The USA Is Not Just a Place

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Every year around Independence Day I like to re-read the Declaration of Independence. It's pretty good! These last few years the name "George" has kind of jumped off the screen for me, but here's the passage that really grabbed me this time:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.




Most of the Declaration of Independence is a list of charges against King George. Jefferson and the other signers knew they had to make the case for independence from England, but I also think they knew they were laying down markers for future citizens. Since then, the geographic boundaries of the United States have expanded and the Constitution has been amended because Things Change. And, granted, from its inception the US has mistreated people and misbehaved. But if I ask you to sum up the United States in one word, what would you choose? Up until the Bush administration, and even now, most people around the world would choose a positive word. That's changing, though, and we'd better right our course or we'll be nothing but a piece of land.







Reading the Declaration of Independence during the Bush administration always causes me to sketch my own list of charges:

Ignoring pre-9/11 warnings;
Unjust, illegal war and occupation with inadequate troop protections and terrible planning;
Spying on Americans without warrants;
Negligence/incompetence;
Cronyism/corruption, including no-bid war contracts to the VP's own company and politicizing the judiciary;
Unprecedented secrecy in a government that should be of, by, and for the People;
Fiscal mayhem;
Tax cuts to the wealthiest during a time of war and record deficits;
US ports remain inadequately protected to this day;
Fascist blurring of Corporate, Religious and Government interests
Use of troops as political backdrops;
Forcing troops to be redeployed over and over rather than drafting the general public;
Blaming troops for institutionalized torture;
oh yeah: Torture;
Hiding prisoners from the Red Cross;
Lying;
Gutting of environmental protections (often by making them voluntary);
Claiming the right to unchecked Executive powers during times of war, combined with a no-exit, no-endgame, endless War on Terror with undefinable parameters.

Why, those bastards!

Anyway, Happy Fourth. Keep your thumbs off those cherry bombs!