I’ve taken it upon myself to be a constant reminder to as many Americans as I can reach with my limited social media presence and time constraints, that our government is currently engaged in a genocide. Most Americans either want to pretend that this fact either doesn’t exist or that it is inevitable or unstoppable. Some have been completely taken in by U.S./Israeli propaganda and gleefully support the genocide as if there were over 17,000 child terrorists running roughshod over Gaza or hang gliding into Israel to rape and pillage. This is appalling and I’ve written about it many times since Oct. 7^th but as the title implies this isn’t about that directly, it’s about the 4^th of July. 

The title above was actually a typo but it seemed so apropos that I had to leave it. The conscious of America has been hijacked by money, the money that supports a small terrorist nation in the Middle East known as Israel. I’ve also written extensively about the terrorist origins of the state of Israel and the subsequent reign of terror against the Palestinians that has continued almost unabated until this very day. I won’t rehash that either but will add this thought. To paraphrase the old English ballad, the world has truly turned upside, when I find myself praising Ronald Reagan and the current crop of republicans who wish to stop funding the Israeli genocide. For as someone reminded me recently, if you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, it’s still the right thing.
              Which brings me to the point of this essay. American attitudes surrounding the celebration of the Fourth of July, the day we celebrate the independence of our settler colonial state, which in reality was only independence for white, land-owning men. The country that those men created was built on the genocide of one people and the enslavement of another. Two horrifying acts that have never been adequately recompensed and the ramifications of which are still felt today in the systems of white supremacy ingrained in our legal, government and educational systems. In the document that declared their independence from empire the revolutionaries famously said 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.” Many books have been written about how this oft quoted line from the Declaration of Independence has never truly applied to all Americans, but the irony of Independence Day is not lost on those Americans whose promise it has left out in the cold.

              In his book, The Third Reconstruction Reverend William Barber describes three times during U.S. history where there were forces trying to be more inclusive only to be beaten back by the far right reactionaries determined to keep the power structures of white supremacy intact. Those periods were in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, the civil rights era of the 1950’s and 1960’s and early in the 21^st century when the United States  elected its first black president. Reverend Barber’s book was published in 2016 before the failures of the Obama administration were fully understood and before racist legislatures effectively stalled the Black Lives Matter movement. This included inaction by the federal legislature to tackle racism and voter suppression.

              Which brings me to my 4^th of July experience. As many of you know it has haunted me that the country I served for twenty years has sunk so far into moral depravity that we are actively engaged in genocide. As I’ve said many times before normalizing genocide in the most powerful, nuclear capable, nation in the world puts the whole world at risk. If Biden faces no consequences for his actions the next genocide and there will be another, will be worse and might actually involve people you care about.

              The reason I attended the parade was I wanted our politicians to see a Palestinian flag when they were busy glad handing the locals. Governor Shapiro and Representative Dean are both from the town I live in and I knew them when they were running for lower office. As a matter of fact, I canvassed for both during their campaigns. Senator Casey is from President Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa and I didn’t know he was going to be there but that was an added bonus.

              The parade starts at the VFW post parking lot at the end of my block so I took my Palestinian flag topped with my Veterans of Peace flag and walked the parade route. My neighborhood has always been a strange mixture of trump Maga’s and more socially conscious citizens so I really didn’t know what to expect. The reactions to the Palestinian flag were an equally mixed bag.

              One of the parade marshals confronted me and tried to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to bring the flag onto the parade route and tried to get a member of the local constabulary to remove me and to that officer’s credit he reminded the parade official that I had a 1^st amendment right to be there. When he came over to talk to me, he said the parade marshal was afraid I might try to block the parade and when I assured him that I wouId stay on the sidewalk he told me that I have every right to be there. I’ve been leery of the local PD ever since I had a conversation with the chief a few years ago when I asked him to explain to me why African Americans  make up 13% of the population but make up 60% of the marijuana arrests when studies have shown that marijuana use among African Americans is no higher than among their white counterpoints. The chief trotted out the old racist trope of African Americans from the city coming out to our suburban paradise and not being aware that they enforce marijuana laws more strictly in our suburb. I was pleasantly surprised that the officer defended my right to be there but my suspicious nature told me things might have been different if I would have been a young black man instead of an old white guy.

I did notice a few trump signs but no one confronted me. I could hear a few negative remarks behind my back. One house gave me an ovation that I thought was a positive sign and one house had a lawn sign that identified the tribe of Lenape Indians who used to inhabit the land that our town is on. They were very supportive of my pro-Palestinian message and I handed out some buttons and hand signs. The signs had the line, “No Pride in Genocide,” on one side and the story of eight-year-old Ibraheem, child victim of the genocide who dreamed of being a football star and was killed along with two sisters and seven other members of his family. The 4^th of July is nominally to celebrate the independence of our country but the surrealism of it all couldn’t escape me. What are we actually celebrating?  It bring to mind one of the most insightful things I’ve ever read by a writer I admire:

The biggest obstacle to our freedom is people’s belief that they are already free. The biggest obstacle to a functional society is the widespread belief that we are already living in one. The empire’s single strongest weapon is its ability to dissuade the masses from revolution by psychologically manipulating them away from the ability to see that revolution is necessary.

Caitlin Johnstone

Americans actually believe that we live in a free country when all you have to do is look at the violent backlash from law enforcement to the Black Lives Matter and the anti-Palestinian Genocide protesters. As Caitlin states , “Empire’s biggest weapon is to dissuade the masses from revolution by psychologically manipulating them…”  The United States has one of the most docile populaces in the western world. We are allowed debate within narrow  constraints to paraphrase the great Noam Chomsky but if you threaten the power structures of empire the full weight of authority comes crashing down on you. Just look at Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Gary Webb, to name a few. The psychological manipulation is so complete that millions of Americans now believe that supporting genocide is the right thing to do and sneeringly refer to people of conscience who won’t support genocide as “One issue voters,” as if that one issue is not the greatest evil the world has ever known.

