Back in the day, on a normal 4th of July, people gathered in backyards for potato salad and chips and cold beer and various meats cooked on the grill while a Major League Baseball game played on a radio. Some might take advantage of the 4th of July blowout sales at the mall to get that new microwave or mattress. Some might take a long weekend for a car trip to some scenic place. In the evening, there were fireworks.
At some point in the day, some thought might be given to the Declaration of Independence, but that wasn’t mandatory. And maybe that was okay. The point of the Revolution was to enable people to lead peaceful and normal lives, not to churn out succeeding generations of flaming revolutionaries.
This year — I guess not.
We’re engaged in a vast and messy national argument about our past, our present, and our future. I assume the November election will give us some indication of which argument is winning, although it’s probably too much to hope for a resolution. But as awful as this year has been, this blowup needed to happen. It’s been building for a lot of years. Trump’s awfulness hurried it along, but it would have happened sooner or later.
Let’s hope that next 4th of July we’re all in a much different place, and we’ll all be enjoying big cookouts and fireworks and even blowout sales on mattresses. This year, take some time for a cold beer and watch Hamilton on the Disney Plus channel. You’ll enjoy it.
Stuff to Read
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, Trump Is Turning America Into the ‘Shithole Country’ He Fears
Charles Pierce, Esquire, This Fourth of July, We’re in Another One of Those Moments Where the Great Bluff Gets Called
David Atkins, Washington Monthly, The Trump Administration Is Giving Up on Fighting the Pandemic
Robin Givhan, The Washington Post, Trump got his crowd and his fireworks, and peddled his fiction
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, Trump’s Virus Is Spreading, and His Economy Is Stalling
Dale Beran, The Atlantic, The Boogaloo Tipping Point
I'm surprised that at tRUMP's shindig (and yet another spit in the eye of non-white people) at Mt. Rushmore last night – that's an unwelcome monument carved into lands sacred to the Oglala Sioux, and lands that are theirs by a treaty (since broken, obviously – but then again, which weren't?) signed in 1868 – that Lincoln's nose didn't fall off, Teddy's mustache didn't droop, and Washington's and Jefferson's eyes didn't roll back in their head's.
Keep poking, FAT ASS!
That will make your ruinous defeat in November all the sweeter!
But, enough about that turd in America's punchbowl…
Have as happy an Independence Day as you can, what with this tRUMP Plague ravaging our country.
Wear a mask if you go out, and wash your hands carefully. The life you save may or may not be your own. Remember, the mask is to protect others from you, and not…
Hmm…
Maybe we should designate the 5th of July every year as "Interdependence Day?!?"
Come to think of it, maybe we should have an international Interdependence Day?
Pick a date!
There are around 8 Billion of us on this pretty, but lonely, little blue orb. We need to end poverty. And one of the first steps to do that, needs to be ending racism.
If you see it, say or do something about it.
That shouldn't be hard. Hell, this is America! "Racism" is our middle-name. Oy…
But, enough about that turd in America's punchbowl…
LMAO. I can feel the love, gulag!
I read summaries of Trump's Mt Rushmore speech and it just seems like Goebbels'/Stephen Miller's Last Hurrah.
Love the David Horsey cartoon, I've missed him. In lower middle is the key to it all, and Horsey clearly gets it: two young kids, different races, who are The Future in flesh and blood, and who are living through this big transition where the past dies and is buried and something new is being born.
Agreed. That cartoon is the best I've seen all day.
Happy 4th of July.
Here's a sharing of what dwells in my heart today. It is a mix of empathy and pain for the countless millions who have fallen victim to the putrid bile that pours forth from Trump's decrepit spirit. And a hope that America can once again find a leader that can shepherd us through this valley of death that Trump and his GOP minions have corralled us into.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg
Here are the opening words…
Oh, Beautiful
for hero's proved
in liberating strife
who more than self
their country love
and mercy more than life.
Swami,
I wish we'd 'bar the door and throw away the Key's' song, "The Star Spangled* Banner," as our national anthem!
A bit too much "freeman" and "slave" talk in it for me, and I'd hope, others as well.
"America the Beautiful,"** or "This Land Is Your Land," would be much better choices, imo!
*Spangled?" Really? That's a word you might hear on an episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," and not one in the anthem for a manly-man nation like 'Murka!
If I was pitching a different song as our national anthem, I'd point that word out to our red-necked, gun-wearing, pot-bellied patriots, and ask, "You wear many 'spangled' outfits, do you, Bubba? Didn't think so. How about (Fill-in the blank:_________________________) as our national anthem?"
** Especially as sung by the great Mr. Charles!