I am an American and I love the country that I was born in. But that country no longer exists.

        All three branches of the U.S. federal government are now controlled by fascists. Congress is controlled by Republicans who sold out to the Koch Brothers and A.L.E.C., to Wall Street banks, to Southern (and Northern) racists and hatemongers, to Rupert Murdoch's Fox Channel and its fake news propaganda, to religious fanatics, and to climate change-denying polluters. The U.S. Supreme Court is controlled by fascists (5 to 4): all five are members of the Federalist Society and signatories of P.N.A.C. (the latter being a violation of their oath of office, if not both). Loose cannon billionaire sex offender Emperor Donald Trump violated his oath of office as President the moment that he spoke it and is still in violation of the Constitution's Emolument Clauses. His entire administration believes that lying alters reality. And there is now enough evidence of the crime of obstruction of justice to impeach Emperor Trump – whenever the U.S. Constitution gets revived.

        The U.S. Constitution is a hollow shell; it was placed on life support (metaphorically) in January 2010 when Justice John Roberts issued the ludicrous 'Citizens United v. F.E.C.' decision declaring the United States to be a fascist government. The U.S. Constitution was finally killed when Emperor Trump took over the White House and the Executive Branch with the help of (per evidence since revealed) dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia.

        Fascism was defined by Benito Mussolini in 1926 as when "the corporations and the military take the government away from the people". He later said that he should have called it corporatism, because that is what it is. Everyone in Emperor Trump's cabinet is either a general officer in the military (active or retired) or a right wing billionaire. Other officials in the Trump White House include failed TV reporters, incompetent members of the Trump family, and lobbyists and politicians sworn to dismantle the very department or bureau that they now head.

* *          * *          * *          * *         I long ago gave up celebrating 'pagan holidays' – Hallowe'en is the obvious one, but so are New Years Day, Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. That leaves Memorial Day and Veterans Day and Labor Day, which no longer have cultural meaning and are basically excuses for three-day weekends. M.L.K. Day, Gay Pride Day, Mothers Day, and Fathers Day are irrelevant to my situation, so that left only Independence Day on July Fourth as a holiday that mattered to me.

        A group of wealthy white males signed the Declaration of Independence on July Fourth in 1776, and their defiance of the British monarchy and business interests put each of them at great risk. The last phrase of that immortal document states that they "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor".

        Today's United States government has no honor. None.

        Emperor Trump decreed withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement so that our corporations can freely pollute and thus increase profits. Congress is slashing Head Start and Medicare and Medicaid and cutting $5B from public education and cutting further billions from the budgets of the E.P.A. and the I.R.S. and the C.D.C and the S.E.C., and from the Departments of Health & Human Services and Housing & Urban Development so that corporations can wreak havoc without regulation. The Department of the Interior will be selling federal land and mineral rights to the LOWEST-bidding polluter. And there will be no job creation programs through infra-structure repair or renewable energy or economic stimulous – better to keep the peasants living in fear.

        Here is a clue for the clueless: Privatization is fascism. Every time. Period.

        So there is really nothing to celebrate on July Fourth this year. We The People are displaced, no longer free and independent individuals basking in a world of choice and prosperity. We are peasants living under the control of the same divine right aristocracy that we broke with in 1776.

        And at least half of the people in America (and in New Mexico and in my Valencia County) have been brainwashed into believing that that is a good thing.

[copyright 2017 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Essay also published online at OpEdNews website on June 15th.
Then also printed and published online at Valencia County [NM] News-Bulletin local paper on July 13th.

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