An American Anthem: Beware The Impostures of Pretended Patriotism
Ron Kovic, Author of “Born on the Fourth of July”
For Alex Pretti and Renee Good
“You can cut all the flowers but you can not keep spring from coming.”
Pablo Neruda
As a United States Marine in 1968, believing with all my heart that I was fighting for freedom and democracy in Vietnam, I risked my life and gave three-quarters of my body in that war. Now, 58 years later, with our nation in its greatest crisis since its founding, I am willing to risk my life again for this country that I love and its freedom and democracy that I hope and pray will survive.
“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act that may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
-Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
“A terrible darkness has fallen upon us, but we must not surrender to it. We shall lift lamps of courage and find our way through to the morning.”
–Anonymous member of the French Resistance 1943
“In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.” — Bruce Springsteen- Land of Hope and Dreams Tour, Manchester, England May 2025
The American Crisis
Awaken! The Resistance has begun! Millions have already gone to the streets, and millions more will soon follow. In every town and city, in every farm and hamlet across this great land, the call has gone out, the cry has been heard, and the people have spoken. These are dangerous times. Never have the people of this country been so threatened, never has life and liberty been in such great peril, not since our founding have we been at such a crucial turning point. A cold dark shroud now covers the land.
Two centuries and fifty years of freedom and democracy cry out for vengeance. What they have done is unconscionable and what now must unfold is inevitable. The barricades are up. The people are in the streets, and the rumbling of this coming storm can already be heard in towns and cities across this great land. Even at the Old North Church in Boston, I hear their voices now crying from the grave; Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and Paine, calling us to this great and noble task that Almighty God has placed before us.
President George Washington, in his farewell letter to the American people, warned about the “impostures of pretended patriotism.” Washington was speaking to all of us, to the citizens of his time and those of us yet to come. He understood how fragile and vulnerable our new democracy was and how easily it could be taken from us. As we now approach the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation, President Washington’s farewell letter has come back to awaken us all: A cruel and arrogant dictator has arisen in our midst, a convicted criminal has arrived in the night, and our democracy is now on life support. Fear and intimidation now rule the land; a brutal tyranny has arrived and the crackdown has begun. Frightening shades of Nazi Germany: heavily armed National Guardsmen and Marines have occupied my city. universities and freedom of speech are under attack. Foreign students dragged from their classrooms have been threatened with deportation and visa cancellations for simply expressing their views. A United States senator attempting to speak is manhandled, thrown to the floor, and handcuffed by police.
Masked ICE agents now infiltrate our neighborhoods hunting for immigrants, grabbing them in front of supermarkets, high schools, churches, and even their children’s graduation ceremonies. Migrant farmworkers are hunted down like animals in the fields of Salinas, ripped from their families, and disappeared to some awful prison never to be seen or heard from again. Many are afraid to leave their homes, wary the masked agents will be waiting to abduct them and ship them off to cruel detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz, located in an alligator and snake infested Florida swamp, not to mention other frightening gulags in Louisiana, El Salvador, and South Sudan; no phone call, no due process, disappeared, lost and forgotten forever.
This is America, brutal and cruel, vicious and unfeeling and I cannot help but sense this nightmare is just beginning. I think of Anne Frank and her family hiding in the Secret Annex, afraid of being rounded up by the Gestapo. I think of what that must have felt like and what these poor souls in our country must be going through right now, with the INS not just arresting criminals but grabbing decent human beings, many innocent, the hard-working immigrant families of our California economy.
The Statue of Liberty weeps tonight. The cruel masked men must make their sickening quota. My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I cry, of thee I rage.
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Born on the Fourth of July in 1946, I was proud to be an American and blessed to have been born on that special day. You could say that from the very beginning I was a Yankee Doodle Dandy, and a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam. I wasn’t pretending to be a patriot. I was one from the very start — even the doctor told my mother that she had just given birth to a “real firecracker.” I read the Marine Corps guidebook when I was nine, a gift from my Uncle Jimmy, who had served as a United States Marine during the Korean War, and I remember practicing for hours standing at attention and saluting in front of the mirror in my room. l was inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” and I couldn’t wait to serve my country as the young president had asked me to do.
‘
As soon as I turned 18, I joined the United States Marine Corps and volunteered for my first tour of duty in Vietnam. After a 13-month tour of duty, and troubled by the anti-war protests, I decided to set my own example of patriotism by volunteering to return to Vietnam for a second tour of duty, prepared to risk my life on behalf of my country if need be. On January 20, 1968, while leading my men across an open area, I was shot and paralyzed from my mid-chest down and have been confined to a wheelchair ever since. After spending a year recuperating on the Bronx VA Hospital paraplegic ward, I began to question whether I and the others who had gone to that war had gone for nothing.
Deeply affected by my hospital experience and the killing of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 by National Guardsmen, I decided to join the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and began to speak out. I was arrested numerous times, my life threatened, and I was called a traitor as my political awakening continued, and I began to discover an America far different than the one I had once believed in as a boy. There were the trials and days and nights I spent in jail in my wheelchair, feeling more like a criminal than someone who had risked his life for his country, but I continued to speak.
