Independence Day links
The United States Declaration of Independence from the British monarchy
The Occupy Wall Street Declaration of independence from what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to as the “economic royalists”
A speech calling for a return to American greatness (from Aaron Sorkin’s new TV show The Newsroom, for which my cousin Daniel is on the production crew)
Each of these links contains some very dubious statements. The last item in the list of grievances against the king of England refers to “the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions,” an all too typical attempt to reframe Native Americans’ natural tendency to defend themselves and their land against invaders. Several of the grievances in the Occupy declaration, particularly “They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press,” are disingenuous because they’re actually directed against governments supposedly acting in the interests of corporations. Roosevelt makes the odd claim that the U.S. Constitution stands “against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike,” even though it was the founding document of a nation to be ruled by its people, and its words were originally interpreted to support rule by white male landowners only. And in eulogizing America’s former greatness, the main character of The Newsroom makes the unlikely claims that “we never beat our chest” and “we didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for;” excessive national pride and partisanship may have become more serious problems in recent years, but they’ve always been part of American life. But hey, nobody’s perfect.