Whose Independence Day?

The mid- to late 17th century was tumultuous in Europe generally and Great Britain specifically. Central to this period in Britain was the execution of King Charles I. This brought an end to the monarchy, the establishment of a republic, but regicide only scratches the surface of the insurgency among working class people at the time. The laboring classes grew to despise being ruled by kings or by parliaments, and this insurgency grew to such an intensity that by the death of Cromwell, the elites grew so fearful of losing their control to these organizing militants they quickly restored the monarchy. Why the monarchy? Monarchy is the one institution immune from popular control. It's important to remember this about monarchies, and to remember when the West was drawing lines in the sand in the so-called Middle East [Western Asian and Africa more accurately], it established not parliamentary democracies or congressional republics but rather monarchies and sheikdoms for this very reason: an institution immune from public control.

At any rate, the insurgency of these 17th century working class people - like any activism of the poor and disenfranchised - has been diminished by official record for obvious reasons. Elites who write the history do not want modern working class people to become working class agitators.

In fact, the dots between these 17th century movements and the so-called Enlightenment are rarely connected in the official record:

I believe it they are not only connected, but the Enlightenment, which we all know something about, was born by these working class insurgencies, which we despise.

John Milton produced an anonymous pamphlet at this time, "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." Milton argued that the people had a right to do away with a bad king [tyrant], that the high court offices existed only at the public's consent as long as the public allowed them to exist.

What does this have to do with July 4th and the Declaration of Independence?

Prior to the white settler uprising in the 13 British colonies, Great Britain had gone to war with France over trade access. The trade in merchandise and humans was bringing great wealth to these European countries, and any infringement on this trade offended "national interests."

By the conclusion of this Seven Years' War, the white settlers in the 13 colonies had grown rich. Naturally, they had grown rich. This was the whole point of the war, as far as Britain was concerned - to enrich itself and its class.

King George III, cash poor from a long war, turns to the white settler profiteers to replenish his coffers. The king's treasury bore the cost of the war.

Tax shelters and Cayman Island accounts did not exist in the 18th century, so that was not an option for these enriched white settlers. They did not want to pay, said they were offended by having these taxes imposed on them [they were not offended when British troops were opening up trade routes for them].

So they stole a page from the evolving insurgency of those 17th century radicals, who wanted to be rid of unjust government, corrupt princes, and tyrants.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: a lot of gloss and smoke and bad magic have been used to hide the obvious contradictions between what these white settlers wrote in that declaration from Great Britain and what they actually created. All men did not include the natives, nor the Africans, neither women, nor the indentured and poor. What these white settlers did, laws they passed, court decisions they adjudicated are self-evident: these were the forbears of a venal NAZI-like mentality.

Many establishment academics and apologists like to say the founding documents are "organic," like beings that grow naturally into maturity. Whatever growth this nation-state has seen has been because of people here who emulated those 17th century working class insurgents, not because of some white-settler slave owners' Master Plan, not because of some secret DaVinci code embedded in what those white settlers put in their document. They actually wrote quite enough to know what was on their minds, and I am not being outrageous when I call them NAZIS.

So the reason for the contradiction between the declaration from King George III and what they spawned is they never believed as those working-class insurgents had believed in these Enlightened principles. They co-opted a popular idea and cast themselves - these rich, white landowners - as the downtrodden of the earth. Then they got together, propertied war profiteer tradesmen, and declared a break from Great Britain.

So whose independence am I being asked to celebrate on the 4th of July?