Hanging On To Our Independence on the Fourth Of July

This year, 2018, has been a trying one, but I don't have to tell you. This Independence Day feels like the last of the best for the country I love and have called home for 80 years. It's hard for me to celebrate when I'm in a constant rage over the barbarism the Trump regime inflicts on us hour by hour, day by day.

Their particular form of gleeful inhumanity (See Jon Stewart) is a desecration of all we honor and hold dear in this country--and it's only getting worse.

This is not the New America, it's not Trump's America, it's not Old Testament God's America, it's a corruption of the constitutional, democratic social order we're still working to get right.

They want to erase all we've accomplished and start all over again, turning our attempts at democracy into a toxic combination of oligarchy, theocracy, and kleptocracy by establishing what must look to the outside world like a stunningly insane kakistocracy.

It's not going to happen.

The United States doesn't abduct children from their parents, it doesn't collude with our enemies, it doesn't smash safety nets and social norms, it doesn't turn a middle class into peons, it doesn't deliberately dumb down generations of kids, it doesn't deny its citizens health care or safety measures, it doesn't sell off treasured public lands, it doesn't abide rank stupidity or vicious hate among its chosen leaders.

We have a long history of resistance to tyranny, and this is the day we've set aside to recognize our independence and our self-worth. Until now, we've never had a president who so hated all we stand for he spent hours of each day in the White House sending messages meant to demean and insult citizens and leaders of the country he is supposed to lead.  Never.

When we declared our independence from England in 1776, we sent a message of defiance to a certain king who, uncannily, sought to force us into the same kind of submission Donald Trump is working to do today.

It reads in  part:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

It's almost as if Trump and his enablers took these parts of our Declaration to mean this is how it should be done.  It's not the first time they've gotten the workings of our government wrong.

So on this July Fourth, let's mark this day the day we gain our independence from Donald Trump and his kind--the day we say "no more".

We've been through this before; we can do it again.

Reflecting on the Fourth of July

 "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." ~ Samuel Adams

Somewhere along the way we stopped calling our most popular summer holiday "Independence Day" and went simply with "The Fourth of July".  We love our Red, White and Blue, but this is the day we pull out all the stops.  Flags fly everywhere, the stars and stripes adorning everything from porches to paper plates to Uncle Sam hats to the holiday advertising pages of every newspaper.  Flags dress floats and bicycles and baby carriages in every parade in every little town in America.  

We love this day--the day to remember our liberty, our exceptionalism, our prosperity.  Those were the days, weren't they?

So what happened?

Not to be a downer on our favorite summer day, but I can't shake the feeling that "independence" is one of those words we're starting to look back on with nostalgia.   Does anyone even care that we're not that independent anymore?

Our dependence on foreign oil and on anti-American big business and on the production and importation of goods from dubious nations across the globe is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they declared us an independent country and gave us our working papers.

It started on July 4, 1776 when 56 men signed a paper declaring the independence of the thirteen united states of America from Great Britain, the mother country. ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.")

Eleven years later, in 1787, a constitution, the wording hard-fought and brainstormed to death, became the law of the land.   The Preamble read like this: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

They didn't start off with, "We, the wealthy landowners, in order to keep our fiefdoms going. . .", or "We, the 39 undersigned, in order to preserve our station and ensure a healthy profit margin. . . ".  

No, they began it like this:

WE, the people. . .of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America  

It came out of a yearning for independence so strong an entire nation was created, and in the course of a couple of centuries we became a model for democracy throughout the world--a force to be reckoned with.  You couldn't find a prouder nation anywhere.  We were going places.

That was then. 

Today, we're in turmoil. It's as if the promises made, the lessons learned, the reasons to form a more perfect union are long gone and long forgotten.  We are as divided as we've ever been since the days of our Civil War, 150 years ago.  We cannot, it seems, find common ground.  We see our America through different eyes, with different fears and different goals.  We don't like what we see, but from entirely different angles and for entirely different reasons.  We try to interpret what our Founding Fathers had in mind for us, but we come at it with our own biases, our own prejudices, trying to mold our purposely vague constitution to fit our own wants and needs.

But on this one day we come together, and it's our love of this beautiful, challenging, imperfect country that brings us to detente.  It's a day when, no matter what's going on outside, the sun is warm, the breeze is balmy, and the shade of the old oak tree brings a delicious coolness.  A lemonade day.  A day for feeling good. The parades are about to start and there is no more beautiful flag in the world than the American flag.

Come Tuesday we'll begin again. Toward a more perfect union. Toward domestic tranquility.  Toward the society we, the people, have promised to promote and preserve.

Until then, be well and be kind on this day that is ours and ours alone.

