THIS 4TH OF JULY SHOULD HAVE BEEN CANCELLED

July 4th is the day we commemorate achieving independence from England. Ironically, our dependence on oil has caused our government to ignore safety regulations applied to BP, a British offshore drilling operation, and as a result we’re facing the worst environmental disaster in our history. BP refused to stop spraying the dispersants on the oil spill after our government told it to. The reason BP wanted to use the dispersant is that by definition, it disperses the oil and makes the amount spilled harder to measure, thereby reducing the corporation's future fines based upon the amount of crude spilled.

How can BP, a foreign corporation, can get away with telling our government to fuck off because they’re going to spray dispersants if they want to? And while Obama claims that he’s ultimately responsible for the disaster, he isn’t prosecuting this criminal corporation for destroying US territory. I don’t see any outrage from the government that clean up crews are getting ill from exposure to the oil. (Kinda like the 9/11 clean up workers who were lied to about their jobs’ safety?) Nor any outrage that an environmental group has donated respirators to minimize the effects of the oil’s toxicity on the crews, but BP fires workers for wearing these FREE respirators. (Presumably, the respirators will prove that the clean up is dangerous, making BP liable to future lawsuits.) I also don’t see Obama dedicating the manpower to make sure that the booms to contain the oil are even used properly.

But the president has plenty of manpower to deploy to Afghanistan. And Congress just appropriated $30 billion more to the war budget even though the number of Al Quaeda who we went there to fight is now down to “double digits, if any” according to General Petraeus. Let’s use 99 as the highest double digit figure and divide that into $30 billion—that’s $303 million per terrorist who may not even be there! We need to understand that we don’t want to win this war in Afghanistan. Trillions of dollars of precious minerals have been discovered there. We aren’t leaving. I want the soldiers who think that they’re fighting to keep our country safe to know that they’re actually committing suicide so that whoever gets these mineral contracts can get rich.

After voting for the Afghanistan funds, Congress then went on summer recess without extending unemployment benefits. Even though jobless rates are higher than any time since the 1930s! By the time lawmakers return, 2 million Americans’ benefits will simply stop. The president should declare this a national emergency and cancel Congress’s vacation! In the meantime, be on the lookout for a whole lot of new beggars.

I don’t have enough room here to go on about the horrors currently going on. But if you aren’t concerned about the current state of affairs in this country, you’re no patriot. And if your love for this nation is confined to waving a stupid flag one day a year and you aren’t ready to pitch in and help get us back on track, by the next 4th of July you’ll be lucky if you can afford a hot dog. Fortunately, you’ll still be able to enjoy the fireworks even if a foreclosure has rendered you homeless.