Independence Day – a love story

Are the liberators here?

Well, tomorrow is Independence Day. As some might tell from my writings I am in perpetual awe of the magnitude of what our country represents.

Unique among nations, we exist due not to random events, actors or actions – most nations being formed as a result of wars, seizure of land and the vagaries of personalities – but rather due to the deliberate intent to found a country based on an idea and because the men who founded the United States had had enough and had grown weary of tyranny. The risks they took and their willingness to suffer the consequences amazes me. I am thankful that I was not among them, deciding whether I would take on that risk for myself.

Plenty of folks claim they would be prepared to die – as the founders were – for the sake of ideas too important to let go. I can make no such claim. I have no idea what I’d have done in the same situation. I hope I’d have stood tall and challenged the Crown as they did. I am no intellectual leader, no man of history setting action, and no great risk taker. I’m a writer and a music fan. I write about the things I care about and I soak up the music of others that I myself am unable to create, though I’ve always wanted to. If history and necessity called me to act and to stake my life, my security and my freedom on the results of my actions I likely would shrink from that responsibility.

When the possibility and question of Revolution came to the colonists, most were afraid, conflicted or, in many cases, totally opposed to the idea. I can imagine that if I myself stood in their shoes I’d be as conflicted as they. I’d be fearful for myself and my family and wondering what might happen AFTER a successful revolution – “what do I do NOW?”. While the war was occurring, and the men who fought it were dying around me, I’d likely be praying that someone else might step up in my place.

I’m a music guy and a writer. Tomorrow is Independence Day. Instead of pontificating on the history, or why the Revolution matters today, I’ll leave you with words I feel fit well with the spirit of those times – and the times we now live in.

Rush – Red Sector A

lyrics by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart

All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shouting guards and smoking guns
Cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed
A wound that will not heal
A heart that cannot feel
Hoping that the horror will recede
Hoping that tomorrow we’ll all be freed

Sickness to insanity
Prayer to profanity
Days and weeks and months go by
Don’t feel the hunger
Too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate
Are the liberators here?
Do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother, it’s too late
But I must help my mother stand up straight

Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings to survive?

{lyrics courtesy of AZ Lyrics}