Happy Independence Day

It's the 4th of July and as I get myself ready to go out and watch the local parade in my small town ( NOTHING says Happy 4th like the red-white and blue-goat) I am thinking about the meaning of this holiday.

It's NO secret how I feel about the current occupant of the White House.  I am especially appalled at his hijacking of a National Holiday for a thinly disguised campaign rally that ALL of us are paying for.  I understand his party still owes about 7 million for his poorly attended inauguration.

I am thinking about my childhood here in the San Fernando Valley. A child of  parents from "the Greatest Generation" I was raised with a fierce patriotism.  I still get a lump in my throat when the flag passes by, remembering the sacrifices in WWII.  I understand people who don't get the same feeling and applaud their right to speak out on the matter.  Freedom allows us to have differences of opinion and to discuss these differences to effect change ( however if you think taking children from their parents and putting them in cages is a good idea,well, I will have to rethink our association)

We barbecues and lit sparklers and we kids all played with one another.  I was blessed to live in a multicultural neighborhood and we all hung out together.

I grew up singing patriotic songs and learned some of the protest songs of the WPA.  I still think Woody Guthrie's "This Land is your Land" is one of the finest "patriotic" songs I have ever sung.

To me, being a "patriot" does not mean  "my Country right or wrong" but "my Country needs to be the best place for all people who love it"  Maybe I'm not saying this right, but my earliest  American Myers ancestor was with Washington at Valley Forge.  I don't think he slept in a tent in the snow so rich people like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell could get righter and put children in cages and somehow justify that.  Isn't tyranny what they fought against?  Whatever happened to "Give me your tire, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"?  Only if you look like the Ruling Class I suppose...