[Oe List ...] should the 4th be happy

[Colleen Smith]

Hi all! Yes, the Fourth should be happy because I'm not sure where we would be without it and even whether or not we could be having this dialogue.
The piece of the original message that prompted this reply is: 
....."The Fourth serves as good a day to take account of what I was asked to do
for my country this year, what is next expected. The burdens of the war
in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to fall on those who do the fighting and
their families; I got a hefty tax cut. Moreover, when I volunteered to
help the war against terrorism it seems nobody needed my services. When
President Bush, during his 2002 State of the Union speech, called on me
(and the rest of us) to do good for the nation by volunteering 4,000 hours....."
 When FDR asked us to sacrifice, we knew what to do, I myself, collected metal, newspapers, wore crummy shoes, bought savings stamps 10 cents a week, topped sugar beets, and knew that even "Lucky Strike Green has gone to war". When Eisenhour was around, I knew what to do (see tag line) Ibecame aware that there was a wonderful world out there and we were all in this together. When Kennedy was around, I knew what to do, I lobbied for for community programs and civil rights, (foolish me, i thought i was 
helping my country realize the dream of equal opportunity.) I was in Tonga during part of the Reagon years. Any way, the list goes on. Now the current president asked me to go out and spend, spend, spend, to help the economy, well I guess i did because my phone bill, my water bill, my utility bill, my prescription billall went up. {that's were my tax refund went). Now I suppose I could go volunteer for the Salvation Army, the food bank, or anyone of a number of feeding programs, etc. etc..etc... The 
call for services has increased dramatically, while donations and grant moneys have decreased at the same rate. The Points of Light of President Bush the First are going out. And yes, come to think of it, I even know what I'm going to do for my 4,000 hours President Bush the Second has asked of me. I'm going to campaign for my senatorial and congressional candidates and lobby for the earth's ecosystem. On the Fourth I'm going to eat a hot dog, watch some fire works and raise a glass of wine to those rowdy, 
bickering, disagreeing, radical revolutionaries who made it all possible.
Happy Fourth

Colleen Smith
Denver Colorado 
p.s. I ask those of you who are not in the U.S. to bear with us, forgive us, and wish us well during our tumultuous times. 

-- 
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953