Its just another big holiday weekend. That's the main thing. Independence from England? No meaning. England, and it's remnant claim to planetary power, is joined to, and operating in, tight cooperation with our American empire.
A good part of the population thinks it's some sort of flag day, though display of lots of flags is no longer the bright colorful special event it used to be before 9/11.
Large red, white and blue American flags now fly all year long from businesses large and small, from apartment houses, fire trucks, from the cars of super patriots, and painted on sides of buses and subway cars.
For many of us, following in Martin Luther King's footsteps, speaking out against our nations world wide violence and bloodletting, the sight of the flag has become more than uncomfortable. It broadcasts the image not of a dear and beloved nation under attack, but that of a self-proclaimed superior nation, lost in materialism and immorality, conquering the world.
One begins to sense a desperateness on the part of Americans very insecure of themselves, clinging to each other, wanting to be somebody. That without the flag they would not be able to feel good about themselves nor life itself. "Why doesn't that candidate have an American flag pin in his lapel."
And on the other hand, more and more Americans feel the flag, and the country it represents, have both been bought and do not belong to them. And the strange, weird, abnormal and frighteningly dangerous amorphous grouping of "important' 'educated', fine suit and tied internationally minded owners of the country and its flag have us in an ever tightening grip as as they pursue a criminally insane behavior in an clumsily controlled pursuit of power. We don't feel free let alone 'independent.'
We watch our sport fans at international competitions draping themselves in their countries colors as do the fans of other nations, insensitive to the reality that waving the flag of the superpower, dominating and dictating to the countries of the all the other fans, will be seen, by not a few, as arrogant boasting of superiority rather than the completely innocent and enthusiastic fun of cheering for one's nation's athletes that it is.
Its almost as if monster high above us is enjoying his job of blinding us to what the rest of Mankind (of which we are only 5%), feels when it sees our ubiquitous stars and stripes flag flying all over the world and shoved in its face on world encompassing U.S. satellite fed network TV; what people overseas feel when they connect that flag to uneasy, if not angry, thoughts of our armies, our army bases, our much heralded tens of thousands atomic bombs, our control of so much of Earth's resources, our past and future expected invasions and bombings of weaker nations, our stupid and ignorant bragging of our being the best country far and above.
That at least half of the country is blissfully unaware of what the rest of the world think of us and wouldn't care if it did, doesn't bode well for America's future even within its own presently hegemonied "community of nations." There will be consequences of this insular consciously self-imposed imperialist commercial culture Apartheid.
This 'America First' blessed and chosen to be "Ã ¼eber alles" climate has already created a significant amount of expatiates, who feel less comfortable in the U.S. that in any other place they can think of. We are refugees from our "the land of the violent' homeland and the oppressive feeling of complicity that comes with the turf. We try not to make the sight of the flag turn our stomach. It's only a flag. But it's the flag our military takes overseas.
But flags and national anthems can be changed. Some of us image a flag portraying the description of our country and the sense of its people heard in the lyrics and the music of the Ray Charles version of "America The Beautiful."
Someday there will be a holiday weekend to celebrate the birth of a kind and peaceful America.
1
1
1
