Indpendence Day

I have an idea. Much like our custom of reflecting on what we have to give thanks for at Thanksgiving, I think we should all start using July 4th as opportunity to reflect on what we're independent of, and more importantly, what we're not independent of. After being thankful at Thanksgiving we're also cheerful at Christmas, and we resolve to new beginnings at New Years; so doesn't it stand to reason that we should take stock of our relative independence on July 4th?

But perhaps its starting to catch on. Barack Obama recently made a declaration of independence of his own: To be independent of public financing. This is a major accomplishment, so much so in fact he's the first presidential candidate ever to do so. Now I'm not going to get into a whole thing here about Obama "flip-flopping" on the issue of public financing- to me he never stakes out one clear position on an issue, let alone two. However, it is worth noting that as Barack Obama asserts his independence from the public financing system, he will no longer be financially beholden to the American taxpayer, but rather only to his political donors. Don't worry- I'm not so naive that I believe that every candidate ever elected President went to the oval office bearing a deep debt of gratitude to all Americans for financing his mud-slinging, and not just to those who voted for him. Our current President, George W. "Irrelevant" Bush has shamelessly and nakedly served only his partisans, so clearly public financing does not explicitly guarantee a Man of the People over a Man of the Party, but it certainly can't hurt.

Pardon the editorializing (all of it), but as much as I would like to buy what Barack Obama is selling (or, cooking, as it were), I just don't see how Obama is really offering anything other than the status quo, albeit veiled in inspirational oratory.


But I digress, I need to keep the Independence Day theme rolling here. How about something we're hopelessly dependent on, like foreign oil? If Independence Day isn't the time to think about the billions and billions of dollars we send abroad each day in exchange for our share of the black sticky stuff, I don't know when that time will ever come. Perhaps our elected leaders will seize upon the Independence Day theme by making a statement about energy independence. Come to think of it, I seem to recall that some very important tax credits aimed at encouraging investment and innovation in the renewable energy markets are about to expire. I wonder if Congress has been working on that, you know, given that oil is $143 and nuclear waste is piling up at power plants, and coal is the dirtiest stuff on the planet. I wonder if they renewed them? I'm sure actually that they did renew them, and not, in fact, under the auspices of the Bureau of Land Management, freeze all new solar energy projects on public land. No, wait. I'm mistaken They did do that. And after doing that, they left the Capitol for the July 4th recess without renewing the tax credits either.

Instead of laying the foundation for a greener and grander economy, our "leaders" have mostly done more of the same "following."

Although that's not all they did. They also found time to make a collective declaration of independence- on behalf of Ma Bell - from the pesky economic constrains of the 4th Amendment. I'm appalled by Congress' decision to legislate retroactive immunity on behalf of telecom companies who clearly violated the law (why else would they need immunity?) when acting as accomplices to the Criminal in Chief's overall assault on the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 have all been violated by Bush Administration policy in one way or another). I am slightly intrigued by the Democratic strategy here though, because the leadership of the party seemed very united against the measure not too long ago. And they are still the majority party right? In both houses? Yeah that's what I thought. Hmmmm. OK. This could be either one of two things: The Democratic majority could be employing the rarely used political strategy of 'playing dead', or they could, in fact, be the most impotent majority party in the history of bi-cameral legislatures.

Either way, despite their many, many, many proclamations to the contrary it's clear by their actions that they're declaring their lack of independence from the legislative agenda of President Bush- he of the 26% approval rating.

Yikes. Happy Independence Day.