This was a nice, if brief, reminder of how America was built, spoiler alert, it wasn’t all white dudes…this museum is on my list of places to see.
Love NPR’s yearly reading – here’s the only video I could find:
Here is a link to this year’s reading (I couldn’t find a way to embed it).
2019 NPR reading of the Declaration of Independence
I’ll be watching my favorite movie today:
Off to walk the dogs before it gets too hot.
Happy 4th! Open thread
laura
Who’s gonna walk the ducks?
Also, Raven, if you see this – I can reconnect you with Mitch Brown.
TaMara (HFG)
@laura: The ducks got fresh, cold pool water they are very happy.
gkoutnik
I have listened to the NPR reading if the Declaration for, probably, fifteen years now, each Independence Day. This year, it really struck me that the complaints about King George III’s many tyrannical actions toward the colonies are reflected in the actions of the current Administration. Read that middle section and see if you don’t agree..
PsiFighter37
Fuck the celebrations…not really much to celebrate when it comes to the current state of affairs. Perhaps that’s too harsh, but having the current cretin run everything into the ground, just like his businesses, is depressing AF.
Baud
@gkoutnik:
We went through the same phase during Bush.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
Trump is depressing, and don’t feel like you have to celebrate anything. But as a general matter we do have to learn not to let Republicans coopt and drive us away from the things that we value.
Msb
Thanks for the videos! Delighted to find that someone else loves “1776” as I do. I still know most of the songs, and my favorite is Abigail and John’s letter duets. Nobody could make “my dearest friend” more romantic.
plato
When you elect a congenital asshole…
Frankensteinbeck
@plato:
You can identify a moderate Republican because he’s very happy with the Trump presidency, but is embarrassed by how Trump talks.
JPL
@PsiFighter37: Someone posted this story down below… https://www.popehat.com/2008/07/04/the-fourth-of-july/
We need our better angels now more than ever.
plato
@Frankensteinbeck: If you are happy with what the totus thug did & does, then no way you can be called a moderate.
raven
@laura: This is so cool! I contacted Betty but my email is markann that the gmail
Where do you live? Last I saw about Mitch was that he was in Sacramento.
rikyrah
@TaMara (HFG):
????
rikyrah
Some Hamilton for you????
https://youtu.be/ZPrAKuOBWzw
rikyrah
Smithsonian NMAAHC (@NMAAHC) Tweeted:
Beginning with the founding of America, African Americans created new visions of freedom that have benefited all Americans. The paradox of the American Revolution—the fight for liberty in an era of widespread slavery—is embedded in the foundation of the US #ANationsStory #July4th https://t.co/sD7AsrOMY6 https://twitter.com/NMAAHC/status/1146765901271830530?s=17
rikyrah
Smithsonian NMAAHC (@NMAAHC) Tweeted:
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence and called slavery an “abominable crime,” yet he was a lifelong slaveholder. His statue stands in our Slavery & Freedom exhibition with the names of the 600 men, women and children he enslaved at Monticello. #ANationsStory https://t.co/fNIpuaSKe7 https://twitter.com/NMAAHC/status/1146767167737782272?s=17
p.a.
Tomorrow dual reading: Declaration of Independence and What to the Slave is the 4th of July?
Roger Williams Memorial Park, Providence
gene108
@gkoutnik:
The bit about the British egging on “bloodthirsty” natives indiscriminately murdering men, women, and children, on the frontiers of colonies really is kind of indicative of how they viewed that this country should be founded for the benefit of white men, despite the opening bravado about equality.
Frankensteinbeck
@plato:
That’s the joke. So-called moderate Republicans are extremists who want to sound dignified and long to go back to the Reagan years when white supremacy was considered mature and responsible rather than racism.
rikyrah
My Shot????
https://youtu.be/PEHKBckBcr4
Baud
@gene108:
That’s actually pretty low on the list of evidence for that proposition.
Msb
And my favorite part of my favorite patriotic song:
O beautiful …
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@gkoutnik: There was a freak out last year on right wing Twitter when some organization (NPR?) was tweeting the Declaration. They were frothing at the mouth about the attacks “on Trump” and demanding heads to roll.
Edit: yep, NPR. And it was 2 years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/05/some-trump-supporters-thought-npr-tweeted-propaganda-it-was-the-declaration-of-independence/?utm_term=.2750009d6d8f
gkoutnik
@gene108: Agree wholeheartedly. But doesn’t that also bring to mind the “rapists and murderers” conversation? Jefferson’s party has come a long way since then; Trump etc. have not.
gkoutnik
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Brutal, tyrannical AND ignorant.
PaulWartenberg
the best part of the movie 1776: the New Brunswick letter.
“Dear sir, it is with the utmost despair that I must report to you the disorder and confusion that reign in every department. The Continental soldier is as nothing ever seen in this or any other century. He is a misfit, ignorant of hygiene, destructive, disorderly and totally disrespectful of rank. Only this last is understandable, as there is an incredible reek of stupidity among the officers. The situation is most desperate at the New Jersey training ground in New Brunswick where every able-bodied whore in the…” (wait what)
“In the colonies has assembled. There are constant reports of drunkenness, desertion, foul language, naked bathing in the Raritan River, and an epidemic of the French disease. I have placed this town off-limits to all military personnel with the exception of officers. I beseech the Congress to dispatch the War Committee to this place in the hope of restoring some of the order and discipline we need to survive. Your obedient, (drum roll) G. Washington.
Col. McKean: That man would depress a hyena.
John Hancock: Well, Mr. Adams, you’re chairman of the War Committee. Do you feel up to whoring, drinking, deserting AND New Brunswick?
Rev. Witherspoon: There must be some mistake. I have an aunt who lives in New Brunswick…
PST
I’m watching CNN (not my idea) and the last five minutes have been about “Democratic candidates clash over bussing.” Bussing?! How did we get so off message that the media could end up pushing this story? This is very counterproductive.
Another Scott
@JPL: (sheepishly raises hand)
Cheers,
Scott.
Librarian
TCM should be showing 1776 on a loop, like A Christmas Story.
laura
@raven: Sacramento. He’s just such a great guy and I can’t wait to show him the video.
Is that creepy clown Ed Gein?!?
Mnemosyne
@PaulWartenberg:
Adams: “Wake up, Franklin! We’re going to New Brunswick immediately.”
Franklin: (eyes still closed) “Why in the hell would I want to go there?”
Adams: “Why, for the drinking and the whoring, of course!”
(Franklin immediately jumps to his feet, grabs his hat, and scuttles for the door.)
All lines from memory, so they may not be exact.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Speaking of 1776, the song where one of the Southern delegates reminds the Northerners that they, too, are complicit in the horrors of American slavery is both moving and terrifying:
https://youtu.be/IeuaTpH6Ck0
The Lodger
@PaulWartenberg: Looks like they knew just where to establish Rutgers University.
Feathers
@The Lodger: Dead thread, but… It was already there, but called Queen’s College. Founded 1766,