July 4th is one of my favorite holidays. I look forward to the patriotic music and dazzling fireworks with their chest thumping concussions. I tuned in to the Washington D.C. celebrations, settled into my Lazy Boy and prepared to be mesmerized. I believe in our national dream. Where everyone is respected and provided the opportunity to follow their aspirations for a better life.
To bring out the best in each of us, brings out the greater good in all of us.
Times have been hard on my American Dream. Yet, I was prepared to celebrate the future the United States has been slowly defining over the last 249 years.
When the soaring fanfares ended and the fireworks began, my heart became empty. No pride filled me, only mourning. Superimposed over the sparkling lights were the images of missiles falling on helpless people in Gaza and Ukraine. Innocents murdered and traumatized by leaders in Israel, Iran, Russia, China and many others. All of them trapped in their private dreams of history, power and glory. They spend innocent lives for their own profit.
In the U.S. the same occurs. Missiles don’t fall on our cities but the slaughter is just as real. The wealthy wage a war on the old, young, poor and infirm. The innocent suffer and die because the powerful believe in culling humanity. Their goal is to satisfy their greed by consuming our commonly created wealth. They betray our contract with future Americans
I watched the missiles falling to earth. The rocket’s red, white, and blue chrysanthemums lost in the glare boiling clouds of flames and earth.
I’ll never celebrate the 4th of July as I have in the past. Now I can only see a dream betrayed and the death of innocence.
About Illustration
I began this image with the idea of the brutal slaughter Israel is implementing on the Palestinians. I chose a white poppy, a common flower in the Levant, to represent the innocents being bombed, shot, and starved. On further reflection I decided that the poppy should represent all the civilians killed in conflict. If we honor military killed in conflict with the red poppy, let us honor defenseless civilians with the white.
