OMNI
INDEPENDENCE DAY
NEWSLETTER #4, JULY 4, 2015.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Newsletters
Index:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/OMNIPeaceDept
Contents: Independence Day Newsletter #4, 2015
Critiques and Alternatives
Emily Kaitz, A
Pacifist’s Fourth of July
AFSC, US Under
the Influence of/the People Seeking Independence
from the
Complex (see OMNI newsletters on the Military-Corporate....Complex)
Complex (see OMNI newsletters on the Military-Corporate....Complex)
Rabbi Lerner,
It Should be Interdependence Day and
Reading the UN’s UDHR
Code Pink
Praises the Mayor’s Statement
William Blum on
Patriotism
Remembering a
Declaration and Constitution Not at First for All
Frank Rich on
the Declaration of Independence and Slavery
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
on Genocide of Native Americans
"A
Pacifist's 4th of July" by Emily Kaitz, July 2, 2010
On our day of
independence
we celebrate
our country's pride
but there's
something about this holiday
I never could
abide
When we sing
the national anthem,
the bursting
bombs I can't ignore
Then we set off
fireworks as if
to simulate a
war
What is the
glory in explosions
that deafen
ears and frighten pets?
That threaten
fire in times of drought
and may cause
flashbacks for our vets?
Don't get me
wrong, I'm patriotic
but understand
me when I say
I prefer to
love my country
in a much more
peaceful way.
I will fly the
stars and stripes
I'll even march
in a parade
after which I
might go swimming
and then picnic
in the shade
I'll show my
gratitude for living
in the land of
the brave and free
A place of
tolerance and diversity
that still
embraces the likes of me.
What is the
glory in explosions
that deafen
ears and frighten pets?
That threaten
fire in times of drought
and may cause
flashbacks for our vets?
Don't get me
wrong, I'm patriotic
but understand
me when I say
I prefer to
love my country
in a much more
peaceful way.
|
|
James,
In 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence stated
that government derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed.” But
in these days of rising economic inequality, unlimited campaign spending, and a
multibillion-dollar lobbying industry mostly devoted to corporate interests,
the consent of the governed often seems irrelevant in the corridors of power.
"Governing
under the influence." That’s what we at AFSC call the interconnected web
of campaign spending, lobbying, and revolving doors between Capitol Hill,
lobbying firms, think tanks, and the Pentagon that feed private interests at
the expense of public good.
Governing under the influence can be seen at work in how public
officials spend our taxpayer dollars. Let’s look at U.S. military spending, for
example. Since President Eisenhower coined the phrase, the “military-industrial
complex” has grown to include outsourcing of government surveillance,
transforming the U.S.-Mexico border into a war zone, converting police into
paramilitary forces, and turning over the military’s own core functions to
private contractors.
Lockheed Martin is a prime example of corporate influence on
public policy. The corporation is the Pentagon’s top contractor. It spends over
$14 million a year on lobbying, and its employee PAC (political action
committee) raises another $4 million for campaign contributions. Lockheed’s 71
registered lobbyists include a former senator and two former representatives.
Its former CEO is now co-chair of a government panel on nuclear weapons that
has called for relaxed oversight of weapons labs and more lucrative contracts
for private companies, such as Lockheed, that run them.
What does Lockheed Martin get from its investment and
connections? More than $25 billion in government contracts every year. Lockheed
is the primary contractor on the F-35 fighter plane, the most expensive weapons
system in Pentagon history, and it also runs the Sandia nuclear weapons lab in
New Mexico.
This is business as usual in Washington, and sometimes it’s
easier to shrug our shoulders and give in to the thinking that this system will
never change.
But something is bubbling up in Iowa and New Hampshire, where
the first contests for the 2016 presidential nominations will take place. In
these two states, AFSC has launched our Governing Under the Influence (GUI)
project to remind candidates that the interests of the people must come
first.
We’ve trained more than 500 volunteers to question—or “bird
dog”—candidates about the excessive corporate influence that drives our country
toward more wars, more prisons, and more violence. Our team of volunteers is at
town halls, fairgrounds, living rooms, TV studios, city sidewalks—anywhere
candidates appear—to ensure these issues get the attention they deserve.
