America at 250

It occurred to me today that the big party for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US has been a bit of a no-show. I didn't mark it with friends or family, or even see friends or family in person today - the only people I interacted with were a couple of employees at the Menlo Park Safeway, plus texting a couple of people here and there.

That's a reflection on how little of a deal it seems to be here in the Bay Area, but also how little notice my media bubble seems to have paid to the big event. I've been seeing some news stories about how chaotic and useless the "official" celebrations have been, but I haven't seen anything about celebrations here in Palo Alto or other areas nearby.

It could be that I'm cut off from stuff. My brain has been taken up primarily by the World Cup, which leaves room for little else other than memes and working on my spreadsheet (in case you're wondering, Western European teams are over performing at this stage in the competition, compared to their average points per game going back to 2002). I also don't see a lot of news locally - my subscription to the SF Chronicle ran out and the Palo Alto Daily is a bit of a rightwing rag these days, though neither seems to have much on the 250th anyway.

But I do go out into the world, and I don't see a lot of signs of anything out of the ordinary. I was in downtown Palo Alto yesterday morning, and it certainly didn't look like a place that was gearing up to celebrate our country's 250th anniversary. More to the point, my friends didn't make a big deal out of it, and my family's not even in the country, other than my dad, so there was no one around for me to celebrate it with.

There's also the argument to be made that there isn't much to celebrate. I'm 16 months unemployed, because of this administration, ICE is still out there terrorizing communities of color, and Trump's enabled a cabal of grifters and thugs who are daily chipping away at people's rights. Plus, the east coast is in the grip of a heatwave that's canceling all the parades and events - a little sadly ironic, given that it's worsened by climate change, a fact that this administration refuses to acknowledge.

But I have been reading other people's reflections about this anniversary, usually in the context of their memories of the celebrations in 1976. It feels like the country made an effort then, from special quarters to individual communities celebrating. It was a rough time then, too, with the OPEC oil shocks and the repercussions of the Watergate scandal, and our president was Gerald Ford, an incumbent I've rarely heard described as anything other than a seat warmer for the next guy.

It could be that my media bubble isn't into celebrating 250 years of America, because that smacks too much of the other team's thing, but that would be a shame. Sure, there's a lot wrong with America and not much hope of it improving in the near future, but our left and progressive arms are still part of the American body politic, which means we play within the rules and norms of the US. We aim to improve things for working people, women and minorities because we want the promise of America to extend to everybody - and so we should be celebrating the fact that, out of a beginning that absolutely didn't live up to our founding ideals of equality for all, we've made big strides since the founding.

And it has to be said, if waving the flag is the right's thing, then what imagery do we have on the left? I don't want to cede the flag or the Constitution to those bozos. I'm leftwing and progressive because I want to see a better America - and if I didn't care about a better America, I'd never have moved back 12 years ago.

So, yeah, it's a shame we're letting the 250th anniversary pass with a whimper, at least around here where I live. The fact that we took an imperfect document and have slowly extended the promised liberty to a greater share of the population than we did in 1776 should be a thing for progressives to celebrate.