(no subject)
When did the Fourth of July turn into such a fucking gung-ho soldier's holiday? My Facebook feed is filled today with all the people who would have voted to invade Iraq before September 11th, if given the option, all talking about how Freedom isn't Free and how we need to remember the men and women who die to protect our freedom.
I don't bear my dad's hate of soldiers, since still to me "soldiers" mostly means the people I went to high school with who couldn't afford college any other way, but I don't really think soldiers deserve to have all three of the great patriotic holidays in America. Soldiers get Veterans if they come back, Memorial Day if they don't make it, but the Fourth of July seems to me to be a day to celebrate the ideals of America, whether we succeed at staying true to them or not.
Let's not forget that the Fourth commemorates a day where a bunch of old white men made a series of decisions that would require a bunch of young men and a bunch of civilians to die as a consequence to enforce the decisions of the old men. It might be a good idea to spend the Fourth recognizing that those same old men should try to make the best decisions that they possibly can.
I don't bear my dad's hate of soldiers, since still to me "soldiers" mostly means the people I went to high school with who couldn't afford college any other way, but I don't really think soldiers deserve to have all three of the great patriotic holidays in America. Soldiers get Veterans if they come back, Memorial Day if they don't make it, but the Fourth of July seems to me to be a day to celebrate the ideals of America, whether we succeed at staying true to them or not.
Let's not forget that the Fourth commemorates a day where a bunch of old white men made a series of decisions that would require a bunch of young men and a bunch of civilians to die as a consequence to enforce the decisions of the old men. It might be a good idea to spend the Fourth recognizing that those same old men should try to make the best decisions that they possibly can.