I Pledge Allegiance,
To the Divided Broken States of America.
And to the Corporate Agenda, for which it falls,
One Nation, Under Greed, With Stress, Amorality, and
Slavery to our checking accounts.
It’s a simple pledge, constitutionally sound, as democratic and inspiring as the nation for which it is spoken. A nation, where on this Independence Day, we should ask ourselves, what have we, as a nation, done to ourselves that someone could even pervert something that is a part of our nation, drilled into our skulls since we were children.
Have we actually become, a nation, so obsessed with material success, that we no longer think of the consequences of our actions, that no longer we think of anything other than the size of our paychecks, the zero’s we can add to the bottom line. When working two jobs in now considered the norm, and financial success the ultimate goal, how can we pretend outrage when a weapons technician is beheaded? If our morals have become corrupted to stand up for the arms dealer, killed by the target, can we only be outraged by the effect, and not consider the cause?
Are we so controlled by an agenda that tells us to keep following the Old Rotten Apple, that once we take a bite of it, we look for the next Old Rotten Apple, never stopping to enjoy the rotten, soulless pleasure? If we take a step back, look at the bullet ridden walls with duct taped and plastic sheeted doorways, the bars on the windows, What are we celebrating? Where is the independence? Or have we become independent to be dependent. Dependent of color coded, enforced fear?
Over two hundred years ago, we declared ourselves free from a king, and now, we are faced with another, only the war will not be fought with any conceivable allies, and there cannot be any conceivable weapons. There are no Black Hawks to protect us, no cluster bombs to trip over. Our current ruler is not a man, be it bearded and turbaned, or clean shaven and gray, but green, black, paper and plastic, is not a war for success, but a war for greed. It is a war of human liquidation.
We see ourselves as greater beings than animals, but my dogs do not kill each other over land rights. Nor do they destroy themselves in closed rooms and back alleys. They do not conduct control mad campaigns of fear, they do not plot for oil rights, and ignore more deserving humanitarian crisis.
And humanity, really, is all we have, not the Lexus, the house in the country or the bunker buster nuclear weapon . We have forgotten, that from the moment we rise in the morning, that we are here, only a very short time, and every one of our actions affects thousands of people. As we drink our coffees, do we ever wonder about how, where, or who brought that morning fix to us? Or the tragedy of the worker, who processed and packaged it, while an executive makes his unfair share, always looking to save another penny?
In writing this, I cannot accept that we have come all this way, in order to figure out how to devise better ways of screwing ourselves. Have we lost all human feeling and emotion, in order to have more stuff? Or have we just given up, lost the only human struggle, not only to provide a better future, But a better present?
We should take this holiday, this Independence Day, and think of the word: INDEPENDENCE. Webster’s defines independence as the state or quality of being independent; freedom from dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by, others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's own affairs without interference.
What are our dependencies, and how can we declare independence from them? How can we all become more self-reliant, how can we, not only as a nation, but help the planet become more independent, and know a more true freedom, from the disease, the hunger, the debt, the constant hopelessness of the human condition? If the United States of America, a country I look around and no longer find I am living in, become again the greatest country on Earth.
Are we to establish great wars, or establish great peace? Are we to treat the threat of terrorism with bullets, or food, shelter, clothing, and a moral clarity above religion and greed? A great nation does not rise from is banking prowess, its weapons cache, or even its leaders. A great nation rises from a noble cause, to help itself in the same way it would help its friends, and more importantly, its enemies. We are not fighting an insurgency, we are not fighting terrorists. We are fighting a group of people, who see us as we saw the British, a group of people who do not want to be colonized or controlled, a group of people, who would give us a chance, if we gave them the same chance we give ourselves. We can make something great, not only of our current problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Venezuela and Haiti, if we look past our own selfish aims and reasons for being there. If we look past the oil and monetary, and just grant, give these countries, these people, the world over, a true, trusted loving hand in becoming liberated from the death that greets them every morning, and as they close their eyes for sleep, we can end our own fears.
These words have been spoken thousands of times before, and never have managed to take root, save for a few minutes. It’s Independence Day, so let’s share it with our friends, and our enemies, the people we don’t talk to, and the people we forgot about. Then we can work out a pledge worth believing in. A song everyone can sing, and a feeling in our hearts that we are doing the right thing, that everyone has an equal chance.
