If celebrations are meant to feel proud and happy of what is, than how can I celebrate the birth of this Nation?(Yes I am alluding to that film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nationin which the KKK is depicted as heroic).Yesterday “President”Trump stood at Mt. Rushmore on July 3rd with his entourage of syncophants decrying the destruction of statues honoring slave holders, racists, traitors in the Confederacy. He disregarded the fact that the land he stood on belongs to the Lakota Sioux Nation, that the genocide of the native Americans was how the land was acquired. He has betrayed us in more ways than I can count and decries the protestors who are fighting for black lives and true justice as treasonous. Ahem, a bit of projection? And I don’t mean film.
I am the granddaughter of immigrant refugees escaping the pogroms and the egregious horrors of the Holocaust. My wonderful mother-in-law of blessed memory had a cross burned on her front lawn in Leggonaire, Indiana when she was a girl in the 1920’s. My father-in-law was fired from the American Federation of Labor Radio Station in Chicago during the Depression because he was a Jew. FDR wouldn’t help the Jews of Europe during the time Hitler was sending them to Concentration Camps and mass murdering them. A boat of Jews seeking refuge at our shores was turned away and sent to their deaths.
FDR sent masses of Japanese Americans to concentration camps, while Nazi’s were allowed to hold a massive rally at Madison Sqaure Gardens. These Nazi loving American citizens were accepted, as our European allies were invaded by Hitler’s troupes!
When my father and uncles served in Army and Navy, they were subject to anti-Sememtic discrimination, as were the Black, brown, Native American, and Japanese soldiers and sailors. Still, they willingly served our country in WWII.
Our family was aware that our America needed improvement, when it came to discrimation and bigotry. In neighborhoods along the north shores of Lake Michigan, signs stood at the entrance to the upscale suburbs: NO DOGS; NO N—-ERS; NO JEWS.
Nevertheless, my father proudly flew the flag, marched with the Jewish Veterans of War in 4th of July parades, We were proud to be Americans, and we believed our country was a wondrous leader of the free world. It was the best of what the other countries were. We were the light unto the Nations.
The United States of America had a system of government to improve the wrongs, and there was incremental progress brought about by organizing for labor, women’s rights, civil rights, and regulations. Public education and public health were regarded as an important function of Democracy. Our system was set up with checks and balances and struggles for rights, (both individual and States rights were always an issue).
Journalism and the dissemination of news was from newspapers and a few radio and TV networks. Most of us received the same reports, even if we took differing points of view about the issues and events of the world. People actually read the newspapers with small print daily!
We had the Constitution; the three equal branches of government, the separation of Church and State, and we had the ongoing set up to make a MORE perfect union. Ours was an aspirational country. So we had struggles, protests, marches and steps toward progress, for women and minorities, for labor, for regulatory agencies, for equality and justice.
1980: Along came President Reagan who didn’t like “big government". Along came cable and social media creating individual angles with separate “truths”. Along came attacks on Public Education and Science. Along came consolidation of lobbies for the rich, and the empowerment of Corporations, (now, as Mitt Romney said: “Corporations are people my friend”). Along came “right to Life" and Phyllis Schlafly, whose right to lifers seemed fine with the murders at abortion clinics. Along came “Law and Order”, and the “War on Drugs”, and a sanction of more and more systemic racism with disproportionate imprisonment of black men.
There was a game called Capture the Flag when we were kids. After Ronald Reagan, it looked like we were right wingers if we flew the flag; but Paul and I decided the flag stood for what our Democratic Republic aspired to. We decided not to let the flag be captured by the right wing and flew it every National Holiday. But we always knew that people might think we were on the side against our beliefs. This Fourth of July, we placed our “In our America” sign and one saying: LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.
We do celebrate our country and want it to be what the aspirational intention is. We will keep working for: WE THE PEOPLE, IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION.
Well said, Sherry!
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