Independence Day: We do Have Something to Celebrate

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." ~ Samuel Adams

Somewhere along the way we stopped calling our most popular summer holiday "Independence Day" and went simply with "The Fourth of July".  We love our Red, White and Blue, but this is the day we pull out all the stops.  Flags fly everywhere, the stars and stripes adorning everything from porches to paper plates to Uncle Sam hats to the holiday advertising pages of every newspaper.  Flags dress floats and bicycles and baby carriages in every parade in every little town in America.  

We love this day--the day to remember our liberty, our exceptionalism, our prosperity.  Those were the days, weren't they?

So what happened?

Not to be a downer on our very favorite day of the year, but I can't shake the feeling that "independence" is one of those words we're starting to look back on with nostalgia.   Does anyone even care that we're not independent anymore?

Our dependence on foreign oil and on anti-American big business and on the production and importation of goods from dubious nations across the globe is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they declared us an independent country and gave us our working papers. 

It started on July 4, 1776 when 56 men signed a paper declaring a dissolution of the 13 united states of America from England, the mother state.  Eleven years later, in 1787, a constitution, the wording hard-fought and brainstormed to death, became the law of the land.   The signers mulled over the first paragraph, realizing, I'm sure, that it needed some oomph if people were actually going to understand the motives behind it. 

They didn't start off with, "WE, the wealthy landowners, in order to keep our fiefdoms going. . .", or "WE, the 39 undersigned, in order to preserve our station and ensure a healthy profit margin. . . ".  

No, they began it like this:

WE, the people. . .of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America  

It all came out of a yearning for independence so strong an entire country was created, and in the course of a couple of centuries we became a model for democracy throughout the world--a force to be reckoned with.  You couldn't find a prouder nation anywhere.  We were going places.

That was then. 

Today, we're in turmoil. It's as if the promises made, the lessons learned, the reasons to form a more perfect union are long gone and long forgotten.  We are as divided as we've ever been since the days of our Civil War, 150 years ago.  We cannot, it seems, find common ground.  We see our America through different eyes, with different fears and different goals.  We don't like what we see, but from entirely different angles and for entirely different reasons.  We try to interpret what our Founding Fathers had in mind for us, but we come at it with our own biases, our own prejudices, trying to mold our purposely vague constitution to fit our own wants and needs.

But on this one day we come together, and it's our love of this beautiful, challenging, imperfect country that brings us to detente.  It's a day when, no matter what's going on outside, the sun is warm, the breeze is balmy, and the shade of the old oak tree brings a delicious coolness.  A lemonade day.  A day for feeling good. The parade is about to start and there is no more beautiful flag in the world than the American flag.

Tomorrow we'll begin again.  Toward a more perfect union.  Toward more than just a day of domestic tranquility.  Toward an independence we, the people, have promised to preserve.

(Note:  If some of this looks familiar, it's because it's an adaptation of my Independence Day post from 2010.  Be well and be kind on this day that is ours and ours alone.)

Our Dependence on Independence Day

There are many who complain that our Independence Day (now, sadly, just called the Fourth of July) should be observed not on the actual July 4 but on the Monday closest to it in order to have that long weekend we so cherish here in America. That's like saying Christmas should be celebrated on the Monday closest to December 25.  Some things are sacrosanct.  The day our founding fathers signed our Declaration of Independence from England is one of those days.

It is also the day almost all of us leave our workplaces behind and get together for parades and barbecues and fireworks.  That it happens to fall on a Wednesday this year is a bummer for some, but that's the way it flies.  It's not close to either weekend and confusion reigns over which days to take off in order to travel to the Fourth of July destination.  For many more this year, it's a one-day holiday and then it's over.

In our remote area, Wednesday Fourths are deadly to the merchants.  People just aren't arriving in crowds large enough to keep them going through the summer and beyond into winter.  I feel sorry for them, of course, but I hope they don't notice that I'm not hanging around, either.  I'm taking off today to spend the day in the city where the parade will be larger and the fireworks will be flashier, and I have to admit I'm feeling a little guilty about not staying put in the place where my few dollars might actually make a difference.

But I'm going, anyway.

So here is my contribution today:

The actual Declaration of Independence, word for word.

Norman Lear's paean to this day, Born Again as an American.

Some actual good news from the State of Michigan. (Thrown in because actual good news for my state is so rare.)

The DAR makes amends and Marian Anderson can at last RIP.

Fourth of July recipes.

And how it looks from here:

Enjoy your day, stay safe, be happy, and be ready to report to work again tomorrow, when we take up the cause for saving this battered country.  Those freedoms they fought for so valiantly more than two centuries ago haven't exactly been won.

But we'll get there yet.

Ramona

FRIDAY FOLLIES: On Bachmann, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck and Where Gays Come From

 Happy Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day), July 1, and Happy Fourth of July (formerly Independence Day), July 4.  Both days celebrate independence from Great Britain, the only difference being we dropped the Brits in 1776 and the Provinces to the North went on bitching about them until 1982.

