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We've just been subjected to our annual booster shot of chauvinistic jingoism about the Birth of America, Land of Liberty, Home of Democracy, Guardian of Human Rights.
Herein, a small, necessary corrective.
Over a century and a half ago, someone gave a speech that precisely nailed the truth about the U.S.A. The impassioned, uncompromising words of this speech lifted up the rock of mendacious and stultifying rhetoric to reveal the ugly face of the U.S. beast that lives behind the shiny facade of Big Lies.
Today, those words are still right on the money about the U.S. Having withstood the test of time, and never been surpassed in incisiveness, they bear repeating.
They are the words of Frederick Douglass, a man born in slavery, spoken in 1852 to the Rochester [NY] Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society on July 5th of that year. The Society had asked Douglass to speak in celebration of the Fourth of July. No doubt they got more than they bargained for.
The original speech is quite long. It was untitled, and since has been given the title “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” or small variations thereon. It deals mostly with American slavery, the laws and practices of it, the supporting role of American churches, and the hypocrisy of American blather about liberty democracy freedom blah-blah-blah. Yet much of it is relevant to today's U.S. crimes, its spread of oppressive death squad dictatorships around the world, its role as the Arsenal of Fascism since World War II, its economic hyperexploitation of poorer countries, and most of all, the demented, self-righteous, totally un-self-aware prattle that constitute its declared "values."
Here are excerpts: [1]
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes [i.e. marks from whippings] and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
1] I found a lengthy version that is labeled "full document" at TeachingAmericanHistory.org. That site also has related documents.
Herein, a small, necessary corrective.
Over a century and a half ago, someone gave a speech that precisely nailed the truth about the U.S.A. The impassioned, uncompromising words of this speech lifted up the rock of mendacious and stultifying rhetoric to reveal the ugly face of the U.S. beast that lives behind the shiny facade of Big Lies.
Today, those words are still right on the money about the U.S. Having withstood the test of time, and never been surpassed in incisiveness, they bear repeating.
They are the words of Frederick Douglass, a man born in slavery, spoken in 1852 to the Rochester [NY] Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society on July 5th of that year. The Society had asked Douglass to speak in celebration of the Fourth of July. No doubt they got more than they bargained for.
The original speech is quite long. It was untitled, and since has been given the title “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” or small variations thereon. It deals mostly with American slavery, the laws and practices of it, the supporting role of American churches, and the hypocrisy of American blather about liberty democracy freedom blah-blah-blah. Yet much of it is relevant to today's U.S. crimes, its spread of oppressive death squad dictatorships around the world, its role as the Arsenal of Fascism since World War II, its economic hyperexploitation of poorer countries, and most of all, the demented, self-righteous, totally un-self-aware prattle that constitute its declared "values."
Here are excerpts: [1]
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes [i.e. marks from whippings] and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
We need more fierce people like him today.
Current American Emperor Donald J. Trump The First
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