[Peace] Why I won’t be marching in the July 4th parade

[C. G. Estabrook]

“Champaign County. Freedom Celebration, ‘Salute To Education,’ includes 
a morning Youth Race and a 5K Race/walk, a parade at 11:05 a.m. begins 
near First and Florida, continues East on Florida to Lincoln Avenue then 
proceeds North on Lincoln Avenue to California. Evening entertainment at 
7 p.m., corner of Kirby Avenue and First Street. Fireworks at 9:15 p.m., 
lunched [sic] from UI parking lot E14, west of State Farm Center.” [C-U 
News-Gazette]
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AWARE has in years past been a notable presence in the July 4th parade 
in Champaign-Urbana. Talented AWAREists have presented anti-war floats 
and displays, often mocking the official patriotic themes of the event. 
(One AWARE entry under a ‘war heroes’ theme featured huge photos of 
courageous war resisters.)

But I’ve been convinced by Doug, long-time friend of AWARE, that any 
participation in the celebration of the shockingly misnamed “war of 
independence” lends support to the heavily mythologized tradition of 
America’s ‘good wars.’

None of them was good, including the ‘war against fascism,’ used by US 
propaganda to justify imperialist war from 1945 to the present day.

The poets often get there first: see Philip K. Dick’s “The Man in the 
High Castle” (1962) - a literary meditation, as in a distorting mirror, 
of how war can be used to justify further war. More directly, in “Human 
Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization” (2008), 
Nicholson Baker provides the history of the coming of WWII: Americans 
born since then have been systematically deprived of an historically 
accurate account - and not innocently, but to support Americas' 
subsequent wars.

We miseducated Americans have allowed US presidents to kill between 20 
and 30 million people since 1945, for the profits of the US 1%.

In a lecture more than 40 years ago, just as the repressive policies of 
neoliberalism began to be adopted by all subsequent administrations 
(criticizing it made Trump president), the late Howard Zinn exposed the 
Fourth of July mythology. See the appended article, “Rethinking the 
Fourth of July,” with references to the important observations of 
historians Ray Raphael and Gerald Horne.

I don’t now see how I can oppose the propaganda of the Fourth of July 
celebrations and still participate, even in a critical way. I’ll stay 
home and watch the Red Sox play.  --CGE

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-bigelow/rethinking-the-fourth-of-july_b_5552378.html

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