Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
July 4, 2018, is the 242 anniversary of the date chosen to stand as the date the 13 British colonies declared independence. According to historians, the actual date independence was declared was July 2, 1776, with the vote of the Second Continental Congress. Other historians have concluded that the Declaration of Independence was not actually signed until August 2.
For many living in the colonies the event was not the glorious one that is presented in history books. There was much opposition to the separation, and the “loyalists” were killed, confiscated, and forced to flee to Canada. Some historians explain the event not as a great and noble enterprise of freedom and self-government, but as the manipulations of ambitious men who saw opportunity for profit and power.
For most Americans today the Fourth of July is a time for fireworks, picnics, and a patriotic speech extolling those who “fought for our freedom” and for those who defended it in wars ever since. These are feel good speeches, but most of them make very little sense. Many of our wars have been wars of empire, seizing lands from the Spanish, Mexicans, and indigenous tribes. The US had no national interest in WW 1 and and very little in WW 2. There was no prospect of Germany and Japan invading the US. Once Hitler made the mistake of invading the Soviet Union, the European part of World War 2 was settled by the Red Army. The Japanese had no chance of standing up to Mao and Stalin. American participation was not very important to either outcome.
No Fourth of July orator will say this, and it is unlikely any will make reference to the seven or eight countries that Washington has destroyed in whole or part during the 21st century or to the US overthrow of the various reform governments that have been elected in Latin America. The Fourth of July is a performance to reinforce The Matrix in which Americans live.
When the Fourth of July comes around, I re-read the words of US Marine General Smedley Butler.
General Butler is the most highly decorated US officer in history. By the end of his career, he had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of only three men to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
Butler served in all officer ranks that existed in the US Marines of his time, from Second Lieutenant to Major General.
He said that “during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a...