Do Anarchists Celebrate The 4th of July?

I am an anarchist, and I do not celebrate ‘Independence Day.’ I get traffic from people searching ‘Do Anarchists Celebrate The 4th of July’ or ‘Do Anarchists Celebrate Independence Day.’ So, I decided to directly answer a question that google seems to get asked. The answer is, I doubt most do. I have gone to many family gatherings in my life time which mindlessly celebrate holidays that glorify murder. People believe their ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ was obtained by guns and bombs.

The celebration ritual is barbaric. Fireworks to symbolize the bombs of a militant force they perceive as a liberator. People honor and glorify those who choose to murder for the state. They wave the flag that has been waved over countless victims of the United States. This is the Red White and Blue flag that was waved over innocent victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and throughout the history of warfare. We choose to neglect those ‘casualties’. We can’t even use language that acknowledges them as the human beings they were. They are just the vague ‘casualties’ mentioned in passing, not victims, not brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandparents or aunts and uncles. We have no holiday to mourn those who took no part in the slaughter and still were murdered by the soldiers and Marines. We have no day to mourn the holocaust that the United States created in Japan over Hiroshima. There is no day we show images of the mangled burned radiation sick civilians, our fellow human beings ravaged by the might of the empire. I often choose to honor and reflect on those who have been killed on holidays such as this. I choose to mourn on nationalist holidays. I choose to look at the ugly truth that lies behind order through the gun and bomb.

In a sense I love Independence Day. For it is a day I speak out against the crux of what I abhor in the state. It brings out a time to highlight the subtle ways we praise the violence that is the very foundation of this murderous and vile nation.