The fireworks here in Japan are among the best I’ve seen anywhere, but there’s no meaning behind them. They’re just fun. America’s day of fireworks brings a story, a history, and it goes something like this:
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Happy birthday, America. May your future contain more people named Lincoln and fewer named Summers. May you earn more than you spend. May you fight wars only when you are threatened, and may you win them decisively. May you remember the ideals that began your life on this planet. May you be guided by a government of the people, by the people, for the people instead of one of, by, and for the corporations. May those people ask not what you can do for them but what they can do for you. May you never perish from the Earth.
Have a wonderful fourth of July, my fellow Americans.
(Except you, Larry Summers, you fraudulent traitor. If not for your efforts to repeal parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 when you worked as Treasury secretary for the Clinton administration in 1999, America would still enjoy the separation of investment and commercial banking so that when your bankster buddies went nuts with derivatives they wouldn’t have killed the entire economy by creating the subprime mortgage crisis. Now that you’re back in power as President Obama’s chief economist, you must chuckle daily at the toothless financial reform on the way. May you be tarred and feathered in the finest tradition of America’s founding era.)
