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(What's going on in Tokyo...?)
American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
It is politically appropriate, like the nomination of Judge Ms. Sonia Sotomayor, that President Mr. Barack Obama threw out the first ceremonial pitch in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and Ichiro Suzuki, a Japanese No.1 player, politely delivered a first-batter hit soon after the ceremony in St. Louis...
SECTION I: AMERICAN REVOLUTION AGAINST BRITISH KING
If the British ruling class was so cruel to European Americans trying to be independent from England, how bloody would their animosity to other races and tribes in Africa and Asia turn to be in successive centuries?
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In London King George III gave up hope of subduing America by more armies while Britain had a European war to fight. "It was a joke," he said, "to think of keeping Pennsylvania."
There was no hope of recovering New England. But the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal."[33]
His plan was to keep the 30,000 men garrisoned in New York, Rhode Island, Quebec, and Florida; other forces would attack the French and Spanish in the West Indies. To punish the Americans the King planned to destroy their coasting-trade, bombard their ports; sack and burn towns along the coast (as Benedict Arnold did to New London, Connecticut in 1781), and turn loose the Native Americans to attack civilians in frontier settlements. These operations, the King felt, would inspire the Loyalists; would splinter the Congress; and "would keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse" and they would beg to return to his authority.[34]
The plan meant destruction for the Loyalists and loyal Native Americans, an indefinite prolongation of a costly war, and the risk of disaster as the French and Spanish assembled an armada to invade the British Isles. The British planned to re-subjugate the rebellious colonies after dealing with their European allies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
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However, though it is difficult to grasp the situation of 230 years ago, the American Independence was truly a by-product of the conflict between England and other European continental powers, such as France, Spain, and the Netherlands, who were vying for overseas colonies with England.
Unlike the case of Portugal and Spain, the Pope had no power to go between the warring camps.
Yet, through this revolutionary war, Americans came to have a new paradigm, not based on the teaching of the Vatican, as manifested in the Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.
Without this orientation for the ideal, the American Independence should have simply meant foundation of another greedy and cold-blooded European-race nation.
SECTION II: George Washington and Thomas Paine
George Washington was never hated at all by his contemporaries.
But, how can we trust anybody who has never been hated by his contemporaries?
Jesus Christ said that you would be surely hated by your contemporaries provided you claim justice and righteousness according to the commandments of the God.
George Washington never lost his friends, but Thomas Paine finally lost almost all of his friends, while it was Thomas Paine who claimed justice and righteousness from the era of the American Revolution to the era of Napoleon.
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Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, intellectual, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.
Later, Paine greatly influenced the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), a guide to Enlightenment ideas. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention in 1792...
Paine remained in France during the early Napoleonic era, but condemned Napoleon's dictatorship, calling him "the completest charlatan that ever existed". At President Jefferson's invitation, in 1802 he returned to America.
Thomas Paine died at 59 Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York City on June 8, 1809 at the age of 72. Ostracized for his religious views, only six people attended his funeral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
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Yet, the fact that George Washington is respected in the U.S. more than Thomas Paine is suggests something doubtful existent in the American national character.
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(To be continued...)
(The summer is a season for the sun, a red sun especially in the image of Japanese. Mais, qu'est-ce que cela signifie pour le soleil noir de chercher, ma princesse, though the longest eclipse of the 21st century will occur on July 22, 2009 and last 6 min 39 sec?
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~UD3T-KRYM/902-jasrac/60406-glassnojohny.htm )
Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.