It's a wake, not a celebration
Tomorrow, the 4th of July, should be a national day of mourning in the United States. Because at the mark of a mere 250 years we have absolutely failed to become what was intended. By the way, 250 years isn't a long time. The Bavand Dynasty lasted 698 years. You remember the Bavandids, right?
You know how far we've strayed? There is no provision in the Constitution to prevent a corrupt, criminal, seditious rapist from being elected because common sense told the founding fathers that there was no possibility of such a person even being allowed to try, or become a party's candidate, let alone be elected.
Here. Here's some more examples of how we have gone wrong.
The founding fathers made a point of not mentioning Jesus Christ Christianity, or any religion in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They mention God. "God" is a pretty broad term. This was done because a) Many of the leading founding fathers were deists, and b) They understood the divisive and disruptive effect religion could have. Especially if it was unrestrained (official). They had a great example of that right there in Massachusetts. The pilgrims/puritans were Calvinist. Their interpretation was so extreme that they were at odds, very much at odds, with the Calvinist church in England. They came to the New World for freedom of religion. Wait. That's not the entire phrase. They came for "The freedom to impose our religion on every citizen without criticism or interference." Also, as a side note, the people claiming that the United States is a "Christian nation" mean "Protestant nation" because these people don't recognize the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Coptic Christians etc as Christian.
The history of the United States includes multiple cycles of democracy pushing back against the power and influence of wealth. In the beginning only white, literate, land-owning men could vote. Universal suffrage came about for a reason. Now we have a president who is for sale. A Supreme Court reaffirming the right to buy elections. A corporation is not a person. The rights of an actual citizen have been given to corporations. How does unlimited campaign donations meet any definition of free speech? The fact that billions of dollars are spent trying to rig elections by bamboozling an electorate that has been groomed to be apathetic and uninvolved well, that's not a First World Democracy. It's Third World kleptocracy and absurd.
The United States traditionally had a very small standing army. Because with only two neighbors it sits in a position facing few actual threats. After WW2 that changes. Yes, there was the Cold War, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army in WW2 (Quick context- that's a 5 star general, there's only one at a time, and the position only exists during an actual war) and Republican, warned of the military industrial complex. People sort of listened to that until Ronald Antichrist Reagan came along in the 1980's. He "defeated" communism by employing an obscene level of military spending that the Soviets couldn't match. The United States spends more than most of the world combined on its military. We have poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, children going hungry, and an underfunded educational system, but we have the Best Military in the World! The proof is there! We always win! Like in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Money well spent. Hey, it's not cheap murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians. Those schools aren't going to drop bombs on themselves!
Our actual freedom of speech is not actual freedom of speech. It never has been. Simple criticism of flaws within the nation generate outrage, anger, accusations of being unpatriotic, and cries of "Love it or Leave it!" The Pledge of Allegiance and One Nation Under God were both instituted to combat the threat of socialism in the early 20th Century. Patriotism is both obligatory and blind here.
For 175 years the United States worked at refining it's democracy. During the Cold War conservative reactionaries, funded by and spurred on by the ultra-wealthy, began portraying freedom as under threat if it wasn't guided and controlled by them. The last forty-five years has seen power being stripped from the people and given to corporations. The wealthiest nation on Earth shouldn't have 50 million people living in poverty. It shouldn't have hungry children. It shouldn't have systemic, endemic, generational poverty. It shouldn't have tax breaks for corporations and billionaires while social services suffer because our national deficit is obscene and that deficit "prevents" spending on the types of things that improve life for everyone, not just the 1%.
We have a vulgar, crass, idiotic, corrupt and criminal buffoon turning everything this nation represents into a mockery and we have a third of the population STILL supporting that. This orange gelatinous mutant man-baby is the amplification of every negative stereotype about "Americans". Tasteless. Arrogant. Ignorant. Loud. Utterly lacking in any kind of self-awareness. Incapable of seeing beyond his spoiled brat on the playground boasts.
