OMNI
INTERDEPENDENCE
DAY ANTHOLOGY #6
JULY 4, 2024
Compiled by
Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
What’s at
Stake: The so-called Freedom from British
Tyranny Day offers an annual opportunity to hone our critical thinking in a
land of contradictions. We fought a war
for freedom, but it was a freedom for white male settlers to grab land westward
until the original inhabitants were almost exterminated. We threw off a King but now our Supreme
Court reinstates tyrannical monarchy. We
celebrate FREEDOM but in our Declaration of Independence “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all
Men are created equal. “ Half the country fought a cruel war against slavery
only to see the losers recreate slavery in a new Jim Crow system. Surely these and a dozen other mental and
moral pretzels contribute to our individual and national dysfunctions. Instead, let’s celebrate INTERDEPENDENCE DAY and
learn to live with our ourselves and our local and international neighbors.
At end see Interdependence Day #5
key writings.
CONTENTS
Robert
Weissman. Public Citizen for Democracy
and Justice.
American Committee for
US-Russia Accord.
USCPR
Action: 3 Ways to Protest U.S.-funded Genocide on July 4th.
TEXTS
Robert
Weissman. “Are You With Us?” Public Citizen. Jul 3, 2024. 
Tomorrow
is July 4 — the day we traditionally join together as a nation to celebrate our
independence from a tyrannical monarchy.
But the United States Supreme Court has now enshrined in law the very thing
we fought to gain our independence from two and a half centuries ago. As you no doubt know by now, the court
has ruled that U.S. presidents are immune from prosecution for almost anything
they do in office.
· That means if Donald Trump
becomes president again, he could take bribes in exchange for handing out
pardons.
· And, with this travesty of
a Supreme Court ruling, he would face zero legal consequences.
· Donald Trump could have
SEAL Team Six assassinate a political rival — or anyone else, for that matter,
including you.
· And, with this travesty of
a Supreme Court ruling, he would face zero legal consequences.
· Donald Trump could order a
military coup so that he can remain in power.
· And, with this travesty of
a Supreme Court ruling, he would face zero legal consequences.
· I am not exaggerating.
Describing exactly these hypothetical actions by a future president, Justice
Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent what the result would be if anyone
tried to bring criminal charges: “Immune, immune, immune.”
The Supreme Court has granted U.S. presidents the type of
immunity associated with kings, not elected officials.
The choice facing each and every one of us is this:
Do we consent to be subjects of a de facto king?
Do we give in to a self-fulfilling prophecy of despair?
Or do we stand for what we know to be right, even if the fight just got even
harder?
I know what the answer is for Public Citizen.
We stand and fight.
We organize day after day after day.
We mobilize with everything we’ve got.
We campaign with the same force and resolve that has kept us powering forward —
and winning, even when the chances of success seemed infinitesimal — for over
50 years.
We rise up together. And we do not, do
not, do not give up.
Are you with us?
Please donate today to help Public Citizen keep fighting. Or sign up as a Monthly Donor today and your contribution
will be matched dollar-for-dollar each month for a full year!
If donating today is not a good fit, that’s okay. Either way, thank you for
being part of this shared project called Public Citizen.
For democracy, justice, and progress,
Robert Weissman, President of Public
Citizen
[Public Citizen was founded by Ralph Nader and continues to be
one of the very best US public interest organizations. –Dick]
American Committee for
US-Russia Accord
Mission News Stephen F. Cohen Archive Board
Members Contact Donate
Wishing you and yours a happy 4th of July! July 4, 2024. We will return Monday July 8th. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new
window)
Additional Resources ACURA is on Facebook, YouTube
- Johnson’s
Russia List OSCE Special Monitoring
Mission to Ukraine
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Reconsidering Russia
- Russian
and Eurasian Politics Irrussia
Ahmad
Abuznaid. “Share the
#NotMyTaxDollars map this 4th of July FW: 3 ways to
protest U.S.-funded genocide on July 4th.” “Summer of Resistance.” USCPR Action. July 4, 2024. 
Hey Dick,
You may have seen this email my colleague Leah sent you
earlier this week (forwarded below), and on 4th of July today, there’s
one simple thing everyone can do to resist genocide.
Today, everywhere you go and with
everyone you meet, talk about where your tax dollars are going.
Every year, the U.S. government writes Israel a blank check
for at least $3.8 billion to kill and oppress Palestinian
families. This year, the U.S. sent an additional $14 BILLION along
with countless weapons shipments.
The U.S. is the biggest funder of the Israeli military in the
world, and there can be no celebrations as our government actively fuels a
genocide.
Look up how much people in
Fayetteville have to pay for genocide through your taxes each year. Then, share
the graphic on social media with the hashtag #NotMyTaxDollars. (Not
on social media? Forward this email to three friends.)
On the Not My Tax Dollars map,
you can hover over the red TAKE ACTION button and then click SHARE NOW to
download a graphic to share on social media.
Onward to liberation,
AHMAD ABUZNAID
Executive Director
Hey Dick,
As fireworks light up the skies this Fourth of July, it’s
impossible to look at such patriotic displays without reckoning with the colonial
history of the United States and the current genocide funded
with our U.S. tax dollars.
In her poem “No Explosions,” Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye famously
wrote, “To enjoy fireworks you would have to have lived a different
kind of life.”
Day in and day out for nine months, Palestinian people in Gaza have
been tortured by each U.S. bomb that Israel drops on their homes,
hospitals, schools, and refugee tents. They’re fighting to protect their
families, while the U.S. has doubled down on extinguishing Palestinian life.
It’s completely unconscionable that U.S. politicians keep funneling billions to
Israel for the mass murder of Palestinian families.
Fund care not killing! Our government could be funding care for our
communities, like housing and healthcare, but instead chooses to arm genocide
and construct cop cities for militarized policing.
