, and over and around, lived on a beautiful grassy plain. The sheep made large hills, and the pig, wishing for variety, chose to slosh around in water.
   The animals often visited with each other, and traveled. Where the pig traveled there were rivers, and where he stopped and stayed there became lakes. Where the sheep traveled he left ridges, and where he stopped and visited, mountains. The cow made lowlands among the hills, and islands in the sea, as did the sheep. 

Earlier this month, heavily armed federal officers and California National Guard troops occupied MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, on horseback and in military vehicles. The park was otherwise largely empty except for a children’s summer day camp, whose staff quickly moved the children indoors, away from the scary sight. Health workers helping homeless residents said troops pointed guns at them and told them to leave. After an hour or so, the troops and officers left without explanation, violence, or arrests.

MacArthur Park began as a swampy wetland. Los Angeles converted it in 1886 to Westlake Park, a public greenspace surrounding a lake, with boating facilities and a bandstand. The park was renamed in honor of General Douglas MacArthur in 1942. Later it became notorious for gang violence, prostitution, drugs, and murder. Redevelopment efforts after 2002 reduced the crime rate, though problems persist. The population nearby is dense, mostly immigrants, mostly poor.

I first heard of MacArthur Park in the 1968 hit of that name, a story of love and loss written by Jimmy Webb and sung by Richard Harris. “MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet, green icing flowing down.” Sweet hopes of romance spoil like a cake left out in the rain.

Immigrants came with sweet hopes of a safer new life, where hard work paid off and the ever-present threat of armed thugs was a distant memory. Instead, according to leaked documents, the cavalry showed up on July 7 to protect federal agents “whose intent at MacArthur Park is to demonstrate, through a show of presence, the capacity and freedom of maneuver of federal law enforcement within the Los Angles Joint Operations Area. . . . The purpose of this operation is to enable and protect the execution of joint federal law enforcement missions in a high-visibility urban environment, while preserving public safety and demonstrating federal reach and presence.”

Someone left the cake out in the rain.

Image: MacArthur Park. 

Happy Bastille Day! Or, depending on your viewpoint, shiver at the excesses of the French Revolution. Some of the most polarizing events in American history take place far from our shores. It’s happening now. It has happened before.

On July 14, 1789, just weeks after Washington became U.S. president, the Bastille prison in Paris fell to a furious French mob. Chaos, violence, and European wars ensued. Responses among Americans heightened divisions in our young Republic. When Washington warned against factions and foreign entanglements, it was already too late. John Adams and his Federalists, who favored a strong central government, sympathized with British fear of radicalism so close to home. Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans, advocates of decentralization and individual liberty, sided with the French.

By summer 1798, Adams was president and the Federalists held power. In the name of national security, they passed four Alien and Sedition Acts to clamp down on immigration (most new immigrants voted Democratic-Republican) and dissent:

1. Naturalization Act: Gaining citizenship would take fourteen years instead of five.
2. Alien Friends Act: The president could deport foreigners he deemed dangerous to peace and safety.
3. Alien Enemies Act: The president could arrest, imprison, and deport subjects of enemy nations.
4. Sedition Act: To oppose any law or presidential act, or to print anything negative about the president or Congress, was a crime.

Jefferson called the last of these “so palpably in the teeth of the Constitution as to show they mean to pay no respect to it.” The Supreme Court did not take up the case. Angry voters elected Jefferson as their third president. He pardoned everyone convicted under the Sedition Act, and Congress repaid their fines. All but the Alien Enemies Act (intended for wartime) expired or were repealed in 1802.

It feels like déjà vu all over again.

Image: The Storming of the Bastille. Anonymous. Museum of French History, Versailles.

More than eight hundred years ago, under pressure from his barons, King John of England sealed a charter that would profoundly influence the Founders of the later United States. The Magna Carta (Great Charter) guaranteed traditional rights of free Englishmen. Much of its detail has no more relevance today than details of our Declaration of Independence, but its basic principles helped shape our foundational national documents.

The Magna Carta established that no one is above the law, not even a king. The American Revolution found justification in this centuries-old precept.

The Magna Carta also guaranteed due process and the right to a fair trial: No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or disseised of his free tenement or of his liberties or free customs, or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go against such a man or send against him save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.

​These guarantees were repeated in the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. May they long remain the law of the land.