So...it's the 4th of July. It's a time to be grateful for what we have as a nation...a day to assess not simply our patriotism but the gratitude and the convictions that so often butt up against one another in that word.

From my various perspectives, some of which are included in the title the post and some of which are not...there is much that is good and there is much to be done to make things better.

We are a nation built on certain freedoms...but a nation that too often takes those freedoms for granted, storing them up like an old bottle of wine, afraid to pop the cork for fear that the wine has turned sour and bitter.

Freedom of speech has become about t-shirt slogans and boobs on broadcast television...the Boone's Farm Strawberry Hills of freedom...serious political discourse only makes news when pastors of candidates use hyperbole (or simply say stupid things)...and criticism of the culture or the government or particular policies now make one a crackpot or are dismissed as partisan yammering. That being said...the fact that I can type this blog entry and post it for all the world to see without fear of reprisal or recrimination by my government is a testament to the wisdom of those who insisted that our Constitution was worthless without the Bill of Rights.

Freedom of the Press has become about TMZ and the paparazzi and corporate controlled news...and Howard Stern. We once had to protect the press from governmental influence and control...and we still do. But when the "free press" usually is more concerned about the holy dollar...can it really be free anymore? That being said...there are still amazing people out there of every stripe trying to keep the powers that be honest...and they are our great hope.

We are also a nation of privilege...that teeters on the brink of economic chaos...the underclasses are increasingly hopeless and, in my city at least, this has led to dramatically increased violence by and against young people in the past year. Health care may still be capable of the greatest advancements in the world...but in practice it has become a nightmare of contractual gotcha's and an enormous source of fear that stifles change and public dissent in the workplace, the public square, and the doctor's office.

We are a people with great compassion, but are also capable of heartless cruelty and hate. Perhaps that is part of the human condition...but our peaks and valleys seem far greater than so many other nations with which I'm familiar. We respond with amazing generosity to disaster and to personal tragedy...but we still put people to death and turn a blind eye to our abandonment of the underclass. We offer billions to the world for AIDS care and hunger relief...but always on OUR terms, enforcing our religious morals (i.e., anti-condom bias in AIDS funding) or economic interests (shipping American food aid abroad destabilizing markets instead of assisting indigenous farming).

We are a people largely willing to unite across hundreds and hundreds of cultural divides of ethnicity and origin and skin color and gender, yet we cling to many prejudices and preconceived notions that engender intolerance and leave entire groups of people branded as "other" in our nation.

We take for granted the incredible sacrifice of prior generations to protect our freedoms--particularly failing to cherish how the nation united during the Second World War, how ALL sacrificed for the greater good in ways we have never had to since...and we cheapen the sacrifices made by women and men and their families for our protection by sending them on ill-conceived missions and abandoning them to red-tape and neglect on their return to civilian life.

We have much to be grateful for...but we have much to accept responsibility for. The nation's woes are not the fault or responsibility of any party or politician....for all of them and each of them serve by our leave...or, too often, by our benign acquiescence.

We can decide how history will judge us. We can be judged archeologically: by the size of our homes, the grandness of our public arenas, the soup cans and IPods dug out of pits thousands of years from now...or we can be judged by our social legacy...who is cared for and how and who is given opportunities in life and why and how what we do today makes life better for those who come after us.

Here's the difference...the latter celebrates a culture that had one eye always trained on the future for ALL...the former method celebrates (or lampoons) societies that are dead and gone.

The choice is ours. In thanksgiving, in hope, in awe, and with conviction....

Happy Fourth!