HAPPY 240TH BIRTHDAY USA

To the Hon. Charles P Pierce (title bestowed by me): This superb post is an example of why I read your blog. The patriotic holidays leave me in such a state of inner conflict that I have no words for the celebratory days. I made a sign for my Facebook page that says, "HAPPY 240TH BIRTHDAY USA" (below right), and that was it. Your post expresses in words what is in my mind and heart on this holiday especially. You did the homework and added your own eloquent words to form the perfect post.


Peace and thank you, Brother Pierce and thank you:

Marcy Otis Warren
Frederick Douglass
Susan B. Anthony
Martin Luther King
Lyndon B Johnson

There's no way to do Pierce's post justice except by reading it in its splendid entirety, with quotes from the distinguished names listed above and Pierce's own words.

So, here's to Marcy Otis Warren, and to Frederick Douglass, and to Susan B. and MLK and poor old LBJ, too, kickass women and kickass men who understood that we are children of Revolution, but that this Revolution was based on an enormous bluff that demands to be called by every American generation in its own way. And on this weekend, as we celebrate our independence with bright explosions across the night sky, take a moment and listen for the low rumbling of that land mine in history, detonating again and again, in a thousand places, like a heart that grows stronger with every beat.

A REMINDER AS WE CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus

UPDATE: Accompaniment to the picture and poem.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --

(Declaration of Independence)

Why is it more difficult each year to celebrate the holiday? As my friend Fran says, "I do not feel unpatriotic, I feel 'apatriotic'."

Today I'll let Leonard Cohen speak for me with his song "Democracy".


  

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Just in time to celebrate the Fourth of July.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Just to show that I really am patriotic, here's a video of the U S Marine Band playing John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell".  My father was fond of Sousa's marches,  so we grew up listening to them on the old wind-up Victrola and marching around the room in time to the music.



H/T to Counterlight, who reminded me of Sousa's marches.

Holiday card from someecards.com