Faith? ah, Faith is like an island in the setting sun,
Truth, well now, Truth is the bottomline for everyone.
—Paul Simon
This Instagram post from Union del Barrio got me thinking:
As did the video of James Earl Jones reading Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July:
And I thought about the bloody history of America. How our leaders so recently berated Iranians for being so anti-American—while we attacked them again. Like we all forgot about the CIA coup in Iran in 1953 that took out a democratically-elected president, and put in a brutal dictator. Or how we helped Saddam Hussein to get WMD to use on them three decades later, before we accused him of having WMD, and kicked him out in Iraq. And Vietnam! Three million dead at our hands, and now we saddled them with 20% tariffs. This YouTube video woke me up to what the CIA had been aiding and abetting down in Mexico for 30 years. We owe them. And of course, there are so many more...
And I thought about what is happening in Gaza this Fourth of July, the 635th day of the genocide is being livestreamed. People with no food or water, living in the rubble of what once was their world, all the while dodging AI driven killer drones. It looks like a scene from the future in the Terminator series—brought to Earth a little early. Never Again has morphed into whenever. And nobody will put a stop to it! Hey, but look at us, we're so rich as a nation that we can afford bombs & rockets to kill them and still have all these fireworks.
And I thought about what my cynical self suspects the Declaration of Independence, and the revolt against England, really was all about. It wasn't all about Freedom & Democracy as we celebrate on the Fourth of July. I think it had a lot to do with slavery.
In the 18th century thirteen of the British colonies of North America built a strong independent economy with immigrant African slave labor as its engine—and a lot of money was being made. But England was steadily moving away from slavery. In 1772, four years before our Independence Day, the English Court of King's Bench ruled that slavery was illegal, had no basis in English law. Slavery in England was completely abolished with a 1799 law, and after a long struggle, British slave trade was abolished in 1807, before it was finally abolished in all British colonies in 1834—which is why the Freedom Road led North to Canada. As Dylan said, "It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." I'm sure the Founding Fathers, who were mostly slaveholders, could see that the wind from the otherside of the Atlantic was blowing more and more decidedly against slavery everyday.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, may be celebrated as icons of Freedom and Democracy today, but both being strongly pro-slavery, I imagine they were on the extreme right in the British political circles of their day. Something to think about...
So, was the drive to separate from British rule all about noble motives? Which was more important? Tea & taxes? Or preserving slavery for as long as possible?
So, not in the mood...
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| Boots & Tangle |
I'll just stay home and conform the kitty-cats when the firework start.
Clay Claiborne
July 4, 2025