An Open Letter to President George Washington
Dear President Washington,
As we prepare to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the birth of our nation, I cannot help but reflect upon your historic farewell letter, where, among several important pieces of advice, you warned us to be wary of “foreign entanglements” with other nations, though you did recognize there might be occasions when alliances with other countries would be necessary. You wisely cautioned us to show restraint in choosing when and where those alliances might be needed.
As a former commanding general of the American Revolution, you understood the terrible cost of war, and your responsibility for the lives and well-being of your men, you also recognized how easily governments could be misled and tragically lured into seemingly endless conflicts. I believe that if you were here today, you would be both shocked and saddened at the nightmare America has become, and how your prophetic farewell letter in 1789 has tragically gone unheeded.
In that historic letter you emphasized the importance of national unity, but sadly, Mr. President, as we approach America’s 250th birthday, our nation is more fractured and polarized than ever. Many among us, including respected and learned historians, not to mention President Trump and his loyal followers, will attempt to portray our nation on this anniversary as exceptional and without fault, glossing over its many imperfections — and dare I say, crimes. But on this 250th anniversary and my 80th birthday, I choose a different path, a path of honesty, openness and candor that I fear may very well lead me to prison or the sacrifice of my life, just as a 21-year-old United States Marine in 1968, I had been willing to give my life for my country with little knowledge or awareness of what that really meant. Now, in my 80th year, and fully aware of the preciousness of life and the days that still remain, I am willing to risk my life again for this country that I love and democracy that I hope and pray will survive.
President Washington, I stand before you at this crucial hour unafraid and well aware of the gravity of this moment, determined as an American citizen, who has both loved and sacrificed dearly for his country, to share my most sincere thoughts and reflections regarding the present state of our nation on this, its most revered day — marking our country’s independence — not to condemn or accuse, not to oppose, or reject, but rather to simply speak and allow my voice to be heard in this great national debate.
I begin, Mr. President, by sharing with you the present state of our nation as I see it, and truth as I know it to be after nearly sixty years of political activism that I have shared with the American public in numerous ways — demonstrations, speeches, arrests, trials, imprisonment, publication of my writings, and the awesome power of film.
Let me humbly request that you view this American Confession not as a condemnation, protest or call for rebellion but rather a gift to you and my beloved country, with the sincere desire that by facing and telling the truth of our present condition, we may begin to accept ourselves for who we are: We are a good and decent people, who, though far from perfect and having made many mistakes, bravely, and with great daring two centuries and fifty years ago, began an experiment in democracy that still proudly stands, despite this dark-and frightful hour.
Mr. President, from one former soldier to another, let me now report to you the present state of our country as I believe it to be. Not since the Civil War and tumultuous decade of the Sixties have we as a people been so close to outright rebellion and complete dissolution as a nation as we are now. The people ask what must they do, how much longer must they wait before more of their rights have been taken away, before every town and city, every village and hamlet has been occupied?
When will they protest, when will they resist; when their friends and neighbors, and then finally themselves have been dragged away to his cruel detention centers, when dictatorship has darkened our land? By then it will already be too late. By then we will be in chains. My fellow citizens, I beseech you, they are already pounding on our front door. We cannot wait any longer. We must act now, another hour, another day, another week may be too late.
Let us speak while we can still speak. Let us shout while we still can shout and bravely express ourselves with all the strength and conviction within us, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi against these liars and false patriots who would steal our freedom, reject our democracy, and place their wealth, greed, and power above the needs of the people.
So, as we approach this 250th anniversary and together prepare to go to the streets, let us be reminded of our history and what we will be fighting for.
When the evolution of governmental systems throughout the centuries have been recorded for posterity, what occurred on this precious land two centuries and fifty years ago when a brave and enlightened people rejected a king for the common man as sovereign, a powerful idea began to sweep across the land.
Although imperfect, though still bold in its concept, as our revolutionary fathers announced to the world and all of humanity their abiding love, faith, and trust in the common man — and later to include women — to speak their minds, express their ideas, and question authority without fear of recrimination or reprisal.
The American people understand what must be done. They have read President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and understand what a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” means, and why kings and tyrants cower at the mere mention of these words.
The history of President Trump and his administration is a history of repeated lies and betrayal, leading toward an absolute TYRANNY over our beloved land. To prove this, let these facts be submitted to the world:
His brutal masked agents, in direct violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, and without authorization or judicial warrant, have invaded our homes, threatened our families, ransacked our possessions, and confiscated our private papers.
He has assembled his private army of cruel masked men accountable to no one, who have flooded the streets of our cities, threatening, intimidating, and murdering peaceful protestors.
At this very hour, he threatens to unleash his brutal Insurrection Act, warning the American people that their day of reckoning and retribution is coming, where he threatens to suspend all protests, freedom of speech and freedom to assemble, ushering in a virtual police state.
Do not dare threaten us. The people are sovereign and are the real power in this country. Do not dare think for a moment you will stop us from assembling peacefully in the streets. It is our constitutional right and we know it. Do not trample on that right.
He has flaunted our laws, rejected our Constitution, invