The True Fourth of July

On this 4th of July night the nation is engaged in a frenzy of merry making, celebrations, parties and  thanksgiving over that most blessed gift, Human freedom and dignity.  But this evening as the fireworks fill the skies over our cities and citizens nation wide eat their barbecue not all Americans are celebrating.

I am an African-American, I live in a major city in the eastern part of the nation, I have never willingly waved a flag or sung the pledge of allegiance even as a child and yet I am native born to this land, as American as any American!

In George Orwell's book 1984, the author speaks of a process where the wars a nation fights are not meant to cease but to go on year in, year out, decade in, and decade out for the sole purpose of maintaining the status quo. 

George Bush calls himself a war president.  The real term is "war-time president," meaning a President during a time of war. No President should be in office to wage war.  A President's primary goal should be to wage civilization. 

The point is that while war is furthered poverty grows, while our court system become macabre finance companies for the States, squeezing the poor and indigent of Moines in the form of  parole fees and court fees, justice goes wanting. True Justice is NOT justice at someone else's expense.

Our nation locks up and locks down millions of people but the broader justice remains elusive, a justice where those responsible for creating or perpetuating a condition in which crime and corruption flourishes and remains unpunished. An awareness of the Larger Injustices of our nation is what is needed now.

Still, there will be those who say America, love or leave it or go even further as many have and say  "go back to Africa" or where ever, but those are the cries of small, frightened men clinging to their fears, afraid that THEY may have to change in order for America to become America.

It is a necessary thing to criticize America for her short comings without losing faith in her essential potential to go beyond being a nation of hucksters, hustlers ,snake oil sales men, casual or institutional racists or crime families committed to making their lives better at someone else's expense.

This thread of "take what you can-when you can-from whom you can" runs through our entire history as Americans and explains much of our conduct as a nation, from the wanton holding of slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the support of dictators for oil and strategic metals today.

2000 years ago there was an idea that was Rome, a place where men  and women fought and died for the idea that people could live together in peace and equality.  Rome's true self was lost to greed and corruption often masked by displays of ceremony and grandeur to keep the population miss directed.  

It is still the same today in Washington where men speak words they have not written to selected crowds in staged media events.  They talk a kind of word-speak where they use hot button terms to get people fired up to do their bidding on issues which are used merely to disguise their intents to covet what the world has in the name of democracy.  Don't think for a moment that the elite care about you because you are white, or a veteran; they don't need you, and you are expendable.

We in America claim to be the  inheritors of that once great republican idea that undergurded the foundations of Rome, the question now is: is that idea worth working toward. I say that it is .

But the quest for the True Fourth of July in the True America must begin with mutual respect for one another, for the truth and for our collective right to live a better, more meaningful life, not just a life with more or bigger possessions .

My original concerns still stand.  What I believe is that America is intolerant of the demand for full participation by minority groups in general and by African Americans in particular. The deliberate removal from the voting roles and subsequent labeling of persons in Florida as felons during the 2000 election, many of them African Americans is a prime example of my argument.

That there be a frank discussion of issues of fundamental, entrenched bigotries so pervasive as to be invisible, so invisible as to be pervasive, be put on the table and discussed not with rancor and fist shaking but with an epic calm.

Because we are a nation of schemers, go-getters, rugged individualists and hustlers we are often unable to work together as a nation until there is a crisis and then we usually work against our own interests, we  point fingers at one another , blame someone else, blame the poor, the Italians, the Germans or the Japanese as we did in the second world war. 

In the south the white man blamed the black man for his troubles after the Civil War, resulting in 100 years of disenfranchisement, the economic and cultural equivalent of placing a 100 pound mill stone around a man's neck and then expecting him to run a foot race uphill. The happy inheritors of this legacy can be found today in the mean-spirited, money-motivated politics of the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party. Their hoods replaced with dark, blue suites.

As for reparations, the discussions of reparations cannot begin with questions of money, the issue is not about money and it is an insult to suggest that it is. The question of reparations is a multi-dimensional pursuit to become who we can become as a nation. Within those dimensions is the question of admitting of the facts, that these things did happen  and their result is still with us today.  

