I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate Juneteenth this year with my son who had the day off from his job. We went to a baseball game and had dinner at the park. Hot dogs, Crackerjacks, and was introduced to Oakland's new team, The Ballers. While there was plenty of joy for the ballgame, we did keep Pete Buttgieg's words in mind: "Juneteenth calls us to understand the realities of our past, celebrate the resilience and achievements of Black Americans, and align the course of our country toward its founding creed of liberty and justice for all."
This reminder stood in stark contrast from those that issued forth from The White House. The convicted felon chose to mark the occasion on which news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveston, Texas, effectively rounding out the decision to end slavery in the recently reunited states by making the following "Truth" social media post: “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
I suppose I could feel sorry for the amber crumudgeon since people skipped his parade in favor of No Kings and Pride events across this already great land of ours. It must be difficult for him to get a tee time when everyone else has the day off too. He also seems to have an issue with occasions that mark history that he feels isn't especially happy. He wants to rename November 11 from Veteran's Day to "VictoryDay For World War I." It was also his suggestion that we celebrate Victory For World War II on May 8. Except that marks our victory in Europe. The war in the Pacific continued until August 14. Just a few days after the United States dropped the second of the only two atomic weapons used in war on Japan.
But that's kind of a bummer and we wouldn't want to be selling mushroom cloud funnel cakes at parades and wearing radiation badges to promote the idea of our superiority. That would be a downer. In reality, the man who has never worked a real job in his life nor served in any military capacity beyond staring at squeaky tanks as they rolled past him and twelve other people would rather that the joy experienced by the release from bondage be kept to ourselves while we go back to figuring out how we are going to pay for our eggs while we prepare for his next clever idea about going to war in the Middle East.
Yay.
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