OMNI
INTERDEPENDENCE DAY ANTHOLOGY #7
JULY 4, 2025
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
What’s at
Stake: What do July 4, 1776, and
Independence Day mean? This should be a
Day of Reflection.
CONTENTS
Ace Thelin.
“A Different Revolution.”
“Declare Your Independence From Mainstream Media.”
Dennis Kucinich. “Renewing a
Desecrated Declaration of Independence.”
About Face. “Right to Refuse.”
Rebekah
Jones.
“We've lost the United States.”
Win
Without War. 7-3-25
[VFP-all] Michelle Ellner. “What
July 5th Taught Me That July 4th Never Did.”
Noam Chomsky. “Is
Trump a Symptom or the System?” YouTube
(AI generated).
The following articles written for 7-4-24 arrived after that Anthology
was published.
Emma
Goldman. A New
Declaration Of Independence.
The People’s Forum. “On the 4th of July, the people reject
celebrations of genocide and colonization.”
“Frederick
Douglass On The Meaning Of July Fourth To The Slave”
TEXTS
Three
articles from Consortium News
Ace Thelin. “A
Different Revolution.”
For men such as Washington, Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe the threat of losing the humans they enslaved was a decisive
factor in going to war, writes Ace Thelin. Read here...
_
“Declare
Your Independence From Mainstream Media.”
Americans
are losing their chains to the MSM and are turning as never before to online,
independent media, the oldest of which is Consortium News. Read here...
Dennis
Kucinich. “Renewing a Desecrated Declaration
of Independence.”
If
America is to be what the Revolution envisioned on July 4, 1776, a nation
governed by laws, then the American people must speak out and defend that
vision, writes Dennis Kucinich. Read here...
ABOUT
FACE JULY 4, 2025, “RIGHT TO REFUSE”
Dick,
Today people across the country will celebrate the freedoms this country claims
to be a beacon for while the civil rights of people across the county are
violated and attacks on the rule of law are rampant.
Over
the last month, we've watched the continued descent into fascism, with
extrajudicial ICE raids across the country, marines mobilized to terrorize Los
Angeles and administer newly built prison camps in Florida, escalation with
Iran against the will of the people, and tanks rolling down the streets of D.C.
The
myth of the U.S.A. as beacon of justice and freedom for all is crumbling and as
a community military members and Veterans, today will be a painful mockery of
all we believed we would fight for when we took our oaths. Rather than
celebrate, we are announcing our new national
campaign to fight for real freedom: the right to refuse.
About Face has been at the forefront of supporting and organizing military
resisters for decades and we're clear this is a moment where it is a matter if
when, not if, troops will be asked to carry out immoral, unjust or flat out
illegal orders by this administration. It's already happening in many cases.
Although military members already have both the right and duty to refuse
illegal orders, in practice it requires troops to risk court-martial and even
prison to do so. That is a massive barrier to doing the right thing and we
believe in the so-called "land of the free", no one should be in a
position where they are legally not allowed to say no to carrying out violence
for the government.
The Right to Refuse campaign will call on Congress to codify the right of any
service member to refuse participation in any operation they believe is unjust
or immoral. And perhaps more importantly, our campaign will focus on building a
revitalized military resistance movement powerful enough to shape the dialogue
about the use of the military and shift our trajectory.
Masses
of military members and the broader American public are watching grotesque
militarism on display up close and About Face is poised to play uniquely
impactful role in absorbing and organizing those people into the powerful
moment we need to confront military abuses both at home and abroad. As the rule
of law is unraveling and while our political power is limited in the face of
Trump’s dictator agenda, organized resistance from the military community is
one of our best strategies for rallying the public to fight back and directly
resist authoritarianism.
About Face members stand ready to meet this task, recently organizing the
largest veteran-led direct action in over a decade to say
"military off our streets” and earning broad media coverage including CBS,
CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, CW, Buzzfeed, Huffpost, Washington Post, NY Post, Newsweek,
Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Daily Mail. The action received over 20 million
views on TikTok alone and we know that's because people are hungry for exactly
the kind of movement we are working to build.
We
need you with us. There will be new opportunities for supporters to get
involved with helping to build this campaign as we roll it out. In meantime,
please consider making a donation to help fuel this work.
In
solidarity always, Brittany Ramos DeBarros
Organizing Director, About Face:
Veterans Against the War
Rebekah Jones. “We've lost the United States.” oscale.News JulY 4, 2025.
The
founding fathers, men of immense vision and selective blindness, drafted
liberty into ink while slavery rattled its chains just beyond the parchment’s
edge. The nation was born to the
rhetoric of freedom, yet tethered to an economic engine of bondage; equality
was declared self-evident while millions were rendered invisible. Race, from inception, was both scaffold and
shackle. In the grand experiment of democracy, whiteness became the unspoken
requirement for full participation. Enshrined in law and cloaked in compromise,
racial hierarchy shaped the Constitution’s silences.
The
founding, then, was not merely flawed—it was calibrated, with deliberation, to
exclude. The irony was not lost on contemporaries; it was simply ignored. The
republic’s roots were not only revolutionary—they were, unmistakably, stained.
Women
found themselves even lower on the totem pole — within and outside of racial
systems, the intersectionality even more piercing. Freedom only ever truly existed
for white men, and our systems and structures, though intermittently
challenged, remained the same.
The
echo that reverberates across the American landscape today—ominous, steady,
familiar—is that of fascism’s final push toward control after centuries of
waxing and waning. The revival of male, white supremacy through radicalization
is reminiscent of another cautionary tale. . . .
