What Are We Really Celebrating?
The 4th of July as a time for reckoning with American history and imagining a better future
With each passing year, the 4th of July becomes less of a celebration and more of a call for reflection and action. We live in a time of accelerating decline across the board, yet hyper-normalization creates a numbness and a false sense of security.
We are seeing the effects of late-stage capitalism with compounding inflation and wealth inequality, expanding ICE detention centers, and the erosion of civil liberties through suppression of free speech, algorithmic censorship from tech giants, and the rapid development of an AI surveillance state.
Abroad, we are perpetuating illegal wars, trying to take over Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela, and worst of all, funding and enabling a genocide. And that is all in the backdrop of accelerating climate change as the administration actively works to increase emissions. At this point, I question whether there will be legitimate elections for the midterms in November or if Trump will complete his consolidation of dictatorial power.
Despite the darkness of the times, the 4th of July continues to celebrate the myth of American exceptionalism and freedom. The flags are out, people don patriotic garb, and spend the weekend having red-white-blue themed parties with friends and family. It’s innocent enough on the surface, simply a time for celebration…
There’s something deeply indicative of the way the system is structured, that holidays are spent merely as leisure and celebration rather than also introspection and study. Education is not prioritized, seeing as essentially every public school system across the country is chronically under-funded. Convergent thinking is prioritized over divergent thinking, with school mostly seen as a tool to get a job, not to engage in lifelong learning and critical thinking — much less to develop civil and moral responsibility.
Learning and critical thinking are a threat to power. This is common knowledge. But it’s not just education, it’s the ads that take up 35% of an hour of TV, subconsciously telling us that life is about buying things and having experiences. The system doesn’t want people spending the 4th of July talking about how “all men are created equal” meant only wealthy, white, landowning men and has been a constant battle ever since. It wants us, in short, spending a lot of money.
Of course, Americans are overworked and desperate for a day off. That’s understandable. But there’s a sense in which if all you do for Martin Luther King Jr. Day is have a few drinks with friends and watch Netflix, then all MLK Jr. did for us was create a vacation day.
Patriotism vs. Nationalism
Another thing about the 4th of July I struggle with is the common merging of patriotism and nationalism. Chants of “USA, USA, USA” or rhetoric of America being the “greatest country in the world” come to mind. The message is that we’re not backwards like so many other countries; here we have freedom. We are special.
Nationalism is deeply toxic. It creates artificial boundaries between people and justifies government and military action that subjugates other countries. If the point of an organization of people under a nation-state is collective flourishing, then patriotism should be based in a celebration of that flourishing, not on some in-group vs. out-group competition.
Not only is nationalism inherently antagonistic in its division of people, it also has a corrosive effect on democracy, as it elevates the importance of the symbolic unity of the nation-state over the realities on the ground of the hundreds of millions of people who live in the nation. The result is discontented masses who point fingers at each other for their problems, because the American flag could never betray them. In reality, “America” as a nation-state is not representative of the people, but of a small powerful elite, which acts to further enrich and entrench their power and has no interest in the wellbeing of the people.
That is why reclaiming patriotism from nationalism is so important. Plainly, celebrating nationalism serves the elites rather than the diverse peoples that actually comprise the country. As a result, the patriotism I feel on the 4th, if any at all, is not related to the US as a nation-state. I deplore almost all that it does on that level. Rather, it is a celebration of the people, movements, and work of Americans that have contributed to collective flourishing, and not at the expense of people in other countries.
Patriotism for me is celebrating the Americans of the civil rights, women’s suffrage, Industrial Workers of the World, and other people’s liberation movements. It’s celebrating the great music and art to come out of America, from the transcendentalist works of Emerson and Thoreau to the music of Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder. It’s celebrating the current-day individuals who are striving to steer America in a better direction. Chris Hedges, Hannah Einbinder, and Zohran Mamdani are a few of those names for me. Lastly, it’s celebrating the millions of Americans who are doing great work to contribute to flourishing for all people.
It’s not all celebration, though. It’s also remembering the horrors of the past, honoring the sacrifices made by Americans before us, and reckoning with the needs of the present day. This introspection can energize us to take action. To invoke President Kennedy’s famous speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
Patriotism Through History
The adage “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is unfortunately more of a fun saying than a philosophy that is commonly applied. What the phrase demonstrates is that studying history is critical to patriotism. If past oppression has created great suffering and destruction for the people, then avoiding that oppression in order to promote growth and flourishing is contingent on not repeating it.
The historian Howard Zinn was a great American patriot. He spoke the truth about American history and gave voice to the experience of the people, not the symbolic singular nation-state. His book “A People’s History of the United States” should be required reading for all Americans, yet its contents are largely unknown to the general public. The suppression of Zinn’s work, including book bans in schools across the country, demonstrates the threat that the truth poses to the myth-making that keeps the empire running.
