Saturday, July 02, 2005

Reflecting on the 4th

From time to time, certain holidays cause you to pause and think. The 4th of July, in America, usually invokes images of grilling out, vacations, swimming, camping or just hanging out with the family. This year those thoughts, although present, are greatly overshadowed by a more pressing concern. That concern being the future of this so-called "free" society.

I am deeply troubled by the powers in our Capital that seem to believe they are on the right track. We are involved in a war that has no end....bringing back memories of Walter Cronkite's closing remarks citing the death count in Viet Nam on a daily basis. The current situation, in my view, is much more troubling. We invaded a country, with the false intention of discovering that over-used phrase....Weapons of Mass Destruction. The weapons weren't there. The excuse given to the American People was false or unreliable intelligence. And the population accepted that and moved on. If we realized that the intelligence was wrong, why are we still occupying the country? Their population obviously doesn't want us there. On a daily basis, we see more and more bombings, killing innocent people as well as our own service people. And we accept the word of our "leaders" that their death was for a worthy cause. Yea, right.

Additionally, we now can expect to have land owned by us being taken by local governments if the land is needed for the good of the public. This can include gas stations, strip malls, fast food restaurants and huge shopping malls. Do we really need another damn mall? HELL NO!

Individual rights are rapidly being stripped away from us and we blindly accept this.....it's the patriotic thing to do. BULLSHIT. The crimes being committed by our elected leaders, in the name of freedom, patriotism and nationalism are no different from those crimes committed by a little German man in the 1930s and 1940s. Why is it that we cannot see the similarities?

We have become a complacent society.....we are uninformed, lazy and non-caring. This, I fear, will be our own downfall. We don't need to be attacked by terrorists again....we are destroying ourselves from within.

Happy 4th of July!

2 comments:

Jon Gilbert said...

All major empires throughout history have crumbled because of problems within. For some reason, America (and I am speaking generally for the leaders and most citizens)believes that she is indestructable and will be around forever regardless of her actions,ways of living and beliefs. Sadly, I too see us destroying ourselves, yet we fail to do anything about it. I fear that our kids and grandkids may know a world with no USA. What it will be I cannot say, but it won't be what I have fond memories of.

Zonker said...

As long as macho red neck is our National mantra, we won't pull out of the tailspin. First step is cutting our military spending to use the money to invest in America but even before that we need to get the underfunded and undermanned troops out of harm's way in Iraq. My nephew deploys there next month. An artillery National Guard unit that will be trained for a few weeks on being full time soldiers then sent in as MPs. Good luck to his unit and all those already stuck there.