Economic Independence Day

AlterNet. Go read:

When our nation was born, we understood the relationship between political independence and economic independence. Benjamin Franklin offered this bit of sage advice to the former colonists. "The man who would trade independence for security usually deserves to wind up with neither."

Our current leaders have ignored Franklin's wisdom. Today we have a President who, surrounded by 100 American flags, ardently proclaims his patriotism. But it is a patriotism that Sam Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry would have found unfathomable and even, perhaps, treasonable.

The United States is now the world's largest debtor. Two thirds of our oil is imported, up from a third when OPEC first exercised its collective power and precipitated the first oil crisis in 1973.

Our corporations have displayed their form of patriotism by fleeing our soils and supplying us from foreign shores. . . .

Yet more reminders of how Bush is weakening our country.