The GUI project isn’t partisan; it’s not about ranking the
candidates or telling anyone how they should vote. It’s about shifting the
political discourse by exposing forces that steer us in the wrong direction.
And we’ve already seen results, drawing out responses from close to 20
candidates and garnering attention from media outlets like the Boston Globe,
Fox News, and Huffington Post.
As Independence Day approaches, join us in declaring independence
from corporate rule. Visit our Governing Under the
Influence website to see how candidates are responding to these
important questions. And if you happen to be in New Hampshire or Iowa, we’d love to
meet you and get you involved.
In Peace,
Arnie Alpert
Co-Director, New Hampshire Program
American Friends Service Committee
Co-Director, New Hampshire Program
American Friends Service Committee
P.S. To learn more about our bird-dog volunteers, check out this recent story in
MintPress News.
American Friends Service Committee
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
AFSC.org Make a Donation Follow AFSC on Twitter Like us on Facebook
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
AFSC.org Make a Donation Follow AFSC on Twitter Like us on Facebook
How
to Celebrate July 4th Weekend as an INTERDEPENDENCE Celebration
Rabbi Michael
Lerner 6-29-15 rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com via uark.edu
to James
Tikkun to heal, repair and transform the world: A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner
Join or Donate
Now!
Dear Dick,
There is much
to celebrate in the goodness of the United States, even while acknowledging all
of the nation’s problems.
We spiritual progressives invite people
of all faiths, as well as the nonreligious, to avoid celebrating "bombs
bursting in air" and all other displays of American nationalist chauvinism
that imply that we are "number one" and others are lesser. Instead,
let us transform the July 3-5 holiday to celebrate our interdependence with all
human beings on this planet and our interdependence with the Earth, our badly
abused planet.
We invite you
to create a celebratory picnic or meal in which you sing songs affirming the
humanity of all on our planet, our love not only for neighbor but also for the
stranger, the Other (whoever that Other is—because almost every country on
earth is "othering" someone or some group, and yet we want to affirm
those people, animals, the earth, and even the split-off parts of our inner
psyches that we have denied and repressed), the immigrant, the homeless, the
hungry both in our own country and around the world. Don't let the July 4th
weekend end up being purely about barbecues, fireworks, and the like. We invite
our readers in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Israel,
Palestine, India, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere to turn
your own national holidays into celebrations of interdependence.
We have much to
celebrate in the U.S. this holiday weekend. We rejoice at the legalization of gay marriage. I was one
of the first rabbis in the U.S. to conduct gay and lesbian marriages, as a way
of affirming the equal validity of every caring-for-the-other-based form of
loving relationships. The Supreme Court’s decision last week was a victory for
all of us who want fundamental transformations toward a world of love and
justice, and a reminder of a key teaching I've learned from the experience of
the Jewish people and the teachings of our Torah: Don't be Realistic. Don't
allow the people with power to tell you that your desire for a world based on
love and justice and what we call The New Bottom Line is a utopian fantasy
(please read our full explanation of
this idea at spiritualprogressives.org/covenant). Just as everyone was telling gays that
marriage equality was unrealistic, so they will tell you that the New Bottom Line and the Environmental and Social Responsibility
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (tikkun.org/esra)
and the Global Marshall Plan
(tikkun.org/gmp) are unrealistic. Sadly, many of the most ethical people
come to believe this message and narrow their focus to what they think is
realizable in the short run, even failing to articulate to others the vision of
the world they really want. But what we learn from the legalization of gay
marriages is that:
You never know
what is possible till you engage in sustained (decades long) involvement in
movements that seek what is desirable and necessary for love, justice, and
environmental sanity to prevail.
What is worthy
of celebration about the U.S. and other democracies around the world is that
these struggles actually have a chance of winning, though not without great
effort, sustained inter-generational involvement through decades, commitment of
our time and our money and our hearts, and great risks (including going to jail
for nonviolent activism).
