December is Bill of Rights Month

December is Bill of Rights Month. On December 15, 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights were ratified. In addition to the Bill of Rights, we celebrate the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, born December 16, 1770. Both his music which celebrates the bourgeois democratic ideals of his era, and the Bill of Rights are symbols of the advances of the bourgeois democratic revolutions of that time, notably the American and French Revolutions.

However, when Janis Besler Heaphy, president and publisher of the widely respected daily newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, spoke in praise of the Bill of Rights and in condemnation of Pres. Bush's attacks on it, to the 17,000 people attending the graduation ceremony of Sacramento State University on December 15, 2001, she was booed by the friends and relatives of the students receiving their college diploma, but not the students.
This story may be found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1216-04.htm

The test of her speech is on the Sacramento Bee's website at:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/1339967p-1409462c.html

The lesson to be learned is that EVERY DECEMBER we must read and write the Bill of Rights wherever possible. Every teacher in every grade, starting in fifth grade (age 10), should read the Bill of Rights out loud to the students and require the students to memorize it for their final exam in history. Every commencement exercise in December should have one speaker read out loud the entire Bill of Rights and remind everyone listening that the Bill of Rights represents the ideals of democracy and is a basic part of the laws of the United States.

To fully round out such an important milestone and grand occasion as a college graduation, the school orchestra and chorus could perform the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, commonly known as the Ode to Joy, wherein Beethoven celebrates our universal humanity. It is because Beethoven composed at the time and for the time of these bourgeois democratic revolutions that his music is recognized as the benchmark of all Western music. Other music is certainly worthwhile, but it is most fitting that a true celebration of the Bill of Rights be accompanied by the one and only, and in my opinion, the best composer of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven.

Happy Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven!
Happy Birthday, Bill of Rights!