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

[C G Estabrook]

Satirizing - or railing at - something like the 4th of July parade risks pointlessness. 

The greatest American satirist of his generation was Tom Lehrer (who was a TA for the math course I took first year in college).

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Lehrer is of the opinion that while satire may attract attention to an issue, it doesn’t achieve a lot else.

“The audience usually has to be with you, I’m afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted; I was titillating the converted.”

“The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.”

His favourite quote on the subject is from British comedian Peter Cook, who, in founding the Establishment Club in 1961, said it was to be a satirical venue modelled on “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War”. 

[Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, 2003]
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On Jul 2, 2017, at 13:59, David Johnson <davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net> wrote:
 
I understand Karen and Carl, but it is a shame, considering the past years AWARE presence in the parade and it’s creative and powerful anti-war ; float / procession / theme.
 
Out of sight, out of mind !
 
David J.
 
 
From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Karen Aram via Peace-discuss
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2017 3:25 PM
To: C. G. Estabrook
Cc: peace at lists.chambana.net; Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Why I won’t be marching in the July 4th parade
 
 I won’t be going either, and its not just due to the heat, and my asthma There is little to celebrate with the continued injustice towards the working class, with the lack of healthcare, murder of people of color by our militarized police, continuing austerity and most of all the continuation of murders and destruction of millions around the globe, being perpetuated by the USG. We should be protesting, and some of us did yesterday.
 
 

On Jul 2, 2017, at 12:34, C. G. Estabrook via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
 
“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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