Fireworks and the American life

Last Wednesday thousands gathered in Fort Totten Park in Bayside, Queens for a fireworks display. The event had all the makings of potential disaster by modern metrics. Thousands of diverse people crammed into a limited area and jockeying for space to get a good view. A little league soccer team was wrapping up practice as people took their places in the expanse of green field between portable toilets and a row of food trucks. Bounce castles entertained children before the fireworks started and people took what they thought were the best positions to view the show as they waited for the sky to get dark enough.

The fireworks started promptly and a roaring whoop went up from the crowd as fireworks lit up the sky. New Yorkers cheered enthusiastically for this celebration of our War of Independence. When it was over, the crowd made its way out of Fort Totten without incident, or at least any major ones.

From parts of Fort Totten you can see the glitter of the Manhattan skyline and be inspired by the nighttime majesty of the Throgs Neck Bridge lit up. It is a marvel how New York holds itself together while the country seemingly tears itself apart. Gotham is as rife with division as everywhere else: New York City gave us both Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The greatness of New York serves as a microcosm of America. We see all the same issues in New York first, and the city, rightly or wrongly, serves as a template for how the rest of the country can navigate its problems.

The Fourth of July brings us down to Earth, reminds us of how American we are. It is popular to look upon outward signs of patriotism as right-wing or quaint, but if you believe America is for everyone and that patriotism is expansive and great, then join the celebration. The freedom we have was purchased in a bloody war, several actually.

The land we are on we do not claim by divine right. Every inch of America was fought over. We waged war on France, Great Britain (twice), Mexico (twice), Spain and countless Native American nations to get the current borders of the United States. July 4^th celebrates the birth of our nation, a hard-fought war for Independence that was in effect our first civil war. When the war started it was not a foregone conclusion that we would win. The patriots who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence knew that the document would serve as their death warrant if the war didn’t go their way.

The Battle of Brooklyn was one of the bloodiest fights in the history of the American Revolution, and the war would have ended had Washington not been able to retreat to Manhattan. The British held New York for most of the war, but the city has signs of the American Revolution everywhere. The first woman who took up arms for America, Margaret Corbin, fought at the Battle of Fort Washington in Manhattan.

Some are fatalistic and see America as it is headed now as intrinsically doomed. There is no cultural coherence to sustain us through these times, they say, and new communities and nations will rise out of what is now a crumbling empire. But New Yorkers have bridged these divides in the crucibles of ambition and creativity. We are strong when we demand truth and strength, and turn to leaders not afraid to speak honestly and make the right enemies. We can do that in America as a whole if we are willing.

Let the American Revolution be our call to action today.

A New American Revolution

It’s Independence Day and the next American Revolution is slowing happening around us.

Today we take time to honor those Americans brave enough to stand up for their country against their government and create an independent republic from a smattering of colonies. Thomas Jefferson’s advice that governments need to be brought down through revolution from time to time rings as true today as it did more than 200 years ago.

Today Americans are asserting their independence and saving their country from their government once again, but not in the way we did in the 1700s. I don’t think there are any realistic plans being made to overthrow the U.S. government. But Americans more and more are doing things without their government, not because they want to make a political point, but because it’s a better way to live their lives.

The U.S. government today operates under a system of legalized bribery. Our political officeholders answer first to the wealthy interests that financed their political campaigns. Our administrative services are often corrupted by those same forces, with a revolving door between industries and the government offices meant to regulate those same industries.

The branches of government are in an almost constant state of stalemate. Very little actual legislating get done. More and more conflicts end in courtrooms or in recall elections.

For example, we can’t trust the government to keep our food supply safe or to require truthful labels on our food, so more and more of us are acting on our own to set up local food co-ops.

Our public education system is mired in political and cultural conflicts, saddled with ridiculous regulations that get in the way of actually educating kids, and are often required to house violent juveniles. More and more parents are demanding charter schools. More parents are home schooling kids or looking for affordable private schools. If it’s not happening already, educational co-ops will start to spring up. Some parents are even setting up illegal daycare centers for their children because the waiting lists for government-approved preschools are too long.

The federal government and its corporate masters and allied ethnic lobbies want illegal immigration to lower wages and divide the working classes through cultural conflict. More and more states begin passing their own immigration laws.

These are all nonviolent revolutionary acts in their own ways. Like the original American revolutionaries, most people who take part are only trying to save the America they know.