And while we
are celebrating interdependence, let’s expand our celebration to include the
powerful vision put forward by Pope
Francis in his recent environmental encyclical, and celebrate the wide
array of people (particularly
younger people) who are becoming deeply involved in activity to save the
life-support system of planet Earth.
None of this,
of course, frees us from critique of the way racism persists. Taking down Confederate flags may be a nice
symbolic move, but as I've shown in my recent article "A Path to End Racism," it will take a comprehensive
strategy along the lines I lay out to really make a difference, and in the
meantime we should be relentless in pushing forward a vision of a society freed
from its racism, and not allow the shallow gestures of President Obama or
paltry rhetoric to deflect us from our recognition that people of color are
still being subjected to inhumane treatment, denial or rights, and even, as we
saw in Charleston last week, murder—read the strategy I propose here.
Nor should we
forget that it is not only people of color who suffer from the daily impact of
the inequalities and environmental destructiveness that are an integral part of
global capitalism's current manifestations. Celebrating the good in America
gives us the opportunity to celebrate all the movements throughout American
history that worked for the well-being of the relatively powerless (including
many white people) whose struggles often succeeded in expanding democratic
rights and equality, and remember there’s still more work to be done.
Celebrating the goodness of the American people is part of the best in what
spiritual progressives insist upon even while remaining critical of what needs
to be changed--namely our refusal to demean anyone, including those who do not
yet agree with us, and instead to talk to people in a way that affirms their
goodness and highest being, an absolute precondition to get them to listen to
ideas about which they would likely be closed otherwise! Seeing what we religious and spiritual folk
call "the holy in everyone" does NOT mean silencing our critiques of
their ideas, but it does mean making those critiques in respectful and empathic
ways!
As part of your celebration, we invite you to read aloud to everyone
at your gathering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that I've appended
below! And yes, also have
lots of playful and humorous activity, which are imperative for a successful
social change movement and an intrinsic part of the celebration of Shabbat! If
you agree with out perspective, help us spread this message both by joining as
dues paying member the Network of
Spiritual Progressives (spiritualprogressives.org/join) and by posting this
on your Facebook or other social media, tweeting it, and/or just forwarding it
to friends ad family. . . .
Rabbi Michael
Lerner
Editor of
Tikkun Magazine
Winner of the
"Best Magazine of the Year 2014 Award" from the Religion Newswriters
Association
RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
PREAMBLE Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity
and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is
the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas
disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which
have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which
human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and
want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is
essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to
rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected
by the rule of law,
Whereas it is
essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the
peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in
the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social
progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member
States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United
Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights
and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a
common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance
for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a
common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that
every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration
constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect
for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and
international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and
observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the
peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
Article 1.
All human
beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without
distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the
political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory
to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing
or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3.
Everyone has
the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be
held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited
in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be
subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6.
Everyone has
the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7.
All are equal
before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection
of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in
violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such
discrimination.
Article 8.
Everyone has
the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts
violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9.
No one shall be
subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10.
Everyone is
entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and
impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of
any criminal charge against him.
Article 11.
(1) Everyone
charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved
guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the
guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one
shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission
which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law,
at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than
the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12.
No one shall be
subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the
right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13.
(1) Everyone
has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each
state.
(2) Everyone
has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his
country.
Article 14.
(1) Everyone
has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right
may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from
non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of
the United Nations.
Article 15.
(1) Everyone
has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one
shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change
his nationality.
Article 16.
(1) Men and
women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion,
have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal
rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage
shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending
spouses.
(3) The family
is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to
protection by society and the State.
Article 17.
(1) Everyone
has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one
shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18.
Everyone has
the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or
belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19.
Everyone has
the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to
hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20.
(1) Everyone
has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may
be compelled to belong to an association.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone
has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or
through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone
has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of
the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall
be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and
equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting
procedures.
Article 22.
Everyone, as a
member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to
realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in
accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic,
social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free
development of his personality.
