Thoughts on "Independence" Day

Writer and musician Margaret Killjoy (who I never heard of until today) posted a thread on BlueSky about the American Revolution that rings true to me. It's not what I was taught in school, but I've since learned these essential facts, probably after reading M.T. Anderson's Octavian Nothing. Here's what Killjoy had to say:

the US revolution was not a revolt against colonization but instead the (seemingly) permanent cementing of the colonial project. It's not like India or Ireland breaking free from the UK, it's like if the British colonists in India broke free from the UK's control.

In essence, the king was like "okay but you can't go any further west" and the slavers in the US were like "yeah, we're going to though" and threw a war over it. That's what's being celebrated today. It can be dressed up in fancy language around freedom and democracy but it was a slave empire.

There were other causes, but at the core of it, the revolution was so that genocidal slavers could expand the scale of their genocide and slavery.

Many of the early revolts against monarchy, ostensibly in the name of democracy, were actually and explicitly just about empowering the capitalist rich rather than the aristocratic rich. This is a lateral move. (See: the English civil war that displaced a king and led to the genocide of Ireland)....

More than twice as many Black soldiers fought for the UK in the revolution as fought for the US, because the UK promised them their freedom (and largely delivered on that promise). The UK was absolutely more moderate on both slavery and anti-indigenous warfare than the US was.

None of this makes the UK good, or monarchy good. But the US revolution was somewhere between a lateral move and a counterrevolution and it has NOTHING to do with anti-colonialism.

The fancy language of freedom the US wrote was adopted over the years by other revolutions that actually sought freedom, that is the one thing I can think of to grant the US revolution.

This "independence day," the thing I remember is that the first colony of the UK, Ireland, took 800 years to gain partial independence from the UK and is still fighting for full independence. North America is coming on 500 years. There is still time.

So go shoot off some fireworks and scare all the dogs and wildlife to celebrate a country that has never once in its history come anywhere close to deserving your respect.

Vox, back in 2019, had an article on three ways the American Revolution was a mistake. It seems pretty right on, the difficulties of counterfactuals aside.

For an alternate idea of what to celebrate today, look to Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com:

Today I’m celebrating the fall of Vicksburg and the Confederate retreat at Gettysburg, which is why we set off fireworks and grill, yes?

And despite all of this country's faults, from its founding onward, this post by Ken White (known as popehat on social media) reminded me of what it could and should be, and why the current assault on actual freedom is so hideous.