This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1461952
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1461952
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Worth reading on this 4th of July
Thomas Zimmer: “America can accept this Supreme Court as legitimate and its rulings as the final word – or it can have true democracy and a functioning state. But not both.” | Blue Virginia
“ America can accept this Supreme Court as legitimate and its rulings as the final word – or it can have true democracy and a functioning state. But not both.”
- “The idea that those who founded the country envisioned a super-body composed of unaccountable, all-powerful rulers clad in robes, free to turn on democracy itself and reign entirely outside the structure of institutions that make up the political system, is preposterous.”
- “The Court isn’t merely protecting the rights of a minority from the tyranny of mob rule; it is spearheading the attempts by a radicalizing minority to install ever more authoritarian forms of minoritarianism in order to secure their status against the will of the majority.”
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I was hoping I wouldn’t have to endure a news story about this fat, corrupt slob on the 4th of July.
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Me too. But add incompetent to your descriptors plz.
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This poem seems fitting re the article. Sidenote: “Refugio” also means “refuge.”
Rios, by the way, was the first poet laureate of Arizona (hello, @darrtown and @ralph_vonholst)
“Day of the Refugios,” by Alberto Rios
I was born in Nogales, Arizona,
On the border between
Mexico and the United States.The places in between places
They are like little countries
Themselves, with their own holidaysTaken a little from everywhere.
My Fourth of July is from childhood,
Childhood itself a kind of country, too.It’s a place that’s far from me now,
A place I’d like to visit again.
The Fourth of July takes me there.In that childhood place and border place
The Fourth of July, like everything else,
It meant more than just one thing.In the United States the Fourth of July
It was the United States.
In Mexico it was the día de los Refugios,The saint’s day of people named Refugio.
I come from a family of people with names,
Real names, not-afraid names, with colorsLike the fireworks: Refugio,
Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.Names that take a moment to say,
Names you have to practice.
These were the names of saints, serious ones,And it was right to take a moment with them.
I guess that’s what my family thought.
The connection to saints was strong:My grandmother’s name—here it comes—
Her name was Refugio,
And my great-grandmother’s name was Refugio,And my mother-in-law’s name now,
It’s another Refugio, Refugios everywhere,
Refugios and shrimp cocktails and sodas.Fourth of July was a birthday party
For all the women in my family
Going way back, a partyFor everything Mexico, where they came from,
For the other words and the green
Tinted glasses my great-grandmother wore.These women were me,
What I was before me,
So that birthday fireworks in the evening,All for them,
This seemed right.
In that way the fireworks were for me, too.Still, we were in the United States now,
And the Fourth of July,
Well, it was the Fourth of July.But just what that meant,
In this border place and time,
it was a matter of opinion in my family.
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Don’t forget ‘ludicrously coifed’.
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Freedom!
Year to date
There have been more mass shootings than days in 2023, database shows - ABC News (go.com)
last 24 hours
At least 3 dead, 8 injured in shooting during celebration in Texas (msn.com)
3 children dead in two separate shootings in St. Louis area Monday night (kmov.com)
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And in Wichita (2 days ago): No one killed, but 8 injured and two trampled when shooting broke out in a night club.
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Here in AZ, home of the former “wild west” our legislature has decreed it be legal to open carry your “hogleg” into any business that serves alcohol. That decision by the goober pinheads up in Phoenix ended any reason for me to visit a bar.
Edit
Happy 4th everybody!
Don’t let the young’uns play with fireworks. That’s for dim bulb grown ups to do.
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OT:
Someone in Mexico has been coordinating disinformation campaigns intended to affect recent elections in Guatemala and Colombia (article in Spanish):
https://twitter.com/Pajaropolitico/status/1676165957239164929
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Generally good and agree except that I don’t want to abandon the term “nation” to the extremists. Thanks to thousands of years of human behavior, going back at least to the Roman Republic, “patriotism” which literally means “fatherland” is just as suspect as “nationalism”. In common usage, “Nationalism” and “Patriotism” both imply a loyalty to the State even when / especially when it is doing something wrong. The US is an exemplar multi-cultural political entity (Australia is another)[*], standing in stark distinction from other states founded and still dominated on “tribal” and/or religious grounds. Personally, I think we annoy the tribal/religious zealots the most by standing up for our “democratic republic”.
[*] and both US and AUS has done horrible things to indigenous and minority groups 
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Ask someone who knows.
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
– Charles de Gaulle
Trump doesn’t know.
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The desire for freedom and liberty has set off a 247-year experiment in self-government by the American people. We’ve come a long way, and we have a long way yet to go.
We were a distant colony of the strongest empire on earth when we collectively declared all men to be equal. We defended that declaration on the battlefield, and the reverberations of that shot are still being heard around the world.
Shortly after that battlefield victory for political independence, we endeavored to form a more perfect union under the Constitution, and in a century’s time transformed from a colony into a self-governing country boasting the largest economy on earth.
And in the middle of the last century, our belief in freedom and liberty was tested like never before.
Faced with the prospect of a fascist takeover of Europe and an expansionist Japanese Empire running riot over Asia and the Pacific, we organized an allied force that turned the tide of history and liberated Europe and Asia.
We have long been an inspiration to freedom loving people everywhere. But the power to inspire is more than military might and economic prowess.
As part of our vision for a postwar, post-colonial world, we helped establish the United Nations and promulgated the basis of international law. We organized NATO and contributed dearly to this successful and historic trans-Atlantic defense alliance.
We helped rebuild countries, even our adversaries, that were devastated by war, ushering in 70 years of peace and prosperity.
Similarly, President Kennedy sought to overcome the Cold War nuclear stalemate, brokering the historic Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets and staring down Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis — but heroically avoided escalation and war, over the objections of opponents who loudly urged him to show “leadership” and “strength” — in his search for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
President Carter brokered a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and President Reagan worked to achieve an arms reduction treaty with the Soviets.
When the Berlin Wall fell, we were there to help unite and heal divisions in that nation and assist its integration into the wider European community.
We helped contains the spread of the HIV, ebola and ziki viruses in Africa.
We assembled a 65-nation coalition of allies — and adversaries — to combat the ISIS terrorist group and to contain ethnic and regional rivalries in order to stand up a regional fighting force that might one day serve as an ongoing regional peacekeeping force and the foundation of a regional economic development and trade partnership.
We eased travel restrictions with Cuba and started talks on normalizing relations — designed to mark the end of the Cold War in the West — which promised to relieve isolation for Cuban citizens, strengthen the hand of reformers, and undercut attempts by hardliners allied with Russia and Venezuela to forge wider hemispheric links.
We initiated negotiations with adversaries Russia, China and the other P5+1 world powers and Iran on a landmark agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful uses — and got it passed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council and enacted over the objections of the majority of the Republican-led Congress.
We got much of the world to address climate change.
And now we are committed to upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as it valiantly defends itself from a heinous unprovoked attack by Russia.
We are often the first to respond when disaster strikes.
Granted, there were mistakes and setbacks along the way, and I’m not saying that we are perfect, but I think overall we have been a force for good. And we have achieved more diplomatic breakthroughs than any other military or economic superpower.
Patriotism is hard work that requires an informed and engaged citizenry, and if we continue to work hard and push forward we are in position to finally make good on those elusive promises we made to ourselves in 1776.
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Since I’m local I would like to point out in the last item you posted the man who shot his ex-wife and 3 step children was in St. Ann. St. Ann is in St. Louis County. And the last one, a boy was shot outside Belleville, IL.
All of these can be classified as happening in the St. Louis metro area. But most people reading this, even the locals, hear St. Louis and think of the City of St. Louis.
I just thought I’d point out the distinction since the article nicely distinguishes between patriotism and nationalism.
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The only interest the Defeated Former Twice-Impeached Twice-Indicted (and counting) president* has is in his own well-being and enrichment. Nothing else matters to him. He is clever enough to pretend to be a nationalist; he’s just another street-corner bigot.
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re:DFG, all else flows from this.
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