| I normally love the 4th of July holiday. Gorgeous sunshine, warm breeze, barbeque, baseball, fireworks, and celebrating how lucky we are to have the freedom we do. But this year, it just doesn’t feel the same. Yes, there will be days off. There will be baseball and Dodger Dogs, and maybe even Barry Bonds will hit another homerun or two when the Giants meet our Boys In Blue in spectacular Chavez Ravine. There will be barbeque, and swimming. There will even be fireworks. But the warm and fuzzy feeling I normally get, the one that brings a tear to my eye and gets me all choked up, isn’t there. I know that my freedom has changed and is in danger of disappearing altogether if the Cheney-Bush monster has anything to do with it. Almost eight months have passed and I have witnessed the biggest and most rapid dive this country has taken in my lifetime, and the current appointistration has shamed this nation like never before. Honest folk were systematically denied the right to vote. People were told they weren’t registered, even though they had their voter registration cards in hand. There were roadblocks in largely black neighborhoods. Polling places ran out of ballots or closed early. There were confusing ballots and I witnessed people across this nation, who did not use these ballots personally, ridicule and malign these people for being confused. There was even a contingent of GOP operatives who were paid to riot, threaten, and do everything in their power to stop a legal recount of votes, breaking the law, then were personally congratulated by Dubya for a job well done. Think about that for a moment – a man who aspires to be president of the free world, actively encouraging illegal, dishonorable, sleazy behavior. And that was only the beginning. The pride of our nation, the most hallowed and respected institution in the land, the Justices we designate as “Supreme”, broke the law themselves by illegally getting involved with a national election. An act strictly forbidden by the US Constitution, a document they are bound and sworn to uphold, thereby disenfranchising the entire nation by disregarding the votes of the citizens of this once beloved country. Where is my protection by the Fourteenth Amendment? Spock must have been wrong. The needs of the many apparently do not outweigh the needs of the few. Since that black day of December 12th, 2000, the market went from being somewhat stable apart from the tech sector, to acting like a blind bull in a china shop - afraid of the least clink and clatter. Investor confidence is at an all time low. Thousands of people have lost their jobs, and are soon to lose their homes. The prime rate has been cut six times in six months. The people who couldn’t afford a house, still can’t because now they don’t have a paycheck, and the people who are trying to live off of their interest since Social Security won’t pay the monthly grocery bill, are losing their interest incomes as well. There has been outrageous manipulation of the energy markets that has gone almost entirely unchecked. Billions of dollars have been bilked from private citizens just to line the already fat pockets of the very people who swore an oath to protect and serve them. The ABM treaty has been thrown out with the Kyoto Protocol and the pristine ANWR may soon be little more than a memory. There have been ethics violations by prominent members of the administration; some might even cry insider trading and other illegal activities that private citizens could face prison terms for if caught. Between Rove (holdings in Intel, Enron and others), O’Neill (Alcoa), and the Anti-Ethics Corruption King - the VP himself, Dick Cheney (Haliburton, with not only his refusal to name the people who met privately with his energy task force, but his constant lies about how Haliburton and its affiliates illegally traded with Iraq. The media has been guilty of not only complicity in this gross rape of democracy, but blatant lies as well and is no longer to be trusted. I feel as though we need our own modern version of Radio Free Europe. Will we ever see another presidential election? Will there be election reform that is fair? Will the press ever rise above corporate greed and get back to reporting the truth? Will there be campaign finance reform to the point it truly levels the playing field to the point it doesn’t matter how much money a candidate or political party has access to? I don’t know. I do know things aren’t the same now. This isn’t the Land of The Free and Home of The Brave anymore. This 4th of July I’ll barbeque and swim and hopefully watch the fireworks. I’ll have my beer and peanuts and Dodger Dogs and even though he’s on the other team, I’ll be proud to be a part of history if Bonds racks up a few more homers. But I won’t have that warm and fuzzy feeling during the National Anthem before the first pitch is thrown. Things are different now. © 2001 Tally Briggs |
|
 |
| The 4th of July |