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Post by sadie1263 on Jul 5, 2010 4:16:09 GMT
The sun finally came out........it's been raining for days......so our parade and fireworks show was cancelled......but my puppy dogs finally got to go outside for a little bit. So still good!
Hope everyone had a lovely day.....whether you are celebrating the day or not!
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♫anna♫
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Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jul 5, 2010 4:45:28 GMT
There are a few myths about the 4th of July and it could be convincingly argued that July 2nd 1776 was the Independence Day! Paul Revere apparently never said: "The British are Coming!" but rather "The Regulars are coming!" answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081016154850AA9fHzg This audio radio link tells more! www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=1231017&m=1231018 www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128264123 QUOTE: Debunking The Fourth Of July Raphael says that even the writers of the declaration expected July 2 to be the day that went down in history. Founding Myths "Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, on the 3rd of July, the day after they voted for independence, saying the 2nd of July will always be remembered and will be celebrated with parades and illuminations and patriotic speeches," Raphael says. "He described the Fourth of July to the tee, but he called it the 2nd." America ended up with the 4th because that's the day the Declaration of Independence was sent out to the states to be read. The document was dated July 4, so that's the day they celebrated. 'The Whites Of Their Eyes' Many Americans learn about the Battle of Bunker Hill way back in grade school. It is taught that it was the first major fight of the American Revolution, and that because the rebels were running low on ammunition, Col. William Prescott told them not to fire on the British until they saw the whites of their eyes. "He might have said that," Raphael says, "and other people say [the military officer] Putnam might have said that." The important thing is that apparently people had been saying that for years. "It was a very common saying back in colonial times," Raphael says. "It was a figure of speech telling people, 'Don't fire until I give the command.' If they meant that literally, we would have been absolutely overrun." 'One If By Land, And Two If By Sea' In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote "Paul Revere's Ride," a poem about the patriot's fateful ride in 1775 to warn the rebel forces of the British army's movements before the battles of Lexington and Concord. Longfellow wrote: He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm ... "Those lines, and that story, was concocted 86 years after the fact by Longfellow, who was trying to issue a call to arms for the Civil War," Raphael says. "In fact, Paul Revere was one of many riders that night." Ray Raphael Enlarge Marie Raphael Ray Raphael is the author of 13 books, including Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation. Ray Raphael Marie Raphael Ray Raphael is the author of 13 books, including Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation. Raphael also says Revere was not actually the one looking out for the signal lanterns — it was somebody else, and "that somebody else just rode off and disappeared from history." So how is it that with so much evidence stacked against them, these creation myths are still taken for truth today? "They were meant for kids, and that's where we still learn them," Raphael says. "Most of us really have ingrained our history from that childhood experience, and we just don't move beyond it." But mostly, he says, they're just really good stories.
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Post by everso on Jul 11, 2010 11:30:43 GMT
Completely unrelated to the 4th of July, Alan, but my computer came up with the following when I clicked on the link:
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Post by alanseago on Jul 11, 2010 14:01:28 GMT
Did you not know that my computer loves you?
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Post by alanseago on Jul 4, 2011 19:36:35 GMT
We have celebrated yours, so how about a chorus of the Marseillaise on the 14th?
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
Posts: 11,769
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jul 4, 2011 19:53:33 GMT
We have celebrated yours, so how about a chorus of the Marseillaise on the 14th? Vive la France! Vive la revolution! I'll keep that in mind Alan!
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Post by Big Lin on Jul 4, 2011 23:43:23 GMT
Happy 4th July, everyone!
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Post by trubble on Jul 5, 2011 0:39:55 GMT
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Post by Liberator on Jul 5, 2011 2:42:37 GMT
You can add to the myths, that the Boston Tea Party was a protest against taxes. It was actually the opposite, a protest against the East India Company's exemption from a tax on tea, allowing it to undercut American traders. It wasn't taxation that bothered the colonists, it was lack of the representation in the English Parliament because the colonies were set up as self-contained entities and a lot of them, corporations so the colonists were considered company employees with no say in company policy that controlled their lie. Since Parliament was dominated by the shareholders, that wasn't likely to change. Some of the New England states like Massachussets and Pennsylvania probably cared less because they had been set up as independent theocracies.
It's the same here - the realities of the 'Martyrs' of 1916 and the War of Independence and then the Civil War are very different from the 'revisionism' that many 'patriots' still disapprove of. 1916 was very unpopular at the time, and against orders, so with no support or proper plan to see it through.
Americans were wrong to blame King George though, but there was no reason they should know any better. Had he been well and held more power, he would most likely have supported their cause for freedom from corporate control and integration into a sort of federation under the Crown. When the same sort of thing happened in India in the mid-19th century, with the [same] East India Company exploiting it for all it was worth, Britain had the good sense to kick them out and take it over as a political concern, not a commercial one.
On the other hand, it's only because the states, united saw themselves as the country of The United States that they could become the huge single country they did, with all the advantages that that conferred. It's something Europe is still finding trouble to make a 21st century version of. We don't want the American model and only the English really want the Confederate model because that allows far too much power to uncontrolled commercial concerns (what the Americans were really fighting against and the Tea Party allows back in) - but we are still working on just what it is that we really do want.
Who knows, if the states had remained separate - and individually they are as big as most European countries or more, they might never have purloined as much territory off of Mexico as they did, and Europe's war against Fascism might have been matched by an American one between independent democratic and racist states far more destructive than the one it actually had.
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Post by blc on Jul 4, 2015 11:24:20 GMT
Hope everyone has a safe holiday.
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Post by Big Lin on Jul 4, 2015 14:44:44 GMT
Happy 4th July, everyone!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2015 21:10:06 GMT
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Post by Scottish Lassie on Jul 5, 2015 10:14:29 GMT
Happy 4th July, everyone! Even though I am not American, I thank you for your good wishes Big Lin.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2015 13:08:08 GMT
Hope our American friends on here had a great Independence day!
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Post by Big Lin on Jul 7, 2015 18:48:42 GMT
Happy 4th July, everyone! Even though I am not American, I thank you for your good wishes Big Lin. I'm not Americann either, Chris! But I've got family and friends who are and it means a lot to them! You live in Australia I believe - when's Australia Day? Or would you prefer St Andrews as I know you're Scottish originally?
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Post by Scottish Lassie on Jul 8, 2015 1:08:27 GMT
Even though I am not American, I thank you for your good wishes Big Lin. I'm not Americann either, Chris! But I've got family and friends who are and it means a lot to them! You live in Australia I believe - when's Australia Day? Or would you prefer St Andrews as I know you're Scottish originally? Hi Big Lin, I think Australia day is on the 26th of January, but I really don't celebrate anything anymore except what has to do with ECKANKAR. No doubt, people who are still in the workforce look forward to these holidays, but to me they are a nuisance if they happen to land on a week day, because of the fact that all of the shops are closed and the buses run to a different timetable. I don't know how many times I have been caught out, as I never remember them.
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