The Fourth of July, Independence Day, as American as…
Apple Pie… Or should that be as the massacre of elementary school children by automatic weapon?
As American as the national pastime…
No, not Baseball – although that is quite popular too, but the hunting and execution of black men. As we saw this week in the case of Jayland Walker with eight police officers shooting a black man sixty times who was being stopped for a traffic violation.
Oh, but it was so nice to hear the police explain how they had done everything they could to save him, even administering first aid as he died.
Everything?
Are you quite sure that was everything?
I mean you could for example have not shot the guy 60 times – just a thought.
What sort of mentality creates a scenario where police officers are shooting someone 60 times, a culture where these Black Lives clearly Do Not Matter?
Certainly the objective of shooting someone 60 times isn’t to stop them being a perceived threat, or arrest them; it is to execute them without any possible doubt or escape.
Think about that the next time you hear someone say “the land of the free”, the state’s law enforcement are quite happy to execute someone on the street, no trial, not attempting to achieve any other ending other than a corpse riddled with bullets. Ah – the home of the brave, shooting an unarmed man who was running away again and again and again…
So what does America have to celebrate this Fourth of July?
What must all of the millions of decent Americans, and there are many of them, make of how the world sees them?
The Supreme Court repealing female rights, the ongoing failure to bring Trump to justice for backing the violent overthrow of the US government, the apparent impossibility of doing anything to reduce guns despite the terrible events occurring so frequently?
The Second Amendment, apparently the most sacrosanct document in American history, is from 1791 allowing the bearing of arms. This probably made good sense then – they were dangerous times what with Napoleon Bonaparte on the rise.
It wasn’t until the 13th amendment in 1865 that they thought to ban slavery! It was only in 1878 that the US had it’s last witch trial.
America is like an Amish community who has decided that a certain point in time must be frozen and kept the same forever. When it comes to considered conversation about the role of deadly weapons in society apparently year zero was 1791 and no further discussion after that date should be considered.
The system of government seems less a democracy and more a corrupt theocracy where the citizens intone the absolute necessity of following amendments that made sense a couple of hundred years ago but are plainly ridiculous now with the advancement of military technology.
Honestly if small tactical nuclear weapons were put on the market these buggers would be protesting their constitutional right to have one.
Meanwhile educators in Texas have proposed using the term “involuntary relocation” rather than slavery when teaching 2nd graders. Fortunately the State Board of Education voted it down.
Of course part of the problem is being a Republic rather than a single Democracy. Individual states passing their own laws, which is fine if you’re happy to have highly advanced progressive states on the coasts but a morass of guns, good ole boys, and no LGBT bathrooms, everywhere in between.
A 1950s, or should that be 1850s, theme park where locals can have all the racism, bigotry, repression, and what-god-wants, the local state will allow. And for some of the states at the bottom or in the middle of the map that is actually quite a lot, fill your boots.
We see the divisions that Trump could prey upon, every country has divisions but they don’t seem as large or as complete as those in America. You have to wonder at what point individual States will start leaving the Union.
America has achieved many great things, there are many great Americans, but it seems that any role as the leader of the free world is done and dusted, the military aside. Certainly any claim to higher moral authority has been dismissed with the treatment and torture of Prisoners of War we have seen in recent decades.
So here is America’s Independence Day remembering 1776, a date that you may notice precedes the second amendment funnily enough, and what do we think of?
The images of modern day America, of award show celebrity slaps, of mass violence and poverty, of medieval religious views being imposed on the non-religious, they play out like an episode of professional wrestling directed by Donald Trump.
The state of their government, the President with seemingly no authority and a group of high priests in robes on the Supreme Court apparently now in charge of determining major issues like abortion rights, or addressing climate change, with no need to worry about getting voted out – like medieval kings.
You used to be the beacon to the world of freedom, of liberty, of opportunity but now what?
Best in the world at hunting down and executing unarmed Black Men as we saw from the camera footage overnight? Honestly guys you were more honest about your racism when you were wearing bed sheets rather than police uniforms, certainly the result was the same.
Is this how other nations are destined to end up a sea of misinformation and partisanship, beholden to the interests of lobbyists?
Why are things going so badly in America compared to other comparable countries, the repression of women’s rights, the guns, the racism? What is different about America?
I can think of two obvious answers.
Firstly – God.
While religion, certainly in terms of impacts on peoples lives, is fading into history in most other countries it is strong in America. Candidates have to pretend to be religious in order to stand for office, so many of them are forced to lie from the get go.
The problem being that powerful Americans seem to see religion not as a reason to do good works, to be charitable to those less fortunate, but as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card.
In a society where being seen to go to rehab is often a cynical ploy to avoid responsibility for actions we also have the unedifying sight of plainly not religious people saying they have asked God for forgiveness worn as an amulet of immunity.
Groups like pro-lifers which would be seen as weird anachronistic minorities in other countries actually seem to influence actual power.
The other distinction is unregulated capitalism - designed for a small minority of people to exploit the majority for immense wealth without the safety nets or laws available to provide a level of protection in other countries.
It has created a survival of the fittest society sadly in which the following is perhaps truest:
As American as guns and violence.
My advice would be stop going to churches and join a union, tell your politicians you will not vote for them if they take one single dollar from the arms industry , and sadly move to a better state if your local one is under the control of bigots.
For the decent Americans who throw up their hands and say “enough, I’m off to New Zealand”, or Canada, or somewhere in Europe, or wherever, I say welcome home, but leave the puritanicals behind this time eh.
Best you start by learning the national anthem:
From the US Declaration of Independence 1776
"...The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only....
...and so on read the sad litany here:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
But perhaps needless to say the full list sounds exactly like everything the Trump/Republican Administration was doing !
Sadly, never a truer word written 🙏
On too many an occasion I feel like I live in NZ s equivalent of Florida … WBOP 😢