Notes from a snarky patriot
And now we celebrate – with booze, barbecued dead animal parts, & high explosives – the birth of the most Powerful Country On Earth, created by a document painstakingly handwritten on parchment with a sharpened quill dipped in the best homemade ink in a time before cellphones, typewriters, or even ballpoint pens were imagined, a time when only White, property-owning males could vote, or even mattered.
However, America overall has had a pretty good run the last couple of centuries, which Republicans insist can continue if we don’t get too “Woke” remembering its unforgettable track record of enslaving, hanging, etc., African Americans brought here in chains; the genocide and forced “conversion to the faith” of Native Americans, including many here in Sonoma by priests from St. Pedophilia’s (a.k.a, The Mission); the “harvesting” of millions of bison & other wildlife to fuel its Manifest Destiny (a/k/a The Gold Rush) as the nation expanded westward; and the countless millions lost in our Endless Wars – big, small, foreign, and domestic – always on-going somewhere.
Notwithstanding all that history, millions continue to seek sanctuary here from even worse conditions elsewhere. Yet this “nation of immigrants” (see: Statue of Liberty) still struggles to decide how many asylum-seekers it wants to live and work here at paltry wages and under constant fear of deportation.
Yet 247 years after Americans declared their Independence from England, it increasingly appears that unless one lives in a civilized country, like England, America is still the best place on the planet to raise a family and “Live Free or Die!” With death assured, Living Free is all that most Americans have to worry about.
That, and healthcare insurance, social security, a good education, food, affordable places to live, jobs that won’t be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, etc., etc.
But despite the tragi-comic America seen on the nightly news, things are getting better. The decades-old Afghanistan war that cost thousands of American lives and wasted billions of dollars that would have been better spent on, say, cancer research, finally ended when President Biden took office. Recreational killings by police are holding steady or trending down in some places; mass shootings in schools & elsewhere may be moderating to less than a half-dozen per day; and in what could be a new lifesaving war strategy, America is sending tens of billions of dollars and equipment – but no Americans! – to defend Ukraine.
Sure, Ukraine is not Pearl Harbor, but remember: America can always print more dollars (and does) but it can’t “print” more GI’s. That requires more births and/or immigration. With Congressional Republicans in an anti-immigrant mood, and those on the Supreme Court denying women’s rights to control their own birth decisions, America may – or may not – have enough GI’s to fill its body-bag quota in our next war.
So let’s make this July 4th the Very Best Ever! Let’s celebrate with wine and another great parade, and fill the night sky with explosive fireworks that terrify our wildlife, beloved pets. and small infants and send some of our toughest vets diving under the table.
And Never Forget: America is not only Great but Inventive. If we can train those chatty AI robots to shoot & salute, they could take on all the risks of fighting our Next Big War, which is undoubtedly scheduled in a foreign country somewhere, or at the Capitol in Washington, DC.
Right after the next election.
