When I started writing this entry, the Highland Park parade shooting was just being reported. Highland Park, Parkland, Any Place, USA, a land of gun culture. In the absence of real gun control, our feckless representatives are accessories to the next mass shooting already brewing in America Land. We fought wars to live safely and freely and now the cancer from within society is our greatest enemy. This is central to the pieces I read during the “holiday.”
Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer for the New York Times wrote an interesting
article for the July 4 holiday, The American Flag Belongs to Me, Too, and This Year I’m Taking It Back
Essentially it recounts a dilemma I have felt – our flag seems to have been purloined by the MAGA crowd. But she had an experience which led her to hang “the American flag again for the first time in years. It’s right next to the front door, and it does not symbolize MAGA lies or MAGA tyranny. We are flying it proudly in honor of our fellow Americans who are fighting for justice of every kind.”
To me it is merely an inspirational piece. Our partisan SCOTUS is just beginning to show its clout. And the J6 Hearings clearly show Trump’s role in that attempt to overthrow the peaceful transition of power. Where is justice ask the following pieces?
Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station’s wonders where Merrick Garland is in When Good Men Do Nothing, He used to write these hard-hitting progressive pieces on a regular basis before migrating to Twitter. Still he writes a monthly wrap-up. Essentially his piece can be summarized by “Why should I have any faith in the Department of Justice?”
Another weekender was John Pavlovitz’s When the Law Fails You, Where Do You Go? He approaches the same topic but from the viewpoint of a humanistic pastor (which he is). These articles are there for anyone to read, so no further comment on them from me.
I’ll add a piece I wrote eight years ago Independence Day Reverie Hard to believe, eight years. I was startled coming across this as it proves the old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I was writing about the same issues as today, and this is pre-Trump. He is merely an accelerant on our national nightmare.