Fast
forward to the United States of the 2020s. A pandemic exposes the brittle
infrastructure of governance; income inequality yawns like a canyon; conspiracy
theory seeps into the bloodstream of civic life. The rallying cry shifts, but
the melody persists. “Make America Great
Again” is not unlike “Deutschland erwache”—a nostalgic invocation of a past
that never was, filtered through selective memory and grievance. . . .I
We
are seeing but a glimpse of the specter of the Nazi state's early
machinery—legal, even surgical in its precision—before the camps, before the
trains, before the genocide. But fascism
rarely declares itself with a swastika and a salute. It enters instead in
stages: contempt for truth, adoration of strength, scapegoating of the
marginalized, corrosion of norms. It walks through the door not with a bang,
but on the shoulders of applause. . . .
Rebekah Jones
PO BOX 3371
Silver Spring, MD 20918
WIN WITHOUT WAR 7-3-25
Dick: July 4th is meant to be about freedom and celebration. But
in the face of multiple crises — as Trump brings us to the brink of all-out war
with Iran, masked ICE agents abduct people in broad daylight, the Trump
administration illegally deports people without due process, U.S.-made bombs
keep devastating Gaza, hostages continue to languish, and more — freedom and
celebration might feel distant.
The willingness to use violence and the power to strip humanity
away from those who disagree lie at the heart of the rising authoritarianism
we’re seeing. The good news? Win Without War is uniquely positioned to
push back on both — but we can’t do it alone.
There will be setbacks on this journey to build a more just and
peaceful world, but we can’t lose hope. When we are hopeless, it fuels those
who would do violence for profit or power. When we believe that we can make
lives better for ourselves, our neighbors, and the global community, warmongers
are weakened.
Thank you for working for peace, t
Win Without War team
[VFP-all] What July 5th Taught Me That July 4th Never
Did - Michelle Ellner. July 2, 2025. To Gerry Condon via uark.onmicrosoft.com
Here in the U.S., it’s easy to treat
independence as something that was achieved once and for all in 1776. But if
that were true, why is our country still trying to control the fate of others?
Why do we claim to stand for freedom while undermining it abroad through
sanctions, coups, and endless wars? And even more urgently: why are so many
people in the U.S. still struggling just to survive?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/02/what-july-5th-taught-me-that-july-4th-never-did/
Noam Chomsky. “Is
Trump a Symptom or the System?”
YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGQuZ-5Ds0
Text: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1igcfZJJ0AoQOEVm5cSLsWBGUG64fUjRh/edit?tab=t.0
A tech
specialist friend wrote to me that “the video is completely AI
generated. It was a very convincing fake voice and powerfully written content,
but can not be actually attributed to Noam Chomsky.” [I.e.,, Chomsky never uttered this specific
speech; as far as I can tell it is composed of his words in diverse writings. –D What do you think of this practice? It is unfamiliar to me. If it is clearly identified as AI based upon
the sources actual writings it’s ok? I saw
no such declaration in the original, but my specialist friend searched and
found YouTube’s policy statement. But I found several grammatical solecisms one
would not find in Chomsky’s writings, so I have written to Prof. Chomsky for
his opinion of this use of his writings.]
The following articles
arrived after 7-4-24
2024
A New Declaration Of Independence
By Emma Goldman, In These Times. Popular
Resistance.org (7-6-24). When, in the
course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the
needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, the
people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow,
these institutions. The mere fact that these forces – inimical to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – are legalized by statute laws,
sanctified by divine rights, and enforced by political power, in no way justifies
their continued existence. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that
all human beings, irrespective of race, color, or sex, are born with the equal
right... -more-
The People’s Forum. “On the 4th of
July, the people reject celebrations of genocide and colonization.”
On July 4, thousands took to the streets of New York
City to show the world that the people refuse to celebrate the legacy of
genocide, slavery, and pillaging that the “holiday” represents. Instead they condemned US complicity in genocide and imperialism from
Palestine, to the Philippines, Haiti, and all those oppressed around the world,
recommitting themselves to the struggle for liberation so that all can live
free from US empire.
From NYC
all the way to South Carolina, proponents of Palestinian liberation remained
committed to publicizing the violent contradictions of US imperialism.
Protestors picketed outside the home of Senator Lindsey Graham in response
to his
unwavering genocidal rhetoric towards the people of Palestine. Holding up a
large Palestinian flag in front of Graham’s home in Seneca, SC, the people
chanted “Lindsey Graham, we’re not done. Intifada’s just begun!”
People’s History of Fourth of July. Editor.
mronline.org (7-5-24). Originally published: Zinn Education Project on July 2024 by Zinn
Education Project Staff (more by Zinn Education Project) | (Posted Jul
04, 2024)
Culture, Empire,
History,
RaceAmericas,
United StatesNewswire.
As part of our This Day in History series, we bring you a collection of people’s
history stories from July 4th: Beyond 1776.
A collection of more than a dozen people’s
history stories from July 4th beyond 1776. The stories include July 4th
anniversaries such as when slavery was abolished in New York (1827), Frederick
Douglass’s speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” (1852), the
Reconstruction era attack on a Black militia that led to the Hamburg Massacre
(1876), protest of segregation at an amusement park in Baltimore (1963), and
more.
“Frederick Douglass On The Meaning Of July Fourth To The Slave”
By In These Times. Popular
Resistance.org (7-5-2024).
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon
to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your
national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of
natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?
And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national
altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the
blessings resulting from your independence to us? I am not included within
the pale of this glorious anniversary! -more-
INTERDEPENDENCE DAY ANTHOLOGY #6, JULY
4, 2025
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/07/omni-interdependence-day-anthology-6.html
INTERDEPENDENCE ANTHOLOGY #5, July 4, 2023.
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/07/omni-interdependence-day-5-july-4-2023.html
#4
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-interdependence-day-july-4-2021.html
END OMNI INTERDEPENDENCE DAY #7
