So, it’s the Fourth of July. The US celebrates it’s independence from Great Briton on this day. Might as well. The Continental Congress actually voted to declare independence on July 2nd. We could have used that date. Once declared, there was a bit of a dispute over whether we were actually independent or not. King George III thought not.

Major hostilities of the Revolutionary War ended October 19, 1781. We could have used that date, too. It might have been cold out for fireworks, though. The war wasn’t officially over until the Treaty of Paris was signed September 3rd, 1783, yet another viable date to celebrate our actual independence.

After the vote to declare independence it took the congress critters two more days to write up and distribute the announcement. People have been celebrating the announcement date, July 4th, rather than the actual independence date, July 2nd, ever since. It makes little difference. We picked a date and we’ve stuck to that date and that’s the date we use and that date is today, so, Happy Fourth of July…

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Speaking of fighting for independence, Ukraine continues to fend off Russia’s illegal war, despite the promise from 47 that he would end it on Day One and that it would be easy. It wasn’t easy. He got bored. He quit and walked away. Yet another promise made, promise not kept. Hell, the only problems I’ve ever seen him “solve” are problems of his own creation. If he’d just keep his stupid hands to himself, he’d have no problems at all.

According to estimates, Russia has lost a larger number of people than Ukraine, but Ukraine has lost a larger percentage of it’s smaller army. I saw one article suggesting Russia was losing fighting personnel at a rate of 8 to 1. That’s a LOT, but Russia has a larger population to draw from. Somehow, they’re already down to drafting felons and debtors, though. I’m not sure the war is going the way Putin planned…

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Holy Gods, what now? I hear 47 went to Mount Rushmore. Is it still intact? He gets near something special in this country, he can’t help but destroy it. It wasn’t about him, it doesn’t mean anything in his ever-so-challenged mind. He might try to add his ugly, raper visage to the others. That would certainly ruin it.

Most of the things he has done can be undone. Carving his mug into the mountain wouldn’t be so easy to fix but fortunately, it’s not so easy to do, either, so he probably won’t. His laziness and short attention span finally work for us…

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Old man Donny said he was going to give a speech today despite the fact that the weather report is calling for temperatures as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit. He said he was going to do it just to prove he can do anything. He did NOT say he wouldn’t use coolers of some kind, though. He also didn’t say he was going to do it outdoors. Maybe he will, though.

Maybe the frail old man will try to stand outside in 104 degree heat and give a long-winded speech full of lies and fear-mongering. Maybe he’ll sweat a lot and not drink enough water. Maybe he’ll suffer heat stroke or something. Hope springs eternal. But enough about daydreams.

I’ve heard snippets of his current campaign positions. He’s running on anti-communism. “Oh, the commies are coming, the commies are coming!” This seems to be his reaction to the recent success of Democratic Socialists in New York and Colorado. I’ve said before, Americans – as a group – are apparently an amazingly stupid bunch. (I was surprised, too.) Many, like 47, don’t understand the difference between Communism and Democratic Socialism.

Democratic Socialism is a Capitalist system. It’s just controlled Capitalism. Managed. Democratic Socialism seeks to soften the hardest edges of Capitalism and where it’s been implemented, it works wonderfully, creating the happiest societies on the planet. Communism fails.

But NO politician, not even Donny, can run against a system that’s more fair for everybody – so they don’t. They pretend commies are hiding under the Democratic Socialist banner just waiting to pounce, then they run against communism. That’s what Donny is doing now. The part that surprises me is that it might still work. I mean, how many times does one have to buy the same bridge from the same con-artist before they realize the sale isn’t real?

But speaking of real, let’s be real, here, for a moment. Bernie Sanders attracted a LOT of attention during his campaign. His message was SO popular, the Democratic party had to take, um, extraordinary steps to sideline his campaign so they could foist their FAR less popular candidate on us, instead, because, as they explained it at the time, her check cleared and he wouldn’t write one.

The Dems are, right now, trying to figure out how to “manage” the recent upsurge in Democratic Socialist support. It’s a tough position. How does one push out the candidates that want to actually serve the masses without alienating those self-same masses? But the Dems serve the same One Percent the cons do and they’ll have to fight against their own success when a candidate like Bernie Sanders shows up. But the Dems weren’t ready for his popularity and their efforts to sideline him were sloppy. Bad optics.

Bernie’s attraction was and is that he offered something different than politics as usual. Bernie’s message was to the masses, not the masters. (That’s the real reason Hillary was pushed forward, by the way. She was far more “don’t change a thing” than Bernie.) Before being artificially sidelined, Bernie attracted people from both sides of the aisle. After being pushed out, some Bernie supporters turned toward The Dumbass because he, too, was promising change.

But Bernie’s success and more recently Zohran Mamdani’s success is proving people want something different, and not the hate-mongering and fear-mongering and criminal activity of a trumpster. The masses are looking for candidates who will keep them in mind when decisions are made, not the toadies doing the bidding of the One Percent.

I suspect the hardest challenge for the movement will be teaching people the difference between Capitalism, Democratic Socialism, and Communism. The Capitalists have a real advantage, here, because the ‘Ain’t commies scary?’ message has played out in this country since Marx and Engels published ‘Das Kapital’ in 1867.’ So long as they can keep, uh, “low information voters” thinking communism and social capitalism are probably the same thing, they’ll control the message.

But we shouldn’t walk away from the fight just because it’s a fight. No social change has ever come to this country – or any other, by the way – without a fight. It seems pretty clear WHY the One Percent want to protect what they have accumulated, honestly and otherwise. Life is pretty good for them and they have no idea, not a clue, how life is for most of us. Largely, I suspect, because they don’t care. But there’s a better way than this and I hope enough Americans understand and embrace it to bring it about…