Citizens in the Center

Citizens in the Center

July 4th, 2006

The rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air....all over America, in backyards, streets, parks, the celebration of Independence Day exploded.

As the Villager watched, from house to house on the street, came deafening fireworks streaking into the moonlit skies and turning the white clouds a bloodish pink. Neighborhood displays rivaled those of the cities, while the crazed media pumped patriotism into the population with live coverage of Boston, Washington, New York, Chicago where millions of people, waving flags, packed together to see the rock stars and celebrities and the fire over the skies. Homeland security? Why were they not worried about a real attack? Global warming? Were they not worried about the smoke blackening the skies? Energy conservation? Were they not appalled at the fumes and gas being burned up on the highways as Americans, ant-like, in SUVs inched along on roads to the central city displays? Were they not concerned about the millions of dollars spent on products that are set on fire and scatter debris and litter across the land?

At the shrieking pitch of the first bomb exploded from a home on the street, the Villager thought: This is what the people of Iraq have been going through for the past two years - only it has been real death and frightened men, women and children have been targets, their homes, streets and cities devastated.

Americans exploding missiles and bombs in play to celebrate a way of life expressed as freedom sends what kind of a message to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, to the entire rest of the world trying to survive and save themselves.

The Villager, listening to the pretty explosion, also wondered about the seven Astronauts in a shabby, peeling vehicle on their way to a Space Station, overlooking the earth. Were they able to see the beautiful blue earth, spinning in space, but sparking? As they separated from us, during the liftoff, did they wish for us a more fruitful mission on earth - to preserve the resources, to establish plenty, to clean up the atmosphere, and to return to an American future, bountiful, beautiful. Citizens in the Center, that is our mission as voters.