Let’s be honest, it’s hard for a goodly chunk of Democrat Party voters to celebrate Independence Day every year, as they hate the U.S.
It’s hard to celebrate the Fourth of July this year
In 1975, PBS aired an episode of the documentary series Bill Moyers Journal called “Rosedale: The Way It Is”, about the firebombings of black families’ homes in Rosedale, then a predominantly white area of Queens, New York. A disturbing two-minute clip from the documentary — in which a mob of white children and teens verbally and physically abuse a group of Black children who were biking through the neighborhood — went viral after being posted on Twitter last year, prompting The New York Times to seek out those involved. They could find none of the assailants, but they tracked down a dozen of the victims, most of whom are now in their fifties.
As they were on their “bike hike,” they told the Times, they saw people gathered beneath an American flag, and, thinking it was a parade, they went over to have a look. “I laugh about it until this day, because it was a parade,” said Mark Blagrove, now 57. “To get the Black people out of Rosedale.” The children had stumbled into a rally for a white supremacist group then active in the area, and within seconds, they were surrounded and assaulted with racist epithets and stones.
“The American flag is the image when I think about that incident,” Renée Lipscomb-McDonald, now 58, said. “That’s the symbol that pulled us into that situation, because of the idea that we live in America, the American flag means good things … They took that beautiful image and turned it into something ugly for me.”
That’s right, The Week writer Jacob Lambert really went back to 1975 to find a way to show his hate for the flag (in mostly Democrat voting NYC), which is surely causing other Democrats to agree on how much they hate the American Flag.
On this Fourth of July, I’ve been thinking about those words, that video, and about how our symbols can mean radically different things to different people. On one side of that Rosedale street, the flag symbolized a place in which non-whites were unwelcome; on the other, it represented aspiration and hope. But as the crowd closed in, the latter meaning collapsed. In that moment, for both groups, there was only one way to interpret the flag.
In post-George Floyd America, with the nation’s racist rot exposed to a degree of sunlight not seen in years, Lipscomb-McDonald’s disillusionment seems appropriate. The ugly version of America feels unsettlingly present, as does the obvious fact that for the country’s people of color, it has always felt that way. Amid the rage and sadness of recent weeks, our rhetoric and our symbols — the soaring eagle, the land of the free — have come to feel like relics, as does the holiday on which those symbols coalesce.
See, when one person does something bad, which had nothing to do with the flag or really America (and let’s not forget that Minneapolis overwhelmingly votes Democrat), we have to hate on America and the flag. Especially on Independence Day. But don’t you dare say Democrats are unpatriotic and hate America.
Celebrating Independence Day — really celebrating it — has always necessitated a certain suspension of disbelief: We are asked to wear the colors and wave the flag as if it is V-Day, as if living here can bring us only joy. In some years — and especially for white people like myself, towards whom the American system tilts — this is not so hard to do. But in 2020, the prescribed exuberance feels out of step with our grim reality.
There are 6 more paragraphs of America hate. Are you surprised? Interestingly, these people never actually leave despite hating the nation so much.
We are lucky to live in the United States of America.
NuCons profess to “love” America, yet they clearly hate the majority of Americans. Black men and women, brown immigrants, non-christians, Democratic voters, scientists, liberals and moderates.
Often the ideal of America collides with the reality of America.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men (humans – men and women, white, Black, brown, native, straight, gay, christian, non-christian) are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As it turns out the ideal of these Truths was and is not true for many.
Perhaps in addition to beer, brats, fireworks, song and flag-waving we can have a moment of self-reflection on the ideals of America.
I used to think that Americans, liberal and conservative, sought the same destination but with different routes. I no longer believe that. It’s evident that conservatives, especially followers of the new “conservatism” want to preserve the status quo, if not to regress America to a status quo several decades old. How did we get here? Our elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, abandoned the ideal of serving the citizens and incorporated the ideal of serving corporate interests and the wealthy. Democratic politicians will deny it, but the Truth is in today’s America. We ignore expanding economic inequality at the nation’s peril.
There will always be some level of inequality in a robust capitalist economy, but the answer is not to eliminate but to modify capitalism to serve all Americans. Expanding inequality is not a natural outcome but was engineered by policy, both Democratic and Republican, that consistently redistributes societal productivity from the poor and working classes to the political donor class (the wealthy) – policies on taxation, healthcare, labor, trade, fiscal, monetary, patent, bankruptcies, worker safety, justice, policing – in fact, every policy favors the wealthy. Anyone recognizing these facts is now labeled a “communist” by the new conservative.
What if every American willing to work earned enough to support their family?
Nice little commie rant from Rimjob.
Bloviations and false assumptions aside try to enjoy the freedom and blessings of liberty our country provides on this 4th of July…
Or don’t.
Lolgfy
He forgot, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”.
Jeffery did that because this is the date the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848.
Still wrong after all these years.
E. Sibley Fluffer opposes American workers earning fair wages, probably because he doesn’t care since he sponges off the hard work of real Americans.
Jeffery L Keene, who never did an honest day’s work in his life, tries to change the subject since I called him on his Commie rant.
Edward Sibley Dutcher, you know better.
Edward Sibley Dutcher knows better. Or does he?
Edward Sibley Dutcher?
NuCons profess to “love†America, yet they clearly hate the majority of Americans.
No, we’re still the majority. And “scientists” have been wrong so often, criticizing them is a public duty.
As for black men and women, brown immigrants, and non-Christians, They’re all coming over to our side.
Trump’s letting your side hang itself.
Often the ideal of America collides with the reality of America.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men (humans – men and women, white, Black, brown, native, straight, gay, christian, non-christian) are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As it turns out the ideal of these Truths was and is not true for many.
Which many? Anybody can find a job these days.
Unless you’re in a blue lockdown Democrat state where your home and business have been destroyed by Lefty rioters.
Perhaps in addition to beer, brats, fireworks, song and flag-waving we can have a moment of self-reflection on the ideals of America.
Get ready for Comedy Gold.
I used to think that Americans, liberal and conservative, sought the same destination but with different routes. I no longer believe that.
Did you ever? And it would have been more accurate if you stopped at, “I used to think”, if, in fact, you ever did.
It’s evident that conservatives, especially followers of the new “conservatism†want to preserve the status quo, if not to regress America to a status quo several decades old. How did we get here? Our elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, abandoned the ideal of serving the citizens and incorporated the ideal of serving corporate interests and the wealthy. Democratic politicians will deny it, but the Truth is in today’s America. We ignore expanding economic inequality at the nation’s peril.
Well, you can thank the Ozark Mafia and the Choom Gang. They abandoned the ideal of serving the citizens and incorporated the ideal of serving corporate interests and the wealthy.
And we all know including Democrats is just another of your fronts. Commies and Demos are identical nowadays.
Now do you mean the “economic inequality” created by Demo politicians working hand-in-glove with Lefty corporate bosses?
And what “peril”, exactly? White upper-class thugs terrorizing people about black Lives Matter, but white lives don’t?
PS black is not capitalized, but Christian is, ignoramus.
There will always be some level of inequality in a robust capitalist economy, but the answer is not to eliminate but to modify capitalism to serve all Americans. Expanding inequality is not a natural outcome but was engineered by policy, both Democratic and Republican, that consistently redistributes societal productivity from the poor and working classes to the political donor class (the wealthy) – policies on taxation, healthcare, labor, trade, fiscal, monetary, patent, bankruptcies, worker safety, justice, policing – in fact, every policy favors the wealthy. Anyone recognizing these facts is now labeled a “communist†by the new conservative.
Only because they are.
What if every American willing to work earned enough to support their family?
You would be out of a job.
Hundreds of heavily armed protesters marched on the massive Stone Mountain monument to traitors Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/armed-protesters-march-through-georgias-stone-mountain-park/ar-BB16lbfg
Good for them
And when were Robert E Lee, Thomas Joseph Jackson, and Jefferson Davis tried and convicted of treason?
All things considered, you’re a bigger traitor than they are.