Later today I'm going to go to the local Fourth of July fireworks display (the one that almost didn't happen because of a paranoid concern that attendees might be exposed to a virus that 60% of them will be vaccinated against.)
I'm going to mill about maskless among all the masked, social distanced, fearful, unfree serfs, and I'm going to remind them that they're not free. Not in the slightest.
The irony of having a national holiday to celebrate freedom from tyrannical rule has never escaped me in this unfree country. All of my life I have lived in a country that claims to be a bastion of liberty while slaughtering innocents abroad for oil, imprisoning people for possessing a plant, limiting what we can all do down to the most absurd minutiae, and stealing a third of everyone's paychecks to pay for it all.
But when the rulers have just demonstrated that they have no problem destroying our lives and livelihoods, forcing us to wear pieces of cloth over our airways, and keeping us all on house arrest for the better part of a year, when the tyranny is so thick you have to swim through it, when every labored breath is a painful reminder of what they have taken away from you, it's a wonder to me that anyone can genuinely participate in such theater. Waving their flags. Singing their anthems. Putting their hands over their hearts. How do their heads not explode?
The Fourth of July has always been an unimpeachable holiday in American culture. Whatever problems we had as a nation, most people of all political persuasions agreed that those issues could and should be set aside for one day to come together and celebrate what the country stood for. And those of us who disagreed just kept silent about it and let the sleeping have their little slumber party. They weren't hurting anyone by cracking a few beers, grilling a few burgers, and popping off some fireworks that they had to drive across state lines to purchase legally, and they wouldn't listen if we told them.
I'm no longer fine with that arrangement. After the year we've had, the Fourth of July has no business being a day of celebration. If anything, it should be a day of mourning for what we have lost. (Freedom. Prosperity. A republic, if we could keep it, which we couldn't.)
In my wildest dreams, it would be a day where we channel the spirits of our forebears and politely inform the oligarchy that we're about sick of their shit and we'll no longer be complying with their taxes or decrees and if they have trouble understanding that, we'd be happy to perform a little reenactment of the American Revolution for elucidation. Yeah, that's not gonna happen.
So instead I'm going to crash the people's cognitive dissonance party with a little free speech.
I'm thinking a big poster-board sign should do it. It will say, simply, "YOU ARE NOT FREE."
I welcome your better suggestions, though.
And hey, if you're not too busy celebrating your unfreedom today, maybe you'd like to join in. Go to your local parade or cookout or fireworks display (assuming the prison wardens have decided to let you leave the house), and carry a sign or a megaphone. Strike up conversations. Then post about it on Hive. With photos.
How did it go?
Let us not forget, the US is still a British Colony. There will be no false flag events on 7/4, as they do not want to draw attention to this.
Also, fuck liberty.
I ended up not going because they canceled the event due to thunderstorms.