• Reflections on Holidays

    Independence and Interdependence

    Independence In 1776, on the 4th of July, the founding fathers of the United States signed the Declaration of Independence. No longer would they tolerate British rule. The land they had taken for themselves and their families would belong to them alone, not to a foreign power. Today, with hot dogs and fireworks, we celebrate that declaration of freedom. It’s ironic. There these men were, up in arms about taxation, about not having a say in laws that affected them, about \trade restrictions that hobbled them, yet they never considered the indigenous people who’d maintained this land for 10,000 years, nor did they think of the slaves that many of…