This year the Fourth of July finds me disheartened. None of our customary Fourth of July practices are being observed. There is no Sauganash Fourth of July parade. Our neighbors aren’t hosting their annual post-parade brunch. Chicago has cancelled its fireworks display on the lakeshore.
People are afraid of COVID-19. Many have lost their jobs due to the lockdowns or due to the self-quarantines or both. Many who haven’t lost their jobs are afraid of losing their jobs.
People are afraid of the violence in the streets. Businesses just struggling to re-open following the lockdowns were destroyed in the riots and looting.
People are tearing down statues. I will shed no tears for Confederate officers or politicians but those tearing down or defacing statues are casting a wider net. In addition to Confederate generals and politicians statues of Columbus, Junipero Serra, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln have been targeted.
I don’t see a spirit of reform abroad in the land or even a spirit of Marxism as some have claimed. What I see is nihilism.
The murders on Chicago’s South and West Sides are proceeding on schedule. So far 8 have been killed and 25 wounded.
It’s a bit hard to discuss reform when the opposition considers you to be evil beyond redemption, worthy only of obliteration once they have confiscated your worldly possessions.
Last night, here in rural north central Ohio, around ten different families, scattered about, offered up their own fireworks displays. There were no public ones, no parades, no speeches. The local governments just shut down, and the people did their own thing.
The three displays I could see were nearly of professional caliber, numerous high-rising, multi-color explosions, going on for 30 minutes to almost an hour. Very satisfying.
This is the second year in a row for my neighbor across the valley. Most of the other displays were new this year. I have a 3-acre field. Next year I will join in.
If this is a racist display, so be it. I will be a racist. If Kaepernick wants to claim the 4th is a White Supremacist holiday, so be it. I will gladly be a White Supremacist every 4th. If the NFL wants to play the Black National Anthem before games, so be it. I’ve better things to do Sundays anyway.
Kaepernick must have exciting discussions with his white parents his own Italian half.
He literally makes me sick. Ignorant, ungrateful limelight sucking SOB. Maybe they can can have him sing the black anthem before games.
Uhh, NYC had a big fireworks display, and we know that place is full of socialists, communists, terrorists and they all hate America.
Steve
We know and the NYPD know, out in force, no one gets the day off:
https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-4th-july-fireworks-draw-tight-security-massive-crowds
Couldn’t have been done without them.
I, too, noted that NYC had numerous private fireworks displays, so did LA. Marxists and their spawn may yet destroy American as a representative democracy, or even a defined territory. But evidently there are still millions of Americans who believe the dream, and they will exist even if the Republic dies.
That is hopeful