cmaxwell

DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE


I am not an American. I was born and I live in a place called the United States, but I did not vote for this government nor the war it is waging nor its other policies. I am a citizen of the United States, but today, on July 4, I declare myself a citizen of the world.

Nation-states are outmoded and a danger to the planet. Let me speak only for the one I live in (though there is plenty to say about others, too). Our idea that we are "independent" of the rest of the world and the one home of "freedom" has enabled us to consume a huge chunk of the world's natural resources and to befoul its air and to endanger the planet's future. Americans are driving most of the world's SUVs, building ridiculously huge homes that are energy sinks, and emitting greenhouse gases by the billions of pounds a day that are melting the polar ice caps already. Global warming isn't a threat to the future, it's destroying our ecosystem NOW. Just read about the Arctic and what's happening there.

I am not proud of my flag nor for what it stands--which is unbridled militarism and unprovoked invasion of sovereign nations. I do not endorse the "bombs bursting in air," and fireworks, which are simulated celebrations of war, disgust me. I do not believe our might makes right. Nor do I beleve that because we think we are more right than others that that justifies our might. I don't want God to bless America. I don't believe in any God that would take sides in a conflict among human beings.

I don't "support our troops." First of all, they're not my troops. They're not acting in my name. I feel deep sympathy for soldiers on all sides of conflict, which is why I want to bring American mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers home immediately and take them out of danger. I don't support the project American troops are engaged in. I don't support what they're doing in Iraq. It's not "nation-building": it's an occupation following unprovoked nation destruction.

I declare we are all interdependent. The people of the planet increasingly grasp this; it is high time to find leaders who grasp it too. Our interdependence does not rob any group of people or any individual of freedom; it is the very foundation of personal liberty and ethnic and religious freedom. It's because we're all in one boat that we all respect and love one another.

WE GOT LIFE, BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Do you think this has nothing to do with this enterprise on sg? I say it's compatible, at least. The sight of the breast of an Italian woman arouses me. It's for both the poser and the viewer a joy to be alive. It's not in and of itself liberation--don't make that mistake again (sexual freedom is not political freedom)--but it's still potentially liberating. Interdependence doesn't just mean we're sharing responsibilities and love for the planet...to me, it also means we're sharing our lives, our consciousness, our thoughts, and (consensually) our bodies. Your ass, my cock, your brains, my balls, your tits, my eyes, your heart, my guts, your lips, my tongue, your beauty, my power, your freedom, my freedom...I got life. WE got life.

Invent together.