Article 23.
(1) Everyone
has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable
conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone,
without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone
who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for
himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented,
if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone
has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his
interests.
Article 24.
Everyone has
the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours
and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25.
(1) Everyone
has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care
and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood
and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children,
whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26.
(1) Everyone
has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary
and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and
professional education shall be made generally available and higher education
shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education
shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the
strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall
promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or
religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for
the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents
have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their
children.
Article 27.
(1) Everyone
has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to
enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone
has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting
from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28.
Everyone is
entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms
set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29.
(1) Everyone
has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his
personality is possible.
(2) In the
exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such
limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition
and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just
requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic
society.
(3) These
rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and
principles of the United Nations.
Article 30.
Nothing in this
Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any
right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction
of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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CODEPINK PRAISES THE MAYORS RESOLUTION
info@codepink.org to jbennet
July 1, 2011
Dear Dick,
Email Congress
& Obama
Tweet: RT
@codepinkalert
Dissent is Patriotic
Flex your dissent muscle here: http://j.mp/jsmmYc
Facebook this!
Take
Mayors Resolution to Congress
Cookouts and
fireworks are great, but Independence Day also offers the perfect opportunity
to flex your democratic muscles.
Patriots formed
our nation by breaking the shackles of tyranny and declaring their right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Join us in furthering this
movement for a democracy grounded in life-affirming practices that serve the
common good.
With your help,
we moved our mayors to join the
effort to bring our war dollars home. http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=5780 Let’s take our victory to the next step by
demanding complete withdrawal of all
troops and contractors from Iraq
and Afghanistan
Email Congress and the President a reminder
that peace is patriotic. http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=5780
For an even
more intense democratic workout, you can hand deliver a copy of the mayoral
resolution to your representative.
It took courage
and tenacity to move the nation’s mayors to pass the first mayoral resolution
challenging U.S. war policy
since Vietnam
Don’t you feel
stronger already?
Celebrating
dissent (and democratic strength-training) daily,
Alli, C.J.,
Dara, Farida, Gayle, Janet, Jean, Jodie, Kristen, Lisa, Nancy, Medea, Rae,
Sanaa, Sasha, Tighe
BLUM
ON PATRIOTISM
The Anti-Empire Report July 5th, 2010 by William Blum www.killinghope.org
“Some
thoughts on "patriotism" written on July 4, 2010”
Most
important thought: I'm sick and tired of this thing called
"patriotism".
The Japanese
pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were being
patriotic. The German people who supported Hitler and his conquests were being
patriotic, fighting for the Fatherland. All the Latin American military
dictators who overthrew democratically-elected governments and routinely
tortured people were being patriotic — saving their beloved country from
"communism".
General
Augusto Pinochet of Chile
P.W. Botha,
former president of apartheid South
Africa
Pol Pot, mass
murderer of Cambodia
Tony Blair,
former British prime minister, defending his role in the murder of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis: "I did what I thought was right for our
country." 4
At the end of
World War II, the United
States
I was once
asked after a talk: "Do you love America
I don't make
much of a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Some people equate
patriotism with allegiance to one's country and government or the noble
principles they supposedly stand for, while defining nationalism as sentiments
of ethno-national superiority. However defined, in practice the psychological
and behavioral manifestations of nationalism and patriotism are not easily
distinguishable, indeed feeding upon each other.
Howard Zinn called nationalism "a set of beliefs taught to each
generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration
and becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children
of other Motherlands or Fatherlands. ... Patriotism is used to create the
illusion of a common interest that everybody in the country has." 5
Strong
feelings of patriotism lie near the surface in the great majority of Americans.
They're buried deeper in the more "liberal" and
"sophisticated", but are almost always reachable, and ignitable.