Everywhere you go this Fourth of July, disrupt business as usual to raise our
demand loud: STOP ARMING ISRAEL.
Here are three ways you can take
action on the 4th, on page 2 of the Stop Gaza Genocide toolkit. Make
sure to check local laws to assess risks.
1. Broadcast a light projection at night. This
works best if you or someone you know has a good projector and a generator to
power it. Check where your local fireworks display is happening, and whether
there’s a large blank flat surface (like the side of a building) nearby. If so,
project your Stop Arming Israel message there for all to see when the sun goes
down.
2. Wheatpaste flyers around town. Consider
hanging up Stop Arming Israel flyers in public spaces, especially in the area
of fireworks displays and large gatherings.
3. Disrupt complicity with a noise demonstration. Find
out if complicit politicians or weapons manufacturers will be part of local
celebrations. If so, disrupt by making a lot of noise! Bring a megaphone, and
bang pots and pans.
USE THE STOP GAZA GENOCIDE TOOLKIT
(PG. 2)
Going to a local protest? You
can print out these Stop Arming Israel and Fund Care Not Killing protest
signs.
Resist with us all summer long.
Onward to liberation,
LEAH MUSKIN-PIERRET
Manager of Congressional & Grassroots Advocacy
P.S. If you haven’t yet, tell your members of Congress to
reject Israeli war criminal Netanyahu’s speech on July 24. And
if you’ve already emailed them, then text three friends and ask them to take
action too.
“A Patriot’s Fourth of July.” Berlin Bulletin No. 213.
Victor Grossman. Mronline.org (7-7-23).
Despite all
doubts, despite fearful weaponry, at home or abroad, can we still call
ourselves patriotic? In fact, is that a good thing to be?
[This essay is
distinctively mind-opening by for example its comparison of FREEDOM in the US
and the former Socialist East Germany. I can’t decide which passage to quote, so click
on title above for the full text and here is his bio. –Dick]
About Victor Grossman
Victor
Grossman is a journalist from the United States now living in Berlin. He fled
his U.S. Army post in the 1950s in danger of reprisals for his left-wing
activities at Harvard University and in Buffalo, New York. He landed in the
former German Democratic Republic (Socialist East Germany), studied journalism,
founded a Paul Robeson Archive, and became a freelance journalist and author.
His latest book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee (Monthly
Review Press), is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to
1990, the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism, the reasons
for the fall of socialism, and the importance of today’s struggles. His address
is wechsler_grossman [at] yahoo.de (also for a free sub to the Berlin Bulletins
sent out by MR Online).
Rabbi
Arthur Waskow. “Connecting
Torah with the Fourth of July.” The Shalom Report. [I recommend reading all of this excellent
argument; I could not manage to copy and paste.
–D]
Dear friends,
I view the Fourth of July as not mainly the day of national independence for
the USA, but the day when the best principles of self-government proposed by
Locke, Jefferson, and Co. — and certain passages of Torah!! — were broadcast
into the world.
The whole world.
— We hold these truths to be self-evident: That we are endowed by our Creator
with certain unalienable rights — that among these are life, liberty, & the
pursuit of happiness — that governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it
. . . .
{Or you can download the text from the National Archives — https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration
.} . . .
And then a list of specific abuses by the King.
For those of us who celebrate living in (at least) two civilizations, it's a
great day to connect with Torah.
For there is a passage of Deuteronomy (17: 14-20) called Perek HaMelekh, the
Passage of the King, that makes this connection beautifully.
Indeed, it is probably the most ancient root of the Declaration of
Independence.
It proclaims a constitutional monarchy of Israel, with the king responsible to
God, Torah, the Levites, and the people as a whole, and with explicit limits on
his powers. . . .
Do our interdependence with Earth and our need for community, not only liberty,
belong in a new Declaration? Should we explicitly recognize the subjugation of
Blacks, Indigenes, some Latino and Asian-origin peoples, some religious
communities, women and GLBTQIA folk, as utterly contrary to the principles
proclaimed on the Fourth?
When we ask these questions, there is usually a burst of energy, and of
responses. . . . Shalom, — Arthur
“Lessons Of
Desert Oases For Eco-Resilient Transformation” By David
Bollier. Popular Resistance.org (7-4-24). To the Western mind, the presence of lush
oases in the middle of deserts is a strange aberration, almost a dream. What
moderns fail to appreciate is that oases are actually deliberate human
creations, socio-ecological examples of commoning. Colonial powers may
see oases as a miraculous fantasy, but locals realize that their cultures of
interdependence over the course of millennia have made oases possible,
enabling them to collect and sustain natural flows of water in arid climates. Safouan Azouzi, a scholar of the
commons, grew up in Gabès, Tunisia, where he lived within ancient
traditions that sustain oases in the desert. -more-
CONTEXTS
OMNI
9-11, SEPTEMBER
11 FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS DAY, NATIONAL DAY OF SERVICE NEWSLETTER #8, September
11, 2015 (alternative to Patriot Day).
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/09/september-11-families-for-peaceful.html
CONTENTS INTERDEPENDENCE DAY JULY 4, 2023 #5
#4 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-interdependence-day-july-4-2021.html
Frederick
Douglass. “What, to the slave, is the
Fourth of July?”
Rabbi Arthur Waskow. “New
4th of July.”
Mark Charles. “The
Dilemma Of The Fourth Of July.”
Margaret Kimberley. “The
Terrible Origins Of July 4th.”
ACLU of
Arkansas. “How many are not free?”
Google. 8 items on Interdependence Day
END INTERDEPENDENCE
DAY, INTERNATIONAL DAY OF INTERDEPENDENCE, ANTHOLOGY #6,
July 4, 2024.
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