Growing up in Wheaton, Maryland, every July 4th my cousins and my Aunt and I would pile into the Woody and go to Wheaton Plaza and watch the fireworks. It was one of the highlights of my childhood: telling silly jokes in the car, drinking pop, eating hotdogs and wrestling with my cousins. The deep booms that reverberated in my chest and splashes of multicolored fire across the sky was for me the most exciting thing to watch and doing it with my family just made it all the more intimate.
But, do people in America really know exactly what they are celebrating on July 4th? For those of you who don’t know, we are celebrating the Declaration of Independence being adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th 1776. This document stated among other things that the 13 American colonies, presently at war with Great Britain, were no longer a part of the British Empire and would form a new nation known as the United States of America. The original draft of the document was created by Thomas Jefferson and the congress edited it to become the final version of the declaration. One of the centerpieces of the document states:
“We hold these truths o be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
As the document was read in congress that day, no doubt by someone with a thick British accent which in recent history Americans have become so enamored of, the irony of that situation probably didn’t register. It is only today, looking back in history that we can see how surreal that situation was.
Very basically translated into everyday language, what the above paragraphs is saying is that we are all as human being created equally; that we all have rights that cannot be taken away by a foreign government and those right include to live, have freedom and pursue what makes us happy. It states that no government should be abolished lightly and that people are predisposed to suffer oppressive governments because they have become accustomed to the evils but that the people, who have been abused and usurped by that government, have not just a right but a duty to abolish that government and start anew.
I am proud to be an American. Like the colonists, my German Jewish Great Grandfather came to this country in pursuit of a better life; my Irish Grandmother’s family did the same. Our history may not be as long as other countries and our governments have not been perfect but as Ronald Reagan stated many times “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere” and our forefathers put in place a process that is in place still today to change the parts of government that are imperfect. We the people can do that and we are duty bound to do so. Simply by being a citizen of our great nation we are bound to change the things that our government does that are oppressive to us and to people of other nations through protest, through the voting box and through any peaceful means necessary.
Eldridge Cleaver said “There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem.” People who complain about our government yet to nothing to fix the problems, don’t vote, don’t protest publicly, don’t educate themselves on the processes and how to change them, listen and believe misinformation fed to them by conservative and liberal media outlets instead of finding out the truth for themselves, are part of the problem. Is our government perfect? No, it certainly is not. Is our President infallible? Absolutely not. In fact, in the last week, I have discovered something appalling and disgraceful that our President in fact is sanctioning and I was discouraged, disheartened, and thoroughly disgusted by it. And yet, this thing has barely made a blip on the radar of most folks in this country. Read or watch “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield” by Jeremy Scahill. It is available On Demand or get the book at Amazon.com. There are also many interviews with Jeremy on You Tube. I encourage you to watch them. There is also a web site dirtywars.org. He is a very thorough, non-partisan investigative reporter who has done a number of investigations into our military complex which is vast and far reaching. Jeremy has exposed things that are being done presently that would shock and appall most people. The fact that he himself has not experienced an "untimely accident" is amazing in and of itself considering what he has exposed. The things that are going on now must be stopped if we are ever going to end this “War on Terrorism” and make the world a better, safer place for all countries. Only “We the people” can stop it and we must. We cannot kill our way to peace and what we are doing now in fact is creating more of the very people we are fighting against. We are essentially giving them a reason to hate us and rise up against us.
http://www.dirtywars.org
Interview with Jeremy on Democracy Now
I like our president. I think I have been very vocal about that. I respect him as a man (from what I know about him) and I respect him as a leader and essentially my boss but what is happening with JSOC and our military is not what I and I think most people in this country believe we stand for as a nation. My great grandfather and grandmother did not come to a country that murders innocent people; that convicts its own people to death without due process; that jails people for years without charges or a trial; that would kill an innocent 16 year old American citizen in a foreign country along with his young cousins simply because his father said things our government didn’t like. Those are the countries that they came from not the country they went to seeking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Thank you all for reading and Happy Independence Day!
