[Peace] Why I will be marching in the July 4th parade

[Carl G. Estabrook]

<https://zinnedproject.org/2014/07/rethinking-the-4th-of-july/ <https://zinnedproject.org/2014/07/rethinking-the-4th-of-july/>>

What are you celebrating when you “commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence”?

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. 

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).

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.)

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.

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…”)

We should instead be doing penance for the suffering and death that that tradition has brought about, instead of celebrating it.

Much better to stay home and watch baseball. —CGE   



> On Jul 4, 2017, at 9:59 AM, Karen Medina via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> A friend wrote: I’ll stay home and watch the Red Sox play
> Sitting on one's couch is always an option. 
> 
> The 4th of July commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It is true that some have co-opted it as a celebration of wars that the United States have fought.  
> 
> The theme of the Champaign County celebration is, ‘Salute To Education,’
> This theme is particularly important, especially because we as a country fail miserably at education. 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. 
>  
> Or we could sit on our couches. 
> 
> 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. 
> 
> Sincerely, 
> Karen Medina
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