'merica

Just finished watching Beyonce Knowles sing Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" on the Macy's 4th of July special. The song was dedicated to "the men and women fighting for our freedom"; watching this brought back weird memories of being my son's age at the start of the first Gulf War. We lived in Louisiana, and the song came out to match the war. We would be forced to stand up and sing the song, and if we didn't, we would get in trouble.This made me think about how absurd the idea that our soldiers are "fighting for our freedom". No they aren't, they are fighting for the interests of the military industrial complex. How did the Iraqi's challenge our freedom? How exactly are a bunch of opium farmers and nomadic herds people in Afghanistan a threat to us? Whose interests are we supporting in Libya? There were revolutions happening all over the middle east, what is so special about Libya? The terrorist organizations that plan and plot attacks against this country cannot be beaten and contained by full scale war. And our wars only fuel the fire that threatens our country. There are movements in America that claim to represent the wants and wishes of our founding fathers......they need to read their history books again. In so many ways, we are moving backwards in America not forward. Our founding fathers wanted progression, their movement was a progressive movement, not a call to conserve the old ways of thinking. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.......these of course aren't automatic for every American, but every day, the interests of the super rich, corporations, and imperialists in the government make it harder for Americans to attain these precious goals. I also watched another channel tonight, playing the movie "The Battle for Seattle", a fictionalized movie, but based on the actualities of that event. The battle for Seattle was when peace and labor protestors in Seattle protesting the
WTO were attacked by police and the national guard, at the behest of those more interested in the benefit of the ultra elite. So on this 4th of July, after you celebrate and have fun, it would be great if you took a moment to wikipedia some of the things mentioned, and inform yourself so that you can form an opinion; it's when we stop paying attention that the termites eat your house form the inside out.