FREEDUMB ain't FREE... nor WISE... and it sure as shit isn't SUSTAINABLE.

The 4th of July always gets me a little riled up.  It's a day when we 'Mericans celebrate how great we are despite being one of the most wasteful, hypocritical, and aggressive nations in human history. We celebrate with an arrogant display of pride for our ridiculously unsustainable lifestyle.

Across this great continent, a hundred million people -- many of whom claim to care about the environment -- fire up their automotive exoskeletons and head out in search of recreation.  What exactly are they trying to recreate?  My best guess is some notion of the good life they absorbed throughout a lifetime inundated by advertising and bullshit.

The part that really gets me on the 4th is that most people don't even seem to be enjoying themselves.  Even their attempts at play end up being a whole lot of work.  I mean, come on, if you've never really considered "the big picture" and are only searching out your next little thrill, you may as well have a good time doing it.  Pop some pills, pump some gas, slug some beer, and git er' dun.  If you're going to be a patriotic nihilist, go nuts!  

Across the country, radio stations pump out USA-themed classics to get folks all fired up on Patriotism as they roll down the highway.  One of the most played songs is Springsteen's masterpiece, Born In The USA.

If anyone made the effort to actually listen, they'd realize Born In The USA is the lament of a poor man from an industrial town who got in trouble with the law and was forced into the military.  He lost his brother while they were both fighting in Vietnam and then came back to find no jobs at the local oil refinery and no help available from Veteran's Affairs.  A decade later he's still so fucked up and pissed off that he's screaming about it.

Don't believe me?  Just listen...

Born down in a dead man's town

The first kick I took was when I hit the ground

You end up like a dog that's been beat too much

Till you spend half your life just covering up

chorus

Got in a little hometown jam

So they put a rifle in my hand

Sent me off to a foreign land

To go and kill the yellow man

chorus

Come back home to the refinery

Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"

Went down to see my V.A. man

He said "Son, don't you understand"

I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong

They're still there, he's all gone

He had a woman he loved in Saigon

I got a picture of him in her arms now

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary

Out by the gas fires of the refinery

I'm ten years burning down the road

Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A.

I was born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A.

I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.

While we're about the business of debunking American Myths, here's a little history lesson.  Call it a distillation from a damn fine book -- Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States -- which gives the loser's persepective of those not-so-great moments in history when that shape-shifting tranny dominatrix we call Lady Liberty had her way with em'.

518 years ago hypocritically bible-thumping Spanish pirates stumbled upon this continent.  They were crazy over gold, had the most high tech weapons, and would do just about anything to get what they wanted. Through deceit, thievery, violence, and arrogance they ravaged the pristine land and killed off the folks already living relatively peaceful lives there.

So began the long legacy of genocide, slavery, deception, "Indian-giving", overconsumption, war, and environmental destruction that resulted in the utter conquest of North America.


The rape of the richest continent on the planet naturally reaps big benefits.  Thus we're powerful despite our glaring faults.  If you think our power is the result of some noble spirit possessed only by 'Mericans, you're fooling yourself.  We're so well off because our ancestors hit the geographical jackpot. All we had to do was kill a few million Indians, enslave a few million Africans, and enthrone the ugliest of human capacities: GREED.

The proud conquerors pumped out babies and here we are, with ideas about where we stand so fucked that the whole world has to cater to our overinflated "needs".  And if anyone isn't keen to give us everything we want, like a spoiled child, like the bully on the block, we go ahead and take it... 


...whatever the cost.

Like those Spanish pirates, as a nation we're crazy about money and power, have the most high tech weapons, and do just about anything to get what we want.  Equally hypocrital, all the while we convince ourselves that our intentions are noble.  Freedom is to us what the Catholic Faith was to them.

Operation Iraqi Freedom?!  Ha.  Operation Get Oil has had us aggressively attacking for decades, has us mired in two endless wars, and it's got the Gulf of Mexico in a massive ecological and economic clusterfuck.  Don't blame BP.  Blame the absurd lifestyle we 'Mericans have suckered ourselves into.

So do all of us a favor.  Park the car.  Ride a bike.  Lose the gut.  Love yourself.  And once you see your own self worth, maybe you'll realize all those folks suffering and dying to support your lifestyle have human rights as well.

And when you see a car commercial that hijacks one of our greatest national heroes and puts him behind the wheel of a gas-guzzling sports car, maybe you'll get good and pissed off.  Maybe you'll embrace the anger and do something with it.  If George Washington witnessed the nonsense that America's become, he'd start a new revolution.

See what I mean.  A lifetime of choking down advertising and other assorted bullshit... it hijacks your thoughts, feelings, and desires.  Gotcha, didn't they.  


Yeah, well, I'm bummed about it too... but bumming over it.  If you can, drop out and join the cause cuz if you're not part of the solution...


Exactly.  Plus, it's a hell of a lot more FUN.  Ideally, OILFREE.