Sue’s Weblog » Blog Archive » July 4th……….Again.

July 4th……….Again.

The 4th is about patriotism, to most folks. I get that. At the same time, saying that it’s only about patriotism is a bit simplistic. When many people come together, in the same place, at the same time, to celebrate the same thing, inevitably, there’s a sharing that bursts spontaneously into existance, rather like the huge vari-colored lotus blossoms of sparks that hit the sky, when a wick is lit.
We sit on the lawn of the fairgrounds in Petaluma and our kids share toys, before the show starts, and we share snacks or even just small talk. Sometimes we go to our family home and share our kids across the fence, as they migrate from one patio to the other, or from one dinner table to the other, because our son won’t come in without the little girl next door.
So maybe it’s not just patriotism that we’re celebrating, but community, as well. After all, a Nation is simply a conglomeration of its small communities.
It’s too bad that our great Nation’s governing body seems to be forgetting the true make-up of it’s constituency in favor of those who can pay for special consideration, namely big businesses, like drug companies and the military.
How often does your government official invite your son or daughter in for dinner, because he or she is friends with his or her son or daughter? How often do they engage in small talk with you, as you and they watch the kids sharing beach balls on the beach?
Come home, Sonoma/Marin. Build up your own business, as well as those of your local small business people, as opposed to the big businesses that have our government in their back pockets. The big businesses don’t need our money. Our neighbors do.
I’m going out to shop my neighbor’s yard, Tomorrow, for some tie-dye tee shirts, instead of going to Macy’s or Mervyn’s. I’m going to do that, after I’ve given a massage in trade for some spa products distributed by one of my other neighbors. Yes, she distributes for a larger company, but when she and I trade product for massage, the government gets nothing of that transaction, and maybe I’ll pass on the product to a friend/client, later, turning them on to the product. My distributor friend gets something out of that scenario, too.
We all win, this type of transaction, except for the big businesses and government which is arguably a big business in and of itself. If more of us participated in even a small amount of barter and trade type business, eventually, our smaller businesses would be the ones with the money and power to influence our government, which has become something other than By The People, For The People, and created an interesting dichotomy attached to the celebration of the 4th of July.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Random Ramblings, massage, supporting parents, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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