As this Salon article makes clear, our so called Independence is an illusion. A lot of resonant imagery will be shown, and glowing terms will be uttered, before midnight moves across the time zones, but it will it will end up as only so much smoke and ash, and more than a few unintended fires as a testament to our own stupidity.
We celebrate an event that actually used to mean something, but now serves mostly as a way for a lot of us to just get drunk and party, or others to make use of the pageantry for their own political ends, while a very few rake in the money that all of beer, and booze and partying, and traveling, and filling parks across the land provides. With much of that going into either conglomerates with no real national allegiance, or to outright foreign powers. And as every year passes, not only does the event loose more of its meaning, we loose meaning as well. The meaninglessness of the things that occupy us becomes ever more glaringly obvious just as our need to party, one way or another, to ever greater distraction grows apace to keep us distracted.
Will fill ourselves with more and more stuff, and things of various sorts and still we are empty. It is at the base of why we have lost our way. Go ahead and blow sh_t up. It will make you feel good for a while. Heaven knows that increasing numbers of us take that feeling seriously enough to continue doing it with more than just symbolism in mind during the rest of the year. As you strike each match, however, just keep in mind this simple fact, that emptiness we all share is lighting a lot more fuses than you realize.
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