Thankfully, Donald—in his favor—stayed on script and engaged in no outright egocentric braggadocio”

I TOOK NOTES ON THIS ONE.—In his much-heralded Independence Day speech, Donald Trump gave short shrift to individual patriots of history and to such movements as civil rights and women’s suffrage; and I found it ironic that one person he mentioned merely by name (along with another obligatory black or two) was Harriet Tubman, abolitionist heroine whose countenance he is doggedly determined to keep off the 20-dollar bill in place of his personal idol, Andrew Jackson. President Jackson, slave-owner, “butcher of the Creek Nation.” etc. He moved on quickly from the founding fathers and past the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to jump to the Continental Army in 1775. and then fasten on elementary histories of each of the branches of our military. These featured accounts of various individual heroes and ended with the anthems of each service and unimpressive fly-overs by assorted aircraft.

It was all a nice tribute to military might and to the men and women who have fought to protect our freedoms, but there was little real talk about the nature of those freedoms for which they were fighting or what the outlook for the future of those freedoms might be. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose thoughts turned to our surviving military veterans presently stuck with maimed bodies, broken families, are unemployed, mentally damaged, begging on the streets. The cost of Donald’s unnecessary flyovers would have been better spent in some form of veterans’ relief.

A relatively calm audience—even the exclusive like-minded ticket-holders who surrounded his immediate area—was restrained in its response and when Donald hung it up, it must have been left feeling like the little old lady in the old TV commercial asking, “Where’s the beef?” I imagine a greater part of the crowd was just out awaiting the fireworks show in the first place.

Thankfully, Donald—in his favor—stayed on script and engaged in no outright egocentric braggadocio. Where the script was concerned, I felt it fell far short of greatness and I’d give his speech-writers about a C+ grade—although , in all fairness, they undoubtedly were micro-managed by Trump in their efforts.

My main objection overall is that the entire one-man show was better designed for Armed Forces Day. And despite its supposed association with patriotism, it remained a pep rally aimed at Donald’s base supporters—forcibly financed by taxpayers ever seeking funding for social needs of more substance.

As for the country’s future, Donald did make passing reference to a couple of rather safe non-controversial things—creation of a space branch of the military and a landing on Mars by U.. S. astronauts.

So that’s out of the way . . . Today, July 5, we can get back to “normal” in the more-inclusive total world according to Donald—trampling human and civil rights, destroying health care and public education, denigrating and subjugating women . . . demonizing, incarcerating and destroying the hopes, dreams and lives of non-white immigrants congregating at our southern border.