As the politicians approached me and saw me holding the Palestinian Flag, they immediately crossed the street to work the crowd on the other side of the street. They had their backs facing me and they pretended that they didn’t see me but I made sure that they heard me. “Governor Shapiro, No pride in genocide. You’re a disgrace. Senator Casey, no pride in genocide. Representative Dean, no pride in genocide.” None of the cowards would respond to me. As a matter of fact they pretended I didn’t exist. Just like they pretend the Palestinians don’t exist.

My experience of race relations in my hometown always made me wonder about the ethnic makeup of our parade. In a town whose chief of police made clear to me his hostility towards minorities, I wondered why the bands and dance groups were mostly minorities. I hoped it was done in the spirit of inclusion and in an effort to expand the consciousness of the white majority but I don’t know. Although we’ve been spared the racialized violence of nearby cities such as Philadelphia, we still have white supremacists groups papering our neighborhood with their odious ideology and a police chief that thinks we are being invaded by young African American males from the city.

As they passed by many members of the bands and dance groups gave me the power salute or nodded their heads. As I stood there with my Palestinian flag a group from Honduras passed by. It was always the largest group in the parade and the significance of that fact probably escaped most of my fellow parade goers. Several years ago, President Trump referred to countries in Central and South America as “shithole countries,’ and their citizens who were trying to find a better life here as “criminals and rapists.” The cruelty of the immigration policy proposed by many of our politicians and supported by millions of Americans ignores two important facts. One, the reason so many countries are struggling is because of constant U.S. interference in their internal affairs and Honduras is a prime example. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, supported the military coup that ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Berta Carceres, an indigenous environmental activist, shortly before her assassination, pointed to Hillary Clinton as responsible for the ongoing after-effects of Zelaya’s ouster.  Clinton pushed for elections to legitimize the coup where President Zelaya would not be allowed to stand.  After the coup, Honduras descended into chaos and many Hondurans fled to the U.S. border to escape the resultant violence.

Most Americans are unaware that similar dynamics have taken place in many countries all over the world. Here we are celebrating the independence of the United States being entertained by people from a country we helped destroy. That fact, coupled with the U.S. involvement in an ongoing genocide added an surrealistic air to the proceedings. The thought would not go away that millions of Americans are blissfully unaware of the true evil perpetrated by our country. All the bunting, fireworks, and grilled meats can not make that stain disappear. Then it was over. A line of emergency vehicles and fire trucks signaled the end of the parade. People began to disperse and with a touch of melancholy I walked back to my house.

As a small child, I witnessed the turmoil of the 1960’s civil rights and antiwar movement on the nightly news, two struggles that our society is still grappling with fifty-five years later. As a young man in my patriotic fervor, my true, red, white and blue fervor I believed that things would get better, that our society would evolve into one where truly  “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.”

Unfortunately, my youthful naivete was squashed by the weight of current events. I lived through the worsening economic woes of the Reagan years with the anti-unionism that began with the firing of the air traffic controllers, and saw right to work laws erode the ability of worker to organize, the war on terror that saw a huge erosion of civil rights under democratic and republican administrations alike, the opioid epidemic, the suicide epidemic among veterans of our forever wars and the constant warfare state that has killed millions of innocent civilians since the end of World War Two and been an unfathomable drain on public resources that could have been better used to help our citizens. This is a bipartisan  horror show and the fact that millions of people believe that the system of electoral politics that created the current broken system will somehow fix the broken system is disheartening. For the men and women who control the purse strings the system is working exactly as planned.

Now we find our country sinking to depths of moral depravity that I thought would never be possible. The Gaza genocide has shaken me as no other event of my lifetime. We have exceeded ten 9/11s and the majority of victims are women and children.  The Biden administration’s full participation in the Gaza genocide being perpetrated on the Palestinians makes it imperative that we make a choice. Do we return to the days of our founding which were mired in genocide and slavery or do we resist and attempt to give this country  “a new birth of freedom,” as Abraham Lincoln famously said in his Gettysburg Address. Do we allow the country to continue its slide into depravity or do we resist with every fiber of our beings the monster that our country has become?

As a constant critic of our country, I’m often asked if the United States is so bad why don’t you leave? If you hate our country, why don’t you leave? The answer is twofold. One, I don’t hate our country. I love my country, not for what it is or has ever been but for what it could become if it ever lived up to the promise of that one little phrase in our foundational document, “All men are created equal…” when our government treats all citizens, men and women as having equal value then and only then will we live up to that promise of greatness. The second part of my answer has to do with the nature of patriotism. Too many Americans have the simplistic, my country right or wrong, brand of patriotism that has allowed our country to be the perpetrator of great evil. I have never accepted that kind of patriotism. I have always been of the mind that true patriots fight to make their country a better place for all. True patriots fight for the marginalized and don’t wait until, as the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöllet said “… they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

I left the 4^th of July parade with a tinge of melancholy but also a tiny sliver of hope that shone through the red, white and blue. It was kept alive by the people who acknowledged the humanity of the Palestinian people with a nod or a hand gesture. If you were one of those people, know this. If the ruling elites manage to destroy our society, which at this point seems almost inevitable, I will be looking for you. You are my hope for the future of our society and if we band together the United States might become truly great for the first time in its history.

Buy me a cup of coffee

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