It’s not that we are sitting out of the 4th of July celebrations this year. We are having a good old-fashioned sit-in. Defiance in the face of an increasing hostile and corrupt administration. We are sitting-in our defiance of maga-authoritarianism from now until the threat to our democracy is eradicated.
We are both old enough to remember our nation’s enthusiastic celebration on its 200th anniversary. It was moving: tall ships sailed into New York Harbor, reenactments, parades, fairs, people coming together…Gerald Ford, the president at the time, signed presidential proclamation 4411, an affirmation to the Founding Fathers of the United States principles of dignity, equality, government by representation, and liberty.
In the subsequent 50 years the nation has gone off the rails. We’re a hairs-breadth from autocratic rule made possible by a republican party that has completely betrayed the principles of democracy affirmed by Gerald Ford. It’s difficult to wave sparklers and flags when thousands of people are wrongfully suffering in concentration camps, when the Supreme Court is actively – astonishingly – elevating a tyrant-king above the law, when citizen’s rights are under attack, when the wealth of the nation is by design moving into the pockets of the very few, when the-party-in-power is actively protecting the Epstein Class, the largest pedophile and human trafficking ring perhaps in world history.
It is only proper, truly the most American thing I can imagine under the circumstances, to sit-in. We celebrate by sitting-in the ideals of the nation, no matter how imperfectly executed to this point. We celebrate by sitting-in the intention of the nation – a government of, by, and for the people that strives for equal justice, a nation of laws and not tyrants. We sit-in the promise of equality. We sit-in the radical paradigm of freedom-and-justice-for-all. As we sit-in we will tell stories of Kerri’s dad, a prisoner of war in WWII, my uncle Del who fought in the same war, both of our ancestors fought against fascism. Both nearly perished. They were hardy people that held the line against a fascist takeover of the world. In their lives they pushed back against the likes of Joseph McCarthy and his chicken-little-cries of “Communism!” We hear the same chicken-little-cries today from fox-and-friends and an administration that has grown so fearful of the vote that they would control it, politicians choosing their voters rather than the other way around. In an act of cowardice. absent of ethic and integrity, they dust off their old strawman communism in the hopes that fearmongering will save them from accountability.
It is our turn to sit in the fire. It is our turn to hold the line. We will sit-in and write and call our legislators. We will sit-in and talk with our neighbors and friends. We sit-in and have hot conversations, calling out the lies, refusing complacency or normalizing this horror show. It is our turn to reaffirm the promise of democracy, a promise currently slipping through our fingers. We will challenge gaslighting. We will call out the grift. We sit-in the truth of our diverse nation and support the long-term health of the people of the nation. We will sit-in the legacy of courage of our ancestors.
We will sit-in The United States of America – and not allow it, without a fight, to become the land of the privileged-few and the home of the afraid.
Sometimes an act of defiance looks like celebration and celebration looks like an act of defiance. Our nation’s celebration is rooted in an act of defiance, a Declaration of Independence from a tyrant king. Sometimes protecting one’s home requires a good old-fashioned sit-in, a living protest, the exercise of a fundamental right of a free citizen. Sitting-in-the-fire, speaking up, pushing back, guarding the vote, protecting civil rights…: the best possible way of celebrating the dream and founding principles of this nation.
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The Direction of Intention 