Alexis de
Tocqueville, the mid-19th century French historian, commented about his long
stay in the United States
George Bush Sr., pardoning former Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger and five others in connection with the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, said: "First, the
common denominator of their motivation — whether their actions were right or
wrong — was patriotism." 7
What a
primitive underbelly there is to this rational society. The US
So this July
4, my dear fellow Americans, some of you will raise your fists and yell:
"U! S! A! ... U! S! A!". And you'll parade with your flags and your
images of the Statue of Liberty. But do you know that the sculptor copied his
mother's face for the statue, a domineering and intolerant woman who had
forbidden another child to marry a Jew?
"Patriotism,"
Dr. Samuel Johnson famously said, "is the last refuge of a
scoundrel." American writer Ambrose Bierce begged to differ — It is, he
said, the first.
"Patriotism
is the conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because
you were born in it." — George Bernard Shaw
"Actions
are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does
them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages,
forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery,
assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral
colour when it is committed by 'our' side. ... The nationalist not only does
not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable
capacity for not even hearing about them." — George Orwell 8
"Pledges
of allegiance are marks of totalitarian states, not democracies," says
David Kertzer, a Brown
University United States Germany
Oddly enough,
the American Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, a founding
member, in 1889, of the Society of Christian Socialists, a group of Protestant
ministers who asserted that "the teachings of Jesus Christ lead directly
to some form or forms of socialism." Tell that to the next Teaparty
ignoramus who angrily accuses President Obama of being a "socialist".
Following the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979, we could read that there's "now a high degree of patriotism in
the Soviet Union because Moscow acted with
impunity in Afghanistan
"Throughout
the nineteenth century, and particularly throughout its latter half, there had
been a great working up of this nationalism in the world. ... Nationalism was
taught in schools, emphasized by newspapers, preached and mocked and sung into
men. It became a monstrous cant which darkened all human affairs. Men were
brought to feel that they were as improper without a nationality as without
their clothes in a crowded assembly. Oriental peoples, who had never heard of
nationality before, took to it as they took to the cigarettes and bowler hats
of the West." — H.G. Wells, British writer 11
"The
very existence of the state demands that there be some privileged class vitally
interested in maintaining that existence. And it is precisely the group
interests of that class that are called patriotism." — Mikhail Bakunin,
Russian anarchist 12
"To me,
it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography." —
George Santayana, American educator and philosopher
IN
DECLARATION AND CONSTITUTION FREEDOM AND EQUALITY NOT ALL
Frank
Rich, “Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010,”
The New York Times
Frank Rich
looks at the 4th this year through the lens of history, Black and White history
that is. Rich writes: "All men may be created equal, but slavery, America
NATIVE
AMERICANS ALMOST EXTINGUISHED
Why is the N. American settler-colonialism genocidal?
All five acts of genocide as described in the
1948 UN convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
were committed (p. 8). “From the
colonial period to the founding of the United States and continuing into the
twenty-first century, this has entailed torture, terror, sexual abuse,
massacres, systematic military occupations, removals. . . . The absence of even the slightest note of
regret or tragedy in the annual celebration of the US independence betrays a
deep disconnect in the consciousness of US Americans” (p. 9).
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Beacon, 2014).
From An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz pgs.
8-9 (I scanned the text, and I urge every citizen of the USA to read this
book. --D) 
Contents July 4, 2014, Independence Day
and Declaration of Independence Newsletter #3
Money, Money, Money
Independence
Day Protests in Hawaii and Vermont Against
Concentrated Economic Power
Concentrated Economic Power
Public Citizen
vs. Citizens United: US To Be a Nation Ruled Not
by the Wealthiest Few, But by and for ALL of We the People
Dick: The Declaration of Independence, Roosevelt’s 1932
Economic New Deal, and New Deal Today
by the Wealthiest Few, But by and for ALL of We the People
Dick: The Declaration of Independence, Roosevelt’s 1932
Economic New Deal, and New Deal Today
The Struggle
Continues: Raising Minimum Wage in
Arkansas
Permanent War
David Swanson, War No More
Warming
Alan Weisman, Countdown on Population Growth
At Least, Get
Informed and Vote: League of Women
Voters
and Electoral Democracy
and Electoral Democracy
END 4TH OF JULY INTERDEPENDENCE DAY NEWLETTER #4
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