I’m feeling patriotic this 4th of July, more so than usual. 2020 has been brutal to the American psyche. The divisions have always been there through history, but the toxic stew of politics and pandemic stirred by a highly partisan press and a contentious president has brought the nation to a boiling point. We either turn down the flames or go up in them.
Both the left and the right have become obsessed with America’s legacy. The right wants to return to the dreamy days of Ozzie and Harriet, where the LGBTQetc. were closeted and abortions were consigned to dark alleys. Where minorities were only acceptable if they knew their place. Where manufacturing jobs were the staple of our economy, as long as they could keep the unions from driving up prices. Where we could merely rattle a sabre to keep the rest of the world in line.
And the left is intent on tearing down everything they hate about America. Every statue of any historical figure related to slavery, racism and capitalism is fair game. Anyone who deviates from the new morality or defends an unpopular opinion is labeled a misogynist, bigot and/or racist. And as Mick Jagger sang so long ago in Sympathy For The Devil, “every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints.”
If Donald Trump has any hope of being reelected, it’s because Americans are not quite ready to take a cultural guillotine to George Washington and Abe Lincoln. You can already see it in the campaign ads and Trump’s rhetoric.
I’ve been hoping that some “silent majority” would rise up and squash this bipartisan bullshit, but my imagined middle is missing in action. Oh, both sides claim they are the middle, but give them an inch and they’ll go for the jugular. It’s come down to all or nothing, or if that can’t be accomplished, secession. And given that today’s divide has more to do with rural versus urban than north versus south, dividing up real estate would be very problematic.
Being the eternal naive optimist, I’d like to think that there is still time to right the ship of state before it breaks up and sinks into the abyss, leaving a power vacuum to the likes of the Russian oligarchs and the communist Chinese.
Not to forgive the sins of the past, but to learn from them. If you really look at our history, that is the true promise of America. The flawed founders wrote a constitution that allowed us to change with the times, and over two centuries we’ve worked at addressing the rights of those left out of the original charter. It’s just been too damn slow getting there.
So I salute the old flag, not for the past injustices done in its name, but for the possibility of the free and united nation it still could be. Our independence relies on our interdependence. Never a perfect union, but closer to it.
It’s up to us.
Well done, Bob. Happy 4th of July.
“Never a perfect union, but closer to it.”
And which side of the moral spectrum, (I refuse the historical depiction of politics), has fought us, tooth and nail, by whatever means necessary, from that natural progression toward a “more perfect union”? The founders, deeply flawed as they were by today’s standards, made an Earth-shattering, monumental leap in that direction, especially in comparison to the world before their declarations. And in their time, and ever since, there has been the ugly face of profit and privilege over social equality, fighting to hold us in it’s immoral grip, ever reminiscent of times before our nations’ leap into the future.
People couldn’t vote, because they didn’t own land. We corrected that.
Slavery was allowed. We corrected that.
Women couldn’t vote. We corrected that.
Many issues that became paramount, once larger issues were addressed, were likewise corrected, albeit over the wailing of those who felt slighted by the action. And each and every time, it was the morality, not the politics, of the majority that changed things for the better.
Ever, and always, it has been the same mindset of those who wish us to remain at some stagnant point, if not moving backwards, that has kept us from progressing toward that ever-moving goal of a more perfect union. And to that end, I will never stop opposing those who would cease our manifest destiny of a truly free and equal society, that recognizes the worth of all human life, accepts our role as stewards of this planet, rewards labor as an equal to capital, and works, to create union rather than devise schemes meant to divide and profit from that division.
Long live the USA and it’s never-ending quest for a more perfect union, begun in earnest this day in 1776.
The country will pull through this. As divided as we are, we’re still resilient.
Read Frederick Douglass’ 4th of July speech to abolitionist women. Or listen to James earl Jones read it on you tube. He really reads them the riot act (politely of course).
Even better, watch his descendants recite it-https://www.npr.org/2020/07/03/884832594/video-frederick-douglass-descendants-read-his-fourth-of-july-speech
Thank you, as always, Bob, for your thoughtful drawing and words!
What an intelligent idiot you are.
Definatly not comical. Just another lefty.
Always nice to hear from such an open minded individual. Have a nice day, Yankee Doodle.