Assange, Boebert, and the 4th of July

Shadows Hang Over Independence Day

Photo by Stephanie McCabe on Unsplash

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot - and it's only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear. - Hunter S. Thompson

In just a few short days the United States of America will celebrate its great day of independence. The streets will run red, white, and blue. Patriotic saliva will be filling the corners of prime time political pundit maws as they spout a steady stream of jingoistic jargon. Politicians from both the Left and the Right will be draping themselves in the latest polyester editions of Old Glory, delivered fresh from an Indochina sweat shop. Factory farm fresh meat will be grilled to perfection. And some damn kid will lose a finger or an eye to the ubiquitous M80 firecracker.

Yes, the 4th of July is almost upon us.

However, this year’s celebration brings with it a tale of two countries. Two wildly different U.S. of A’s. One is the great grand experiment in democracy, freedom, and individual rights, enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. That’s the country we learn about in history books. The one our politicians speak about with such reverence, in the way a farmer holds rich black soil or an artist views a blank canvass.

The other? Well, the other America is our reality.

And you can find no better example of that grim reality TV show than in the “eloquent”, “educated”, and “engrossing” words of one Lauren Boebert, the U.S. Representative out of Colorado.

Who when speaking to a local church congregation declared, without hesitation, that…

“The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not meant to direct the church. That is not how our founding fathers intended it.”

"…I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk, that's not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like what they say it does."

Yowzers! I don’t know if we need to call out Mrs. Boebert personally or her high school civics teacher for such a galactically stupid and unquestionably dangerous misunderstanding of the U.S. Constitution. For the record, the first Amendment to the Constitution unequivocally states that quote…

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

What that means is that the U.S. government cannot officially endorse one religion or church over all others and that every religion shall be considered equal in the eyes of government. In other words, we are free to worship as we please but we cannot use the government to force our religion on others. It’s pretty cut and dry in its simplicity.

This separation of church and state was so important to the founding fathers that they inserted it into their very first amendment to the Constitution. Why? Because Jefferson, Adams, and the rest didn’t want their newly formed democratic republic turned into a feudal theocracy. Similar to the kind of feudal fascist government they just fought an entire revolutionary war over. The very war whose victory we will be celebrating this 4th of July.

Tragically, Rep. Lauren Boebert is not alone in her contempt for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. She is joined by a who’s who of prominent Democrats, Republicans, and U.S. Government officials who have been chewing up and vomiting all over our first amendment rights to a free press, religion, and assembly for many years now. Nowhere has that been more acute than in their prosecution and persecution of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash

In a normal functioning society, Assange would be considered a national hero for giving a world-wide platform to whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s data dump of heart breaking atrocities and skulduggery committed by the United States during our military adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror. Instead, Assange is now facing a possible 175 years in U.S. jail if convicted of violating the archaic Espionage Act. For those that don’t remember, Manning’s courage and selfless patriotism exposed some truly heinous crimes including our flagrant killing of Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists in the now infamous, Collateral Murder video. And contrary to the Washington D.C. talking points on Assange, not a single person has lost their life as a result of these Wikileaks.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the U.S. persecution of Assange is the most egregious attack on the freedom of the press since the dawn of the 21st century. Yet, it is cheered and applauded by prominent party members, cable news yahoos, and U.S. Intelligence community wackos. Why?

Well, as Patrick Cockburn observes in Counterpunch…

The relentless pursuit of Assange by the US, assisted by the UK, is clearly aimed at intimidating other journalists who might be tempted by a similar giant scoop. Vast efforts have gone into smearing Assange to discredit him and deny him journalistic status.

Here’s a thought experiment for you… What does it say about the moral values of the United States when Julian Assange could likely end up serving a longer jail sentence than Ghislane Maxwell? One was sentenced to a paltry twenty years for serving up underage girls to Geoffrey Epstein and his cavalcade of rich and powerful degenerates. The other faces 175 years in jail for helping expose Bush era war crimes, international corporate criminality, and the Democratic Party’s attempted rigging of the 2016 Presidential Primary against Bernie Sanders. I guess on this country’s scale of punishment, the rape and abuse of young girls doesn’t hold a candle to making Hilary Clinton, George W. Bush, and the U.S. Military Industrial Complex look bad.

These are just two examples of how far the dream that was the United States has fallen. Because no matter how much the highly paid public relations gurus on Capitol Hill try to convince us that the American Dream lives on, far too many of us now know the tragic truth. That the dream, for all its splendor, hope, and majesty has become a shell of its former self. Slowly chipped away by the ignorance, self-indulgence, and revenge minded leaders and lemmings of our two party dictatorship.

So this 4th of July, let us honor our Independence Day by committing ourselves to keeping the American Dream out of the hands of theocratic fascists. Let us vote out and remove from office all those who would enshrine the sanctity of the Military Industrial Complex before the individual rights and freedoms promised in our Constitution.

The best way to remember a dream is to stop feeding into a nightmare.

…And most of all, can we keep the M80’s out of young Timmy’s hands this year?