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Happy Fourth of July – Independence Day. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence. The Fourth of July is a holiday marking national independence, independence of the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire.
Our national independence has been secure for a long time, at least as long as I’ve been alive. During my lifetime, the real struggle in America has not been for national independence, but rather for personal independence.
1941 was the year that saw the last great assault on America’s national independence. Despite that, President Roosevelt chose in his 1941 State of the Union address to focus not on national independence, but instead on personal independence. This is what he said:
“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression-everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want-which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”
If we ever see a time when we have “secure[d] to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants” – freedom from want – then as far as I’m concerned, from that day forward, every day will be a holiday. For sure, every day will be worth celebrating.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
11 Comments
While celebrating Independence Day, it’s clear to many our political system has gamed the Constitution. Big money and casino politics laughs at Civics 101.
A small suggestion, a modest proposal. I doubt we can ever eliminate the Senate, but why not contain it? (The absurd amount of power it gives to tiny states with two senators in the Upper House is crazee.)
How about a Constitutional amendment to limit the powers of the Senate? (Like the Brits wanna pull in the Lords.) Let’s say, the Senate can delay but cannot deny legislation. So, if the more democratic and representative House passes a law, and the Senate rejects it, but the House passes it again, it goes to the President for signature?
How fair is that? More democratic, for sure…and fuck Wyoming, Oklahoma, North Dakota and the rest of those (can I say this?) crappy places….
(Will it happen? NO. But it should.)
The scribble above is just a piece of the puzzle. Hard trenched interests and inertia will defeat any change. We are empire now and it probably won’t have a happy ending.
Thanks Alan. Great words.
TPP…whooosh, there goes our sovereignty, courtesy of the freakin’ numb-nut Republicans, err, or is it Democrats? Whatever, small difference…
Mr. Grayson, you could not be more wrong. Do you not see the coup that has stripped the American people of a voice in their own government? Do you not see the essence of Occupy’s primary message that the 1% is a ruling elite that serves its own interests instead of the interests of the nation? Do you not see that it is not other nations but rather corporatism and greed that deprive us of our national sovereignty?
We are not a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Our national independence is most certainly not “secure”.
Allow me to offer a different quote from FDR:
There is no national sovereignty. Economic royalists have carved out new dynasties and built new kingdoms through the use of corporations and we have all been pressed “into this royal service”.
FDR went on to say:
The Minute Men were faced with problems that called for revolution. There was no viable alternative in 1776. There is no viable alternative today. To suggest that the nation is secure today fails to recognize the crisis that “once more confronts” us. To be sure, there are many struggles, as you suggest, to be fought for “personal independence”. Reclaiming our country, however, clearly must be the first priority.
Watch how our politicians degrade themselves, kneeling down to AIPAC:
http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/12/progressive-hero-alan-graysons-secret-life-as-an-aipac-tool/
America independent? Not on your life.
It’s unfortunate the we do not have a democracy but a plutocracy. But the rich always manage to find a way to buy off the politicians, don’t they?
If there were one patriotic Democrat who put country first before self interest, we would have had a primary for the Democratic candidate for President. Unfortunately, all of them put self interest before country first.
The Barefoot Accountant
It matters not (to me) if a man is a benevolent progressive in his front yard, if he’s a racist imperialist out back. Our choices however, are usually restricted to some degree of war criminal.
Therefore, activism is more important than voting.
Love it that you used what I’d thought was my signatire: whoosh, especially calling out this bilgewater.
In a time far away…two decades, mebbe, when Mother Jones was a serious investigative magazine, they showed us that there we no more svereign borders. All was Money, Money, corporate multinational ‘sovereignty’.
IMHO, if ya can’t see that truth, you deserve what ya get. Period.
Sorry, Alan. Your message of courage is pretty far off the mark.
Mr. Grayson, If you had been the one lone Democratic Holdout on the Health Care Reform Bill (withholding your yes vote for the principled reasons that it was mostly a giant gift to PHRMA and HIPA and for other good reasons), you might have retained your seat in the house.
You voted for it and like the other one termers that had come in on Obama’s Coattails (coattails which disappeared quickly) you fell off the cliff – the one Obama led you over with his Republican Policies and the Republican Bob Dole HIR (nee, HCR) Bill.
To give credit where credit is due, you appear to have a better understanding than Suzanne Kosmas of why you lost your seat. She seems to think that she wasn’t sufficiently conciliatory with the Rethuglicans.
BTW, Are you a dual citizen of Israel and America?
Okay… we’ve had Grayson discourse upon the elegance of slaughtering brown people on the cheap.
Then there was the diary where he took a turn exalting the ascendancy of the elites.
And now this praise of American “independence” and some mumbling about FDR… while the multinational and almost stateless elites who own the government outright continue to stomp heedlessly on the masses beneath them.
I wonder if there is anyone on Grayson’s staff with even a tenuous connection to the reality that we actually live in.