Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July (in the Age of Trump)

Ann Arbor | (Informed Comment) | – –

Revised for the the Age of Trump:

Your Fourth of July is tanks in the streets.

My Fourth of July is James Madison’s warning, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

Your Fourth of July is unbathed refugee children in filthy concentration camps sleeping on concrete floors in the open.

My Fourth of July is “nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Your Fourth of July is invasions and wars.

My Fourth of July is George Washington’s ““Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

Yours is the Confederate flag and nostalgia for the hierarchies of slavery.

Mine is Lincoln’s “all persons held as slaves … shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Yours is kowtowing to billionaires and disregard of public opinion.

Mine is “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Yours is profiling and discrimination.

Mine is “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Yours is “My country right or wrong.”

Mine is avoiding “Offences against the Law of Nations”

Yours is the repeal of universal health care and climate emergency denialism,

Mine is an America that cares about the wellbeing of our children.

Yours is politicians above the law.

Mine is, with Tom Paine, “in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Yours is drone attacks in countries against which we are not at war.

Mine is “and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”

Yours is NSA surveillance of millions of innocents

Mine is the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Yours is poverty wages and union-busting.

Mine is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Yours is off-shore drilling, coddling polluters and ‘all of the above energy”

Mine is a stewardship of America the beautiful for succeeding generations.

Yours is the privatization of war and the deployment of whole divisions of “contractors. . .”

Mine is an America where privates do not risk their lives for a tenth of what a mercenary is paid by the Pentagon.

Yours is the criminalization of the people’s protests.

Mine is, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Yours is over 800 military bases around the globe.

Mine is the America of ” Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”

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With apologies to Kahlil Gibran.

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