Only then can the nation  purge itself of guilt for its crimes, disgorge itself of racism and begin the true healing process, a process which will take many years if not decades to complete.  The true Fourth of July is then something which we living now should not hope to celebrate but hope that our children shall, for when the day spoken of in this text does dawn it will be the Fourth of July not just for America but for the world, no matter what date it falls on......

One Year ago, on the Fourth of July 2003 I published this article on the internet resulting in some debate on my comments about our values as a people, on the meaning of the Fourth of July in the United States and it's deeper meaning. Every year for the rest of my life this article shall be published anew with additional commentary about the state of race relations and justice in the United States. Until the United States scrubs itself  clean of the stench of  Racism, Oppression and injustice in all of its contrived forms, this discourse shall go on and on ...and on.

And then, we have these essays in the GENERAL ESSAYS category which don't seem to fit anywhere in particular:

By Reason Alone..  That Roosevelt can do no wrong is Burroughs’s opinion; and that Burroughs is always right is Roosevelt’s opinion.  Both are agreed that animals do not reason.  They assert that all animals below man are automatons and perform actions only of two sorts—mechanical and reflex—and that in such actions no reasoning enters at all.  They believe that man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that ever does reason.

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No man is an island, is an old saying that was meant to say that no man stood alone, but needed help from others, and gave strength to others.  But, here is the story of an island that was a man.  In the short history of time, there was one island that was a monument to a single man.  It starts out like a fairy tale.. Once upon a time there was a barren island.    This almost insignificant little man was sent off to this barren island and turned it into a mirror of his soul and the fulfillment of his vision.  One stick at a time he turned his barren island into a work of lasting, world-renowned beauty and peace, an island where the nightingales sang songs of singular wonder ne'er found elsewhere since this little man set down roots on a barren island, and bloomed. 

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Most of man's dreams are based on false assumptions. We dream of loping free with the wolves, but really don't like fleas. We dream of the security that lambs must feel, but don't want to be sheared. We dream of being lions, but gag at eating raw meat. We dream of being loved, but can't see the way or take the time to make ourselves lovable.

Was There EVER A Man On The Moon?  How far can reason alone take us from the beaten path of acknowledged history?

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A Definition Of History by Leo Tolstoy gives us yet another peg to hang our ratiocinations upon.

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Definition of Art?

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Charity never faileth, especially when our hearts fill to overflowing with charity.

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Global Warming freezes thermometers 

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Man, the Meanie of the Planet.  This is a high resolution pdf document so you can print it out and hang it on the wall.  Be sure to RIGHT Click the link, and save it to your computer.

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Are we forever Doomed?  An essayic poem by Rudyard Kipling

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I see Grandpa. He's calling out for me.

God Does Not Fit  -- by Lance Nalley

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SOCIALISM, Slavery and Tyranny by R. J. Harris

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Deliberate Fraud:  Evolutionists resort to the lowest forms of fraud in order to gain more believers.

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When Theories fail.. Petty science teachers can rage until doomsday that no two snowflakes are identical, but until every snowflake that has ever fallen or ever shall fall is matched against every other snowflake that has already fallen or ever shall try to fall -- the identical snowflake theory remains just a theory resting in lolly-gagging land.

That first day of school  

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A Break From Boredom  --  by Lance Nalley

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INVICTUS... Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit, from pole to pole 

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The gods and Heroes of the Ancient World 

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Staunch, steadfast, loyal and true.  What better friend can a man have?

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Friendship, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart was free again, -- O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red, All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, And is the mill-round of our fate A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.

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This Web is MY Web  

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A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

The Moon on Six Pence Uncle Bob was an unforgettable character who traveled the world on bargain rates and golden smiles!

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The Almost Good Housekeeping monograph is a good excuse for the harried homemaker to put off until tomorrow all those burdens of yesteryear, and quit trying so hard.

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Sex before the Sax:  The first thing I learned about Lois was she had a label for being froward.  Kids at school said she had had sex with Alfred.  Not long after I arrived, another boy came forward to admit he had made a score at her door.

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Old Rattler, and the King Snake. 

Down and Dirty with Darwin  Evolutionists are now feeling so battered that university professors advise their students not to discuss this theory with non-believers.  "Sounds like a religious cult to me," say some.

Pleasures of the open fire: The Fireplace Revisited.

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