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TechnoratiYour Fourth of July and My Fourth of July
Your Fourth of July is blood for oil.
My Fourth of July is the pure sunbeam of peace.
Yours is the imperial presidency and "so what?" to public opinion.
Mine is "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
Yours is profiling and discrimination.
Mine is "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."
Yours is "My country right or wrong."
Mine is avoiding "Offences against the Law of Nations"
Yours is the veto of child health care and rejection of Kyoto,
Mine is an America that cares about the wellbeing of our children.
Yours is a monarchical presidency above the law.
Mine is, with Tom Paine, "in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."
Yours is aggressive invasions of countries that did not attack us first.
Mine is "and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."
Yours is water-boarding and electrocution.
Mine is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Yours is the stench of a million moldering corpses, military rule over 27 million, and the creation of oceans of misery.
Mine is "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Yours is off-shore drilling, coddling polluters, 'heckuva job Brownie.'
Mine is a stewardship of America the beautiful for succeeding generations.
Yours is the privatization of war and the deployment of whole divisions of "contractors. . ."
Mine is an America where privates do not risk their lives for a tenth of what a mercenary is paid by the Pentagon.
Yours is the erection of protest zones as zoos for citizens.
Mine is, "or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Yours is the swagger of the flight jacket and the bombs raining down.
Mine is the schooling of the next global generation.
Mine is America, the pure sunbeam of peace.
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
© 2008 Juan Cole
22 Comments so far
Show AllI am going to indulge in pure silliness on the dying ember of this thread-- because thanks to the CD headline composer, this paraphrase from a childhood playground ditty employed to choose sides, or who was "it", has been stuck in my head for two days.
I'll leave off the second bit, wherein a color is named in answer to the question and the chant continues:
Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July were hanging clothes;
Your Fourth of July punched My Fourth of July right in the nose--
What color blood came out?
thank you, juan cole. whatever america has been, cole referred to the dream--our common dream.
work toward electing obama and then forcing him to live by this common dream. i wonder if his adherents have figured out that he's a politician.
fraserco July 4th, 2008 2:57 pm
"Patriotism is a passionate love of one's land coupled with a passionate distrust of one's government." - Emma Goldman
Now Emma Goldman got it.
canuckchuck July 4th, 2008 8:23 pm
At least people are free to speak their minds here.
Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to know that understanding had been perverted by propaganda.
cryptopathocracy July 4th, 2008 2:51 pm ..I said it before and I'll say it again..I do not do any drugs or even drink. When trolls have nothing of substance to add or the information to debate or dispute facts, they resort to insults. It's typical and really not worth my keyboard time! Ciao!
Well, purvis ames, either you've been working all night like myself, or you get up early. Good Morning.
What is this "pure sunbeam of light"? Is that when we were exterminating the Indians? Is that when Texas declared its independence because Santa Ana prohibited slavery? Is that when we tried to take over the French colonial position in Viet Nam? Well, the list goes on and on.
No one who posts on articles regarding the ME should fail to start their morning with INFORMED COMMENT.
THE most in depth analyses of Iraq.
And more.
Professor Cole. Unembedded.
the 4th of July should become an international day of mourning for the rise of Global Fascism in the form of the Imperial USA.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
it is their right,
it is their duty,
to throw off such government,
and to provide new guards for their future security."
zzz - AGREE
Cole is another well placed gatekeeper at UofM. His mission is to take serious dissent and pent up rage and difuse it through safe channels... hence his desire to creat a Potemkin village as you schrewdly point out. I wouldn't be surprized if he and Dershowitz share cocktails on the lucrative lecture circuit.
If I may add… any Professor who strays a little to close to the truth in the public domaine gets the Ward Churchill/Norman Finkelstein treatment.
Juan,
If you really believe in freedom, especially freedom of speech, then why are the comments on your site so heavily censored? And censored without explanation?
What motivates this policy of yours? Why erect a sort of Potemkin village of responses? If the comment is not abusive, obscene, or spam why not post it and allow readers to make up their own minds about whether the comment is sufficiently "informed"? That is, unless your goal is to insulate yourself from criticism or condescend to those who read your blog.
Perhaps, I should only read your articles when they are printed on Common Dreams, where you can't simply delete the comments of those who disagree with you.
I'd like to add, since this comment was deemed inappropriate for you site, that I can't find a period in our history when the USA was a "pure sunbeam of peace", in spite of the stale rhetoric you've quoted.
"Patriotism is a passionate love of one's land coupled with a passionate distrust of one's government." - Emma Goldman
willybill - please go back to sniffing your Uber Ether and leave the heavy lifting to those who can.
Juan Cole - just when was America this "pure sunbeam of peace"???
...perhaps when it was inflicting mass genocide on the native population???
...or waiting until the Soviet Union had decimated 20 million of its own citizens in grinding down the Nazi machine until it safely entered WWII, guaranteed that they would be the ultimate victor?
...or killing over 1 million innocent Iraqi's in the mythological search for bin Laden or some other phantom? ...while just fortunately stumbling upon a sea of OIL for our Christian Exec's at Exxon,Shell,BP etc.??
Cole appears to at least recognize that there is a battle going on... but fancifull hypnotics really doesn't get us anywhere. he might as well be sharing a pipe with willybill.
willybill July 4th, 2008 1:40 pm
http://www.fourwinds10.com./siterun_data/bellringers_corner/people_of_the_lie/news.php?q=1206983637
willybill,
Great link. Thanks.
Published on Wednesday, April 3, 2002 by Common Dreams
What the American Flag Stands For
by Charlotte Aldebron
The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.
School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.
Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag's real meaning remains.
Charlotte Aldebron, 12, wrote this essay for a competition in her 6th grade English class. She attends Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle, Maine. Comments may be sent to her mom, Jillian Aldebron: aldebron@ainop.com
Love it! Thank you, Professor Cole.
http://www.fourwinds10.com./siterun_data/bellringers_corner/people_of_the_lie/news.php?q=1206983637
Non-Americans, such as myself, have to keep reminding ourselves that there is a substantial body of US citizens, as exemplified by Prof. Cole, who believe in America's fundamental values.
Happy Independence Day to all Usanians!
As we commemorate the independence of the third largest state in the world and the world's second-largest democracy, people of all nations would do well to contemplate the wisdom of their ancestors:
"So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
George Washington
"Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder."
Ataturk
Bravo Prof. Cole!