Bloodless Revolution

I had a great Fourth of July. It's one of my favorite holidays. But it seems to be a holiday, really like all the others, where the real meaning and symbolism of the day is getting all but lost, the gulf between reality and those who celebrate it ever-widening. The Fourth seems to consist of tens of millions of drunk, or at least cheesily exhuberant revelers, apparently celebrating the spirit of violent uprising, independence, and bloody revolution with PBR, American Eagle and pre-made charcoal, and tens of thousands of gun-wielding young men and women squatting in the heat of the Middle East, gun in their hands, risking their lives for us, carrying on the original tradition in the most authentic way possible some three centuries later. But there is little in between.

DC on the Fourth is overtaken by the kind of people that proudly sport Americana striped shorts, bald eagle insignied button-up shirts, red, white and blue flashing sunglasses, and kids desperately looking for a party. Some like the kids I walked by on the way home, so desperate for a good time that they shoot fireworks at passerbyers. And we should celebrate. But I wish there was a little more substance to this tradition. Something that actually spoke to the principles America aspires to, and inteprets what the Declaration of Independence is supposed to mean twenty generations on.

Would it be too much to ask the Smithsonian to host a debate, or some intellectually relevant forum of any kind, every year in conjunction with their three day rock festival and nod to the fads of the year? It could be entertaining, not an academic lecture of theorists, but two popular thinkers in the public realm passionately arguing out something unqiquely American. Christopher Hitchens v. Malcolm Gladwell, Jeff Sachs v. Bill Easterly, Lou Dobbs v. Bill Maher, Tony Bourdain v. Alan Richman, Bill O'Reilly v. Rachel Maddow, Al Gore v. Jim Inhoffe, come to mind. To debate what it is we think freedom is, what America is today, why America is the greatest. What it means to be independent in a 21st century increasingly defined by anything but the nation-state, like online networks, international crises and global corporate financial meltdowns. To try to instill a sense, if only orally, of depth, substance, resistance to this day. To at least get the blood pumping a little more and not just the blood alcohol content. The fireworks would look that much more splendid if there was some tiny morsel of intellectual foundation for the day. They could just have it right on the main stage there, for like an hour. It would be fun, and meaningful. A little genuine appreciation and consideration to go with those nine hours of continuous drinking and grilling. Miller's ad of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others break dancing with a bunch of bonnet wearing ass-shaking hoes while shooting canons is the perfect allegory. We may not even celebrate the spirit of this day, more force the day to conform to our current norms and compulsions.

I crossed paths with countless star-spangled drunk-ass revelers shouting "God bless America!" on the Fourth. That's great. But I didn't hear a single person articulate where America finds itself in this new ever-changing, less predictable, more competitive world. Precisely how America is so independent, and from what. I didn't see anyone in other words show that they love America and the countless who died for it any more than they love NASCAR or David Archelleto, in fact maybe that's exactly what they do love about America. I'm beginning to think it's because more and more of us have no clue. Revolutionaries, it seems, are becoming a species at risk of extinction, replaced by those who use their likeness to make a buck, or worship them, ironically in light of our forefathers' violent resistance to the very idea of a class of the earthly divine, e.g. the Crown, as a sort of God. I wonder what these revolutionaries would think of celebrating our independence with splendid demonstrations of submission.