Zinn gave voice to the brutal treatment of Native Americans in early American history, the evils of slavery and racism, the exploitation of the American worker, including child labor and brutal conditions for starvation wages in the Gilded Age, the experience of soldiers who fought in the various wars, and more. These unsavory parts of our history are critical to understand and contribute to our development of civil and moral responsibility.
Efforts to tarnish Zinn’s reputation or ban his book as “Anti-American” are transparently facile attempts to preserve national identity as a connection to the symbolic nation-state rather than the people. As discussed before, the nation-state is synonymous with the ruling elite, which, under the guise of “democracy,” has led the US to a state of being the richest country in the world. Yet two-thirds of its people live paycheck to paycheck, over 2 million are incarcerated, it ranks at the bottom of developed nations for longevity and happiness, and has the world’s highest rate of chronic disease despite spending double the next highest spender on healthcare – all while the top 1% owns 31% of the wealth, about as much as the bottom 90%.
I don’t say the “elite” in a conspiracy kind of way, although there is a clear “Epstein class” that has been exposed and carries very real outsized destructive power. But it’s mostly the “elite” in a systematic way. When you have a system where the rich and corporations can pour essentially unlimited sums of money into politics, you will have politicians who are corrupted by greed and power. Capitalism, particularly neo-liberal capitalism since Reagan, is built to maximize profits for their own sake, not the common good. And those with the profits will do all they can to protect them.
I also don’t highlight the elite to take away from individual accountability, but to give voice to the systemic forces at play that are often elusive and extremely powerful. At the end of the day, we are the ones who elect the politicians, and there is real responsibility there. But to operate in an illusory world where there are clear good guys vs. bad guys (two-party system) and blame is placed among the people is only counterproductive and increases polarization.
Global Impact
As grim as the domestic picture is, as the world’s policeman with 861 military bases in 95 countries (and the next highest being the UK with 118 bases in 38 countries), the most onerous part of the American nation-state is its devastating consequences around the world. The Lancet recently published a study showing that US sanctions between 1971-2021 have caused an estimated 38 million deaths globally. That statement alone is shocking and impossible to comprehend.
There is not enough time in this piece to cover the full extent of the atrocities the US has committed around the world, but I will provide a brief overview. Most of them are the US exploiting a weaker country economically by privileging US corporations, then responding to any leftist revolution that threatens that exploitation by conducting coups and backing violent dictatorships that will protect American corporate interests.
Starting in the late 1800s, President McKinley took over Hawaii. Then it was Cuba, promising to liberate them from the Spanish but instead occupying them and enforcing brutal regimes and suppression of the people for half a century, leading to the Castro rebellion. Then it was the takeover of the Philippines, where there was widespread use of torture.
Next, it was Puerto Rico, who had just elected their own government when the US invaded in 1898 and placed it under military rule. Then in 1909 it was Nicaragua, with a coup for American mining corporations leading to a century of constant intervention and turmoil. Next it was a coup in Honduras in 1911 to protect the interests of US banana corporations.
In the Cold War era, there was the coup of democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosadegh in Iran in 1953 after he nationalized the oil industry. Then there was the US overthrow of president Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala for instituting reforms limiting the United Fruit Company’s exploitation of the country. And the resulting US-backed military dictatorships that carried out the Guatemalan Genocide, massacring 200,000 Mayan indigenous people in what is known as the “Silent Holocaust”.
In the Korean War, the US killed up to 2 million North Koreans in a brutal bombing campaign, including dropping napalm all over the civilian population and ultimately wiping out around 15% of the population. Then of course there was Vietnam, where the US killed at least 2 million Vietnamese civilians and the use of the brutal chemical agent orange destroyed 7.7 million acres of forest and led to long term disease and suffering throughout much of the population.
Also in the 1960s, there was the funding and training of paramilitary groups in El Salvador that would later become fascist death squads that would torture, rape, and murder thousands. Chile had what was known as the strongest democracy in Latin America, and the US overthrew president Salvador Allende after he nationalized Chile’s copper industry, which had been dominated by two American corporations. The coup lead to the rule of the brutal Pinochet dictatorship and the torture and murder of thousands.
There were several US invasions including Grenada under Reagan, Panama under H. W. Bush, Afghanistan under Bush, and Iraq also under Bush. Around 1 million were killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan in post-9/11 war violence, with up to 3.8 million killed in indirect deaths due to the destruction of the structures of civilian life. And then there was the brutal systematic torture of thousands of middle eastern detainees, most famously at Guantanamo Bay.
Most recently, there is of course the US-Israeli war on Iran after the 12-day war back in June 2025. And the overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela. And the extrajudicial murders of fishermen off the Caribbean coast. And the ongoing brutal blockade of Cuba, resulting in widespread blackouts, poverty, and starvation.
As horrible as all that is, what takes the cake today is the US funding and enabling the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza for the past 1,000 days. Also, the expanding illegal occupation of the West Bank which is done with horrific settler violence, and the new massacres and Gaza-style destruction of Southern Lebanon (which includes use of chemical weapons) by Israel. Israel is a colonial arm of the Anglo-American empire, evidenced by Biden’s own words in 1986: “It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region”. Thus, the US bears responsibility for all Israel’s atrocities and war crimes.