The United States is now a rogue nation. Flaunting international law. Using the military to violate the sovereignty of other nations to distract from the disastrous domestic situation. A police state that ignores the constitutional rights of its own citizens. "Leaders" insulting and belittling allies. Loudly and proudly declaring its abrogation of long standing mutual obligations with friends. It commits crimes against humanity and refuses to let anyone else hold it accountable. Our presidunce, our Cuntmander in Chief, constantly threatens others to project an illusion of strength. It's an illusion because, although the general populace here doesn't notice, the United States picks on "soft targets". Ones we should easily overcome. Like Mogadishu. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iran.
We are a "Christian nation". That's why we want to rob women of bodily autonomy. Ban abortion. It's about morality. So they say as legalized gambling has become pervasive. So they say as state after state legalizes marijuana. It's almost like vice and sin are acceptable providing they distract people and provide a fantasy of an escape from perpetual debt.
The entire structure that was originally established is crumbling. Hate fueled bigots back a leader so cartoonishly incompetent that it's nearly incomprehensible. This bloated, babbling, thief with the vocabulary of an eight year old wants to be an emperor. As he sits with swollen ankles and shit filled pants ignoring the rule of law. Offering pardons for pay. Releasing traitors who are then arrested for pedophilia, rape, incest, and murder. Openly selling influence.
Fascism. Racism. Xenophobia. Transphobia. A disconnected complacency in the face of data centers, the utter scam of a.i., the loss of privacy, unaffordable healthcare, the impossibility of retirement, and life in general becoming too expensive. People complain. But nothing changes. Why should it? People complain but then forget. Or get distracted. It's a population where a third never bother to vote and amongst those who do the majority see the act of voting once every four years as the extent of their required civic engagement. It's the only thing they have to do because "We elected them. They should fix everything. I voted. I did my part.
I came of age in the early '80s. Meaning as a child I knew about, because they'd just happened, the civil rights and anti-war movements. I saw that activism could work. I saw Richard Nixon resign in disgrace. Telling me that government could be held accountable and that nobody was above the law.
In the late '80s and early '90s I was an activist myself. Amnesty International. Clean Water Action. Greenpeace. I invested energy into these causes but saw how, just that quickly, the shifting of wealth and influence under Reagan was already overwhelming people. If they couldn't see the problem, if the problem didn't affect them directly, they didn't want to be bothered. It's hard to keep up your enthusiasm when people refuse to engage with you about anything that isn't personal. "Well, the government should deal with that! Isn't it their job?" "Yes it is, but it's our job as citizens and decent human beings to bring to the attention of the government these things so that they can address them!" "Yeah. I'm not going to give you any money."
That last line is what eventually broke me. I heard it over and over when going door to door. This implication that I was asking for the money for myself. That I wanted their money so that I could feel that I was doing something important. Even as nothing changed. That was another thing that I grew to loathe. People refusing to contribute anything who then accused us of never actually doing anything. I wasn't allowed to say "Of course nothing changes because people like you won't help. You just expect it to happen like magic." Hell, most people wouldn't spare 60 seconds to sign a petition.
250 years. Look at what the United States actually is. What it actually is in and of itself. Not what you're getting from it. Not the distorted image created by the contortion of truth and fact. The past had the Copperheads, the Know Nothings, the KKK, the American Bund, the John Birch Society. But they were always offset by the fundamental decency of people.
You know how petty, disingenuous, and absurd we are? A grifting blaggard like Charlie Kirk is held up like a martyr. That's straight out of Josef Goebbel's playbook. Fascism 101. But at least Horst Wessel was killed by member a conflicting political ideology. This country has lost its moral authority and any claim at being a righteous and good nation. If anyone here thinks the next election, or even two or three, is going to repair the damage done to the reputation of the United States, wake up. Every day Blobnald Flumpf sits in office just reinforces the truth. That we as a nation can't be trusted. We can't even see what's good for us, let alone anyone else.
I'm certainly not celebrating tomorrow. You can call me unpatriotic for that and I don't care. I call it being educated, actually aware, and having personal experience with what it could be and the actual hope that came with that.
Oh. And also.
Fuck Charlie Kirk.
