fourth of july today

this fourth, i feel strange. ambivalent. i don’t feel the same cool excitement and anticipation for the bbq and beer and best of friends as i have felt in previous years. i suppose my feeling stems from the changes in our country that have been both within and beyond my control. obvious examples: when the people spoke and denied congress the authority to give the 700 billion bailout to the banks, Paulson arranged for the language to be attached to a different bill and allowed that loan to be made–against the will of the people. when people protested both the invasion of iraq–a country that had little to nothing to do with the september 11 attacks–and the invasion in afghanistan, nothing was done to stop the military movement. today as families of the september 11 attacks demand an investigation into the collapse of building 7 in new york, nothing happens. indeed, the official story of the twin towers themselves is not physically possible, but that continues to mean nothing.

finance companies and investment banks have taken extraordinary legal risks with other peoples’ money and yet have accepted little to no responsibility for the devastation they’ve caused to not just the u.s. economy but the global economy overall. instead of mass-protests from those whose wealth is being transferred, these organizations are now declaring much of the same profits they enjoyed before the financial crisis they started. with the transfer of public debt into private profit, the general decline in education and public services, the loss of innovation jobs and the housing bubble, it’s not ludicrous to suspect that the u.s. has fallen on hard times it won’t recover from quickly or easily.

and then my personal view is that americans no longer have the education and character to regain what has been lost, stolen, exploited, or corrupted. it’s not just an american world for us anymore. our problems are now on a very big and very global scale, and the current u.s. economy absolutely requires oil. we’re in a really bad place, and as we’ve become accustomed to spending and using far more than we produce or earn, we have essentially become accustomed to working against ourselves and our chances to be able to recover from our own bad habits and downward spiral.

this fourth of july, for me it’s not about celebrating anything because i don’t really feel like we have anything to celebrate. celebrating now would be somewhat delusional–an insistence on the synthetic promises of yesterday’s ideas of success and wealth and prosperity. celebrating now would not be wise, sensible or even sane.

instead, this year’s fourth of july seems like new year’s eve, after the balloons have dropped and i’ve kissed my lover and the band plays “auld lang syne.” there’s that kind of feeling; we’re drunk and we’re dancing, but something’s gone forever.