This Land is Your Land

In celebration of Independence Day today I present the most patriotic song I know - "This Land is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie:




I think if Woodie were here today he would be telling us that the message of this song is needed now more than ever. This land is your and my land but it has been stolen from us and we need to take it back. Unlike the people of Zimbabwe, China or Burma we do not need to risk beatings, prison or death to fight the bastards that have stolen our country. What we have to do is stop believing their lies, stop allowing them to frame the debate for us and stop being afraid of the things they want us to be afraid of -- things that pose relatively little danger to us -- like foreigners and the spector of terrorism.

We need to start recognizing who the true enemies of our freedom and liberties are:
* People who accuse others of not supporting our troops while they themselves are destroying our military by starving them of resources and sending them on multiple extended tours of unnessary, counter-productive invasions and occupations of countries which were no threat to us.
* People who ask us to give up our personal liberties and freedoms for more security which they then do not deliver.
* People who give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while pawning off the costs of unnecessary wars on future generations.
* People who tell us the answer to our energy problems are to allow drilling for oil in some of our few remaining pristine natural places, which would not result in any additional oil for more than 10 years and would at best only produce enough oil to meet our needs for 6 months while causing damage to the environment that would last for hundreds of years.
* People who convince our legislatures to remove the traditional limits on usury and predatory lending and then proceed to prey upon the most financially vulnerable among us, sadddling them with loans with interest rates that start off low but then rise above the borrower's level to pay and then these villians ask the legislatures to make it harder for their victims to declare bankruptcy.
* People who tell us that government is the problem rather than the solution and then, when they are in power, appoint incompetent idealogues to head government agencies so that government will resemble their description.