<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><<a href="https://zinnedproject.org/2014/07/rethinking-the-4th-of-july/" class="">https://zinnedproject.org/2014/07/rethinking-the-4th-of-july/</a>></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What are you celebrating when you “commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence”?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The Declaration was made necessary in the eyes of the ruling class of the 18th-century settler-colonial states in N. America because Britain was threatening to interfere with the institution that produced that class’ prosperity, North and South: chattel slavery. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The war was fought to prevent the abolition of slavery in America by the British government. (See now Gerald Horne, "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America,” 2014).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I feel a perhaps quixotic familial responsibility in this matter. The first American militia member wounded in the war - on Lexington Green, the morning of 19 April 1775 - was Prince Estabrook, a black man who belonged to the family (He carried a gun in the militia and went on to be member of Washington’s army - to Washington’s dismay - until the end of the war, when he received a pension from the new national government - and his manumission from the state of Massachusetts; there’s a plaque to him today on the battle site: see below.)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But half my family - ‘Loyalists’ - refused to take up arms against the British government and decamped to Nova Scotia (where I have many distant cousins to this day). I now think they chose the better part - even though I’m descended from the branch that stayed in Massachusetts.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So I think that it’s a mistake to honor the misunderstood ‘tradition’ of the Declaration of Independence - perhaps even more “Education” about it, which has had such deleterious effects, as you point out. (Even Jefferson’s epigoni can hardly fail to note the Declaration's racist character: e.g., the king of England "has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the
merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions…”)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We should instead be doing penance for the suffering and death that that tradition has brought about, instead of celebrating it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Much better to stay home and watch baseball. —CGE <br class=""><br class=""><img class="_pq3 img" src="https://www.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v3/y4/r/-PAXP-deijE.gif" alt="" style="background-image: url(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/25098_1238020310474_4038147_n.jpg?oh=f406892b5ef7124897ca7a4a41405153&oe=59D057F1);"><img class="_pq3 img" src="https://www.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v3/y4/r/-PAXP-deijE.gif" alt="" style="background-image: url(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/25098_1238020310474_4038147_n.jpg?oh=f406892b5ef7124897ca7a4a41405153&oe=59D057F1);"></div><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="BC37D285-4667-4708-9C68-E5ACF6089A4B" src="cid:C7E2298D-6FEF-48B4-AD47-3CFF4410F463@gw.illinois.edu" class=""></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 4, 2017, at 9:59 AM, Karen Medina via Peace <<a href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">A friend wrote: <span class="gmail-m_5630768802680390590gmail-im"> I’ll stay home and watch the Red Sox play</span><br class=""><span class="gmail-m_5630768802680390590gmail-st">Sitting on one's couch is always an option. <br class=""><br class="">The 4th of July commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence</span>. It is true that some have co-opted it as a celebration of wars that the United States have fought. <br class=""><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">The theme of the Champaign County celebration is, ‘Salute To Education,’<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_quote">This theme is particularly important, especially because we as a country fail miserably at education. <span class="gmail-m_5630768802680390590gmail-im">We, miseducated Americans, continue to allow US presidents
to kill between 20 and 30 million people since 1945, for the profits of
the US 1%. Let us join together to improve education and help people develop critical thinking in our country. <br class=""></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"> <br class="">Or we could sit on our couches. <br class=""><br class="">As
for me and my house, we will join the parade which begins at 11:05 a.m.
near First and Florida, continues East on Florida to Lincoln Avenue
then proceeds North on Lincoln Avenue to California. I will be walking
with the Immigration Forum. <br class=""><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_quote">Sincerely, <br class=""></div>Karen Medina</div>
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