This July 4, Are Americans Really Independent?
By David De Hart
Americans will not have true independence until we have a democratic government based on the principle of one person, one equal vote.
American children and adolescents are not independent from their leading cause of death, gun violence. In fact, no American is free from gun violence. The poor are not independent from the poverty that kills 183,000 Americans every year. Some 68,000 Americans die each year due to a lack of health care, an industry that made $69 billion in profits in 2023. Too many Americans are not independent from the struggles to put food on the table and to pay increases in rent and higher interest rates on mortgages.
Americans are not independent from a corrupt, ideological, and too powerful Supreme Court that has the last say over a woman’s body and has made the president into a king above the law. Americans suffer from gridlock in Congress and two corrupt political parties that take bribes from corporations and the wealthy. The Democrats and Republicans don’t blink an eye at increasing the military budget by billions of dollars each year, yet they refuse to raise the paltry and insulting Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Americans are not independent from a government of minority rule, where good legislation goes to the Senate graveyard. Americans are victims of a too-powerful presidency that makes their country complicit in war crimes and the violation of the human rights of the Palestinian people; a presidency now immune from criminal charges.
Americans are not independent from the institutional racism within our police departments, nor from the consequences of the failure to pass laws that hold officers accountable for their actions. Americans in the LGBTQ+ community are not independent of the violence and discrimination that target their members.
We need our independence from the archaic, undemocratic Constitution of 1787 that cannot solve the problems of the 21st Century. We need a democratic constitution that will ensure the people have the power to make policies that benefit all Americans — laws that keep them healthy, happy, and thriving for years to come.