HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

I’m glad I don’t live in DC where’d I’d have to hear the rumbling of tanks down the hot Washington pavement and fighter planes overhead and narcissistic ramblings from the Lincoln Memorial. Imagine what Lincoln would think! What I mind most about what the president is doing is that our day of national independence is being politicized and weaponized. 4th of July isn’t about weapons and war. Most of us, including many folks who voted for D.T. don’t want any more war. We’re right. In today’s world, war is truly not the answer.

That said, I hope that wherever you are, you have enough to eat, have loving family and/or friends, a roof over your heads and that you take a moment to be grateful for the day this country was no longer a colony but free and independent to pursue it’s dream of Democracy and freedom. We should also ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to make that dream a reality today because we aren’t there yet. But we can be. We must be. The stakes are too high now.

Here’s what I believe is the best way forward: Regardless of where we come from and what our color is or how we worship, every family wants the best for themselves and their children. But today, certain politicians and their greedy lobbyists are putting all our families at risk. They rig the rules to enrich themselves and avoid paying their fair share of taxes, while they defund our schools and threaten seniors with cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Then they turn around and point the finger for our hard times at people of color and new immigrants . . . even tearing families apart and losing children. When we reject their scapegoating and come together across racial differences we can make this a nation we’re proud to leave all of our children . . . Whether we are Democrat or Republican, white, black or brown from down the street or across the globe.

We need to recognize our linked fate across race and class in order to sweep away the politicians’ dog-whistling on behalf of rule and for the rich. The best response to ‘divide and conquer’ is ‘unite and build’.

I think I’ll make a bumper sticker of that!