The Fourth of July— The Spirit of 1776 And The Celebrations
By A D Hemming and Bati Ahmed
05 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Celebrations will be coming up to “celebrate” the Fourth of July
across the USA the fourth day of this month with bands playing,
militarism glorified and implicitly the imperialism never mentioned
at such parades. What’s wrong with this picture? Everything!
The Fourth of July marks the presentation and signing of the
Declaration of Independence to pressing for the creation of
this new country out of the 13 British colonies along the Eastern
seaboard of North America with same document inveighing against
the monarch on the throne in London for making “military power
superior to civil power” as well as not allowing for the “consent
of the governed” by abolishing legislatures and moving others
thwarting the will of those in those colonies depriving them of
rights that they had as British nationals through Habeas Corpus
of the middle of the 17th Century and that provided in Magna
Carta of the 13th Century limiting the monarch’s power thus allowing
more rights for the monarch’s subjects. The war for independence
or war of national liberation was most assuredly a fight against
militarism and imperialism of the most power of the imperialist
states of the time, Thus the upcoming celebrations will celebrate
the reverse of what the 13 colonies were fighting for and put more
than an ironic touch on such celebrations. The fight against
militarism and imperialism was the zeitgeist of the time, a spirit
which should be celebrated rather than its opposite as is currently
happening in an insult to those who gave their blood and lives to
create this new country and have on other occasions been true
to that spirit of 1776. Thus we could see if this were put to music
it would come out something like this.
What has happened to the “democratic republic” as Martin Luther
King Jr referred to it in his book, “The Trumpet of Conscience?”
It as Dr King got itself on “The wrong side of a world revolution”
as Dr King put it back in 1967.
In the War of 1812 Uncle Sam fought for “freedom of the seas”
and against the militarism and imperialism of that empire based
in London with its press ganging of US seaman of unarmed ships
and into the British navy to fight for that empire against France in
the Napoleaonic Wars. Uncle Sam stood resolutely firm against
such infringement on the national sovereignty of the new country
and its citizens.
Same in the First World War! The Kaiser’s German navy submarines
were sinking unarmed US ships killing people without regard to age
or gender from 1915 and going right up to 1917 when the USA
officially entered that war in response to what would have been
dozens of 9/11s by the German empire of that time.
The US Civil War was another case of those fighting for Uncle
Sam fighting to keep cvil power superior to military power in
the form of a artillery blast from the Confederate Army of the
time on Ft Sumter.
Then the Second World War was the most dramatic example of
those fighting for Uncle Sam fighting against militarism and
imperialism of the worst kind especially in the form of the
Third Reich and thus firmly planted in zeitgeist of 1776.
AD Hemming, has been an activist for progressive causes
since the early 1960s, has been a researcher, poet, journalist,
historian and got his feet wet as a prgressive in the civil rights
movement in US South as a teenager.
*A D Hemming is a pseudonym this writer uses on a regular
basis.
Bati Ahmed with a Ph D in Public Health and has been active
in health care work with UNICEP in the Middle East and
Africa in the field for years as well as at top level with
UNICEF in London for seven years.
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