Fourth of July
By Merrily
Davies
The
Fourth of July gives rise to thoughts, patriotic and poetic. I love
America for the goodness, creativity, confidence, independence and
genius of her people. I love America for the boundless energy and
diversity of her cosmopolitan cities. I love America for the vast,
incredible beauty of so much of her landscape. I love the freedoms
that many Americans take for granted, and the documents that keep
us free. We have so much, and Americans for the most part, are supremely
blessed. So, the contrast of what follows in this article disturbs
me deeply.
I am ashamed
that throughout the world we are perceived as bullies and aggressors.
Our "to hell with the rest of the world" foreign policy
puts the world's population including Americans at terrible risk.
Our president after 9/11 asked, "Why do they hate us? We're
good." He obviously intended the question to be rhetorical,
but it is a question we all should be asking
reflectively.
I am ashamed
that a substantial answer was not even attempted by the press, and
we allowed ourselves to be pacified and placated by homilies from
an ignorant president. They don't hate us "for who we are."
They don't hate us because they "envy us our freedoms."
They hate us for what we have done to them.
I am ashamed
that the real reason we are in Afghanistan is to gain a foothold
in that region for the oil reserves that grace the country to its
north, as well as to gain control of Afghanistan's drug trade that
facilitates the machinations of Wall Street.
I am ashamed
that U.S. citizens bought into the lie, told by the administration
and perpetuated by our press: that we went to war in Iraq over weapons
of mass destruction that we sold to them and that had already been
destroyed during U.N. inspections. It was clear from the outset
that the evidence didn't hold water. It was clear all along that
it was really about oil and political and economic domination. I
am ashamed that we have killed many times the people in a war based
on lies than were killed in the World Trade Center, an event that
had nothing to do with Iraq, but everything to do with the lies
about Iraq.
I am ashamed
that the Bush Administration has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, the first time in history that the U.S. has reneged
on a major international arms control agreement. I am ashamed that
there was no national outrage.
I am ashamed
of the part the U.S. played in the overthrow of Aristide, the democratically
elected president of Haiti, in order to facilitate control of oil
shipment routes between the U.S. and Venezuela, with complete disregard
for the lives and well being of the people of this poor country.
I am ashamed
of the decades-long embargo we have enforced against the small nation
of Cuba to starve it out of existence. Does our foreign policy really
require an embargo of this itty bitty, absolutely insignificant,
economic gnat? Is it because a government is oppressive that they
get this kind of treatment from American policy? Not really. We
have supported hundreds of dictators around the world, regardless
of what they did to their own people, as long as they provided conditions
for cheap labor, or sold us their resources at bargain basement
prices. I am ashamed that there is no national outrage.
But, I truly
love America and the documents that aspire to keep us free. I wish
we would direct our pledge of allegiance to the Bill of Rights instead
of to such an easily manipulated symbol as the flag. I am proud
and grateful to have the right to voice my own feelings and opinions.
I may not be "with" this adiminstration, but that does
not make me "with" the terrorists. Anyone who holds that
dissent is unpatriotic obviously doesn't understand what America
is about.
The Constitution
was drafted by elites. The Bill of Rights was the demand of the
People as a precondition for accepting the Constitution. In the
Bill of Rights our most precious freedoms were put right up front
in the First Ammendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances." These are all about the freedom
to be who we are, and to express who we are without interference.
A government that empowers and is responsive to its own people is
a government whose wrongs can be righted.
But these are
not just American rights. They are fundamental human rights. If
we don't observe the rights of other human beings and nations to
autonomy and self determination, Bin Laden's infamous words will
become tragically prophetic, and not only America, but the whole
world, will indeed become "a shadow of herself".
"America,
America, God shed his grace on thee." May we, as Americans,
endeavor to deserve our heritage.
Visit us at
ProgressiveWritersBloc.com.
|