Sometime in the 60s or 70s I was at my aunt's house singing praises to Queen Elizabeth, thinking that was the polite thing to do, considering I was in Canada and it was Dominion Day.  Imagine my surprise when that tiny Italian spitfire snarled "Piss on the queen!"  There might have been a hand gesture, too, I don't remember exactly. Well, I was shocked!  By the time I came to my senses she was passing salami, prosciutto, mozzarella, Cornetti bread and Dago Red from Uncle Victor's wine cellar so I forgot to ask what she could possibly mean by that.  I'm sure she had her reasons.  (You know things are bad when whole countries don't want to be you anymore.)

I should ask Michelle Bachmann why we all wanted to be free of England.   (She might even know why my aunt was so mean to the queen.)  She knows all about the Founding Fathers, those guys who worked tirelessly to end slavery.  She tends to confuse founding sons with founding fathers, but I'm not here to pick nits, I'm here to find out once and for all why two out of three countries in North America went out of their way to give up their British citizenship when we're all so in love with the Brits we can't get enough of their music, their movie stars, their accents or their Royal weddings.

Oh, by the way, Glenn Beck said goodbye to Fox yesterday.  I know.  I don't care, either, but it happened and it's Friday Follies, and I have a happy Holiday houseful so I'm using it to fill space so I can go make potato salad. 

Fox News Channel

 And speaking of happy, I found this picture at a place called happyplace.com.  Thank you, Happy Place!

My moment of sublimely happy:  We are Ohio, a pro-union coalition, delivered 1.3 million signatures on petitions to repeal Senate bill 5, the anti-collective bargaining bill republican Governor John Kasich thought he had pushed through without a hitch.  Ha!

The coalition leading the effort to repeal Senate Bill 5 delivered a record of nearly 1.3 million signatures to the secretary of state today to place Ohio's new collective bargaining law on the November ballot.
A parade of more than 6,000, led by a banner proclaiming the "million signature march," rumbled through Downtown this morning.
We Are Ohio, the group leading the referendum effort, organized the march up Broad Street to Fourth Street, where a 48 ft. semi-truck carrying the 1,298,301 signatures in 1,502 boxes collected will be unloaded. The parade also included retired fire trucks, a drum line, bagpipes and loud motorcycles. It took about 15 minutes to pass.

 The best part?  they only needed 231,000 signatures, so with that many signatures, they made it impossible for the petitions to be challenged, and impossible for the bill to become law before the results of the November elections.  Kasich and his bunch can slither, they can rattle, but they can't sink their fangs in.  Not this time.

Union supporters march toward the Statehouse to deliver the 1.3 million petition signatures.

Cartoon of the week:

Copyright © 2011 Creators Syndicate

Have a great Independence Day weekend.  Stay safe, be well, be back on Tuesday to give 'em hell.

Independence Day II - I can hardly wait

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." ~ Samuel Adams

Somewhere along the way we stopped calling our most popular summer holiday "Independence Day" and went simply with "The Fourth of July".  We love our Red, White and Blue, but this is the day we pull out all the stops.  Flags fly everywhere, the stars and stripes adorning everything from porches to paper plates to Uncle Sam hats to the holiday advertising pages of every newspaper.  Flags dress floats and bicycles and baby carriages in every parade in every little town in America.  

We love this day--the day to remember our liberty, our exceptionalism, our prosperity.  Those were the days, weren't they?

So what happened?

Not to be a downer on our very favorite day of the year, but I can't shake the feeling that "independence" is one of those words we're starting to look back on with nostalgia.   Does anyone even care that we're not independent anymore?

Our dependence on foreign oil and on anti-American big business and on the production and importation of goods from dubious nations across the globe is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they declared us an independent country and gave us our working papers. 

It started on July 4, 1776 when 56 men signed a paper declaring a dissolution of the 13 united states of America from England, the mother state.  Eleven years later, in 1787, a constitution, the wording hard-fought and brainstormed to death, became the law of the land.   The signers mulled over the first paragraph, realizing, I'm sure, that it needed some oomph if people were actually going to understand the motives behind it. 

They didn't start off with, "WE, the wealthy landowners, in order to keep our fiefdoms going. . .", or "WE, the 39 undersigned, in order to preserve our station and ensure a healthy profit margin. . . ".  

No, they began it like this:

WE, the people. . .of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America  

It all came out of a yearning for independence so strong an entire country was created, and in the course of a couple of centuries we became a model for democracy throughout the world--a force to be reckoned with.  You couldn't find a prouder nation anywhere.  We were going places.

That was then. 

Today, it's one of those days when the sun is warm, the breeze is balmy, and the shade of the old oak tree brings a delicious coolness.  A lemonade day.  A day for feeling good. The parade is about to start and there is no more beautiful flag in the world than the American flag.

So tomorrow we'll begin again.  Toward a more perfect union.  Toward more than just a day of domestic tranquility.  Toward an independence we, the people, promised to preserve.

Ramona