Cross-posted at Daily Kos

I’m spending this July Fourth unlike any other in my thirty-nine years on this planet.

Other July Fourths, I’ve been a soldier in a parade.  I’ve been a beer guzzling youth.  I’ve been a teary-eyed patriot wondering what the hell happened to us on 9/11.  I’ve watched the fireworks.  I’ve eaten the BBQ.  And the pie.  Today is different.

Last year I snapped a bit.  Just couldn’t take it anymore.  We had been at war for over two years.  It was obvious the war was based on lies.  It was obvious that innocent men, women and children were being killed by our military — with my tax dollars.  Little kids being burnt up.  Shot.  Blown apart.  And while the Republican party was at the helm, the Democrats were not, in any unified way, standing up and stopping it.
So I saw Cindy Sheehan was off to Crawford.  And I got involved.  Got sucked in.  Now I’m spending lots of hours.  Much energy.  Struggling to set this country on a peaceful path.  Not easy work.  You never know if you’re making progress.  But it feels good to be working.  And this Fourth of July, I’m going to be in the middle of a crowd of nationalistic patriots.  And I’m going to be holding a peace sign.  With a small group of people.  And throwing flowers at our representative — who has been a complete Bush rubber stamp.  And I have to wonder a little bit about my good health.  Because I know the fervor of patriotic Americans who still somehow think that what we have done in Iraq is defeat the evil-doers.  But I’m doing it.

Anyway.  I stopped by Daily Kos on my way and came across this humble diary.  It was rapidly headed off the list.  And I wanted to give it more air-time.  Because I’ve learned maybe one important thing this year.  That is, people can make a difference.  And a lot of people can make a lot of difference.  Parties and politics be damned.  If enough of us get together and just say we are sick of it.  And we are opting out.  It can change things.

I didn’t learn this in my twenty years of formal schooling.  My education was suprisingly devoid of any serious consideration for the body of work developed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King and many others.  Nonviolent change.  It works.  So a national boycott.  A national strike.  A slowly growing meme.  It is possible to change the status quo.  I’m in.

And it doesn’t matter why.  Just that a big enough group of people withdraw their consent from the system that is doing all these things.

Unfair voting system.  Check.
Media and government dominated by corporations.  Check.
Illegal and immoral war killing innocents.  Check.

Here is to the spreading of ideas.