The Philadelphia Centennial of 1876

To Taking Back the 4th

I have a ladies’ fan in a glass case hanging in my living room, marked 1776 - 1876. It has a picture of a grandiose building which it turns out was a great hall built for the Centennial Exhibition of….(Agriculture, Machinery & stuff)

It was a world's fair held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence. And you guessed it, it was staged in Fairmount Park ((which is btw larger than New York's Central Park.)

Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff in the Park in Summertime

It was passed down to me after my mother died through my Welsh Quaker forebears, who settled in the Montgomery and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania, before the Revolutionary War.

It is a fan that one of my distant relatives carried after visiting the Centennial in Fairmount Park. If you look closely her friends who attended with her, wrote their names on the tines of the fan.

They say over the 6 months it was open, at least 10 million people visited. For perspective that was, depending on who's counting, 4 to 7 million people less than the number of Americans who will no longer be able to see a doctor, starting within the next couple years of the passage, through sheer terror, of the dear leader's BBB.

Now it makes me wonder how many of my relatives would've switched their votes, had they known. Oh dear, justt remembered, women couldn't even vote then.

[Note:Quakers were mostly Republicans as it was the party of Emancipation.]

The Centennial my relative visited took place less than a decade after Congress ratified the 14th Amendment. This was the amendment that helped to build a unique foundation for a country of hardworking, innovative, entrepreneurial people.

It took a few more decades for it to open the way to citizenship to larger groups of diverse people who had already been toiling without protections, to build the nation.

The United States v Wong Kim Ark, 1898

I'm reading and hearing words of anger and grief from all my friends and perfect strangers. The BBB has freaked us all out but I freaked out a few days earlier when I finally acknowledged how craven and worse than useless, the Supreme Court had become. It has given away the entire game. Only our bodies and brains stand between us and a police state of unhealthy, underfed and uneducated Americans.

[[Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.]]

Maybe we are lucky that the old story about the slowly simmering frog turned out to be false. We're at a full boil and it happened so fast, our heads are spinning. It may have served to even move the Democratic Party to action But, as many have said, political parties, because of their narrow focus and reach, can no longer be the whole solution.

So what are some of the solutions?

Let's start with boycotts and strikes. We haven't even had a General Strike, either city, stste much less nationwide strikes. If you're in a union, get involved with that. It would be necessary for the Undocumented to also strike and perhaps extend the strikes a day or two so that all can see life without immigrant labor [idea, start a strike with the Undocumented, then add those whose parents were immigrants, then each regressive generation goes on strike till all are, or maybe-reverse the order-but try it.]

Some boycotts of companies like Target and Starbucks are reportedly causing damage because they ditched DEI. So add more chains, including media that have bent the knee. We have KPFA and Substack, and hopefully still PBS to get and share news with..

Another step is to cease paying federal taxes if you can. We also have to build cadres of protectors who can swarm and make it difficult to kidnap immigrants, adding workplace hiding places and escape doors.

At some point too, we have to begin to build or understand how to build financial systems that could allow California to stand alone.

One more thing, learn a little about AI, Palantir and how to return, block or scramble your data. Yes, I know they already have it but don't volunteer it. Palantir is being paid by Trump to know everything about us and then use it against us. Maybe it's time to stop signing those useless petitions. Check in with this important organization for more info-Secure Justice https://share.google/Y26xcf55XPn5XsLRz

By the way, for those of you who demand your privacy and rights, do not allow yourself to believe that Law Enforcement agencies must operate with impunity and that oversight limits their abilities to “protect” you. If you thought that, go back and look at how the LAPD worked hand in Billy clubs with trump's army. You must assert the need for oversight.

On this July 4th day of mourning, we can and must begin to take back our freedoms and build a new, just society and not for ourselves alone.

Read Sherrilyn Ifill's wonderful piece

I Question America.

and resurrect (can we call ourselves resurrectionists?) in your mind, Fannie Lou Hamer, “There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.”