I'm no flag waver--at least the Stars and Stripes.
But I do love the 4th of July. After all, it's a day that celebrates not the usual nationalistic bullshit. Instead, it's a commemoration of a Revolution! Remember that it was on the 4th of July that the text of the Declaration of Independence was approved and released by the Continental Congress, and its moral basis was stated eloquently by Thomas Jefferson:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Historically inaccurate, but poetically effective, the folk-rock duo of Brewer & Shipley stated it succinctly:
It says right there in the Constitution (actually the Declaration),
It's really AOK to have a revolution.
So, as far as I'm concerned, any day commemorating a self-organized, democratic body declaring an end to a government based on humanity's right to abolish a government that is destructive of humans' right to life, liberty and happiness is:
REVOLUTION DAY!
I'll leave it up to you whether our current form of government is what was really intended by the people who risked or sometimes lost their lives in the Revolution that was officially declared on July 4, 1776. I'll also leave it up to you whether this current form of government is destructive of human Life, Liberty and Happiness.
But it is a happy day when, even in hyper-patriotic America, we can acknowledge that human beings do not owe fealty to a State no matter how corrupt, how violent, how destructive of basic human values that State may be.
So in celebration of Revolution Day, I offer some of my favorite musical tributes to the value and freedom of human beings, even in the face of oppression from an evil State. You are very welcome to contribute your own favorites, and if you like, to wish along with me, that songs like these were played on the 4th of July rather than the John-Philip-Sousa/Lee-Greenwood crap that we typically must put up with on this day.