For almost 3 years, the US has been single-handedly vetoing UN resolutions for ceasefires in Gaza and given at least $22 billion in military aid to Israel. No meaningful international action able to help Gaza has led to the disastrous war crimes and atrocities that Israel has been committing against Palestinians with impunity. This includes not just the 80,000+ (but likely much higher) civilian deaths but also the systematic torture of thousands of arbitrarily detained Palestinians. And at this point, Israel has destroyed 90+% of Gaza and controls 80% of it.
I follow the journalism of several Gazans on Substack, which I highly recommend everybody do as a small act of witness we can do. Shaimaa Marwan, Abood A, and Mosab Abu Toha are a few. Near-daily, there are pictures of murdered children, mothers, fiancés, fathers, and sometimes entire families wiped out. Of course, none of this is new. We have watched a live-streamed genocide over the last few years and these images and videos are ingrained in my brain.
It is getting worse everyday, as a friend tells me that the summer heat is exacerbating the many other issues of aid being cut back, lack of medical supplies, lack of clean drinking water, and rampant diseases due to rats and insects everywhere while Gazans are living in tents. The temperature in the tents during the day can surpass 112° F, exacerbating widespread thirst and making survival even more difficult. Now, Israel is planning concentration camps as they continue to move the yellow line closer to the coast to accelerate their ethnic cleansing.
My friend says goodbye to her family every time she leaves her tent. Tomorrow is not a guarantee for anyone in Gaza, and even the little sleep they can get at night is punctuated by constant gunfire, drones, and scurrying rats. It is hell on earth. The prisoners who have returned from Israeli detention are shells of their former selves, enduring sadistic torture that is impossible to imagine. All this is happening every day, has been happening every day, and is being carried out by US tax dollars.
If I had one request for an interruption of the American flags, beer, and oblivious leisure that constitutes the way many Americans celebrate the 4th, it would be to watch the movie “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” It covers the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who is murdered in one of the most horrific ways imaginable while medical rescue workers desperately try to save her. It awakens a slumbering humanity and galvanizes a call to action that can’t be ignored.
Where We Go From Here
Perhaps all this leads to the President of the United States holding a UFC competition on the White House lawn being the perfect image of the US. Hypermasculinity and violence taking center stage symbolizes our descent into fascism—with a president posting videos of Obama as a monkey, hiring for ICE with neo-Nazi slogans, illegally invading and blockading countries, and scrambling to gerrymander as much as possible to try to rig the midterms.
Further, the administration is cancelling the basis for climate change, cancelling SNAP benefits for 3.5 million people, kicking 10 million people off health insurance, engaging in blatant corruption to enrich his family, and giving handouts to billionaires.
I hope we see that this isn’t some anomaly that we are victim to, but the logical conclusion of where America has been headed. In fact, it’s where all empires head eventually. Ironically, the average lifetime of empires has been determined to be 250 years.
We clearly need a revolution in this country. There are encouraging signs with the election of progressives like Zohran Mamdani and many others who speak up about the genocide, aren’t afraid to dissect the economic system for what it is, and are fighting for the American people instead of moneyed interests. Despite that, there are significant headwinds that demand greater collective organization and action on our part.
The history of American foreign policy demonstrates that parasitic elites will always do what they can to squash leftist people’s movements and protect their riches, including preferring fascism over socialism. In the Weimar Republic in Germany, the capitalist elites were scared of the rising socialist and communist momentum and sided with Hitler, hoping to destroy the left. At the end of almost all of the foreign interventions discussed earlier, the US hoped to destroy the left by propping up a brutal authoritarian dictatorship, which led in most cases to outright fascism, massacres, and lasting instability.
What is happening now is what happens to all dying empires. We are drunk on our own hubris. The fall of the empire is not something we should mourn. It has done far too much unimaginable and unforgivable damage to the world and its own people that will take decades to attempt to repay.
To go back to Howard Zinn, I hope it is clear that identifying with the history of the people and not the nation-state is not “anti-American.” In fact, it is the nation-state that is anti-American and anti-humanity. Supporting the nation-state and its myths, given what it has and is doing, is akin to supporting terrorism. In fact, true patriotism is learning about American history and doing what we can to increase the flourishing of the American people and the people of the world.
In this dark, dark chapter of American and world history, I hope we can let nationalism burn with the empire, and in its ashes create a US that can actually live up to its supposed founding ideals. A US that actually works toward the flourishing of its people rather than maximizing profits for a few, and helps our fellow humans around the world rather than inflicting untold pain and suffering.
Thank you for that extensive historical résumé of America’s actions that has led to death and destruction so that the elite class can grow. If Americans think it was for the interest of Americans why are regular Americans still in the position that they are where they can barely afford groceries or healthcare.
Thank you.