The 4th of July is here and America is celebrating our independence, freedom and fortune. You know where I’m going with this right? First off let’s talk about the annual 4th of July barbecue that the majority of people like to enjoy on our nation’s birthday. Hopefully you can afford the gas to get you there and the barbecuer can afford the gas to operate their gas grill. Then be careful of the that tasty barbecued hamburger because it could be tainted with salmonella, Kroger is recalling nearly 532,000 pounds of ground beef in over 20 states this week, and beware of that slice of tomato that you put on top of that hamburger, because the nationwide spread of salmonella caused by those red deliciousness still hasn’t been located, and of course, I hope you can afford that luxurious corn on the cob because with the priority that corn now be used for ethanol and the recent flooding in the Midwest has made that corn as costly as caviar. And beware of that beer you’re drinking, the one that ‘is for you’, Budweiser, it could be soon owned by a European company.

All is fare in love, war and business. But still we should celebrate our independence, it’s not like we pin our hopes and dreams on OPEC, who have driven oil so high that we can’t drive. I know that it is being blamed on speculators or supply and demand, but look folks, who is controlling what we get? It is the Axis Of Sleaze otherwise known as OPEC. And they’re not the only ones calling the shots these days, since America has been waging wars on two fronts and sliming it’s own people, Russia has turned into a super power once again; so much so that the American Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson Jr. was in Moscow recently appealing (begging) for them to invest in the American economy. The President of Russia chimed in that America was basically ‘in a depression’, economic gurus here haven’t even admitted being in a recession, and the Putin surrogate continued to condescend by saying the U.S. should do a lot more listening than talking and that they have no right to tell other countries how to run their business when their business is so bad. And looking at our economy he might have a point there. We’ve sold out souls to the world and now we must pay.

But still, why not celebrate? Our freedoms have been calculatedly taken away by the Bush administration for the last eight years. We have become a nation known for torturing prisoners of war all over the world. But not to worry, we can still enjoy our American pastime by watching a baseball game, forever tainted by the use of steroids by its greatest players, or enjoy the fire works, but not in California, Nevada, Arizona or Florida where wild fires are burning out of control. And we can always think about the future although in the last six months peoples’ retirement plans have lost more than 20% and the stock market has lost the most money since 1930, oh yeah, that was the year of the Great Depression. But please enjoy the 4th of July because it gives you one day to forget all the rest of the days that lay ahead…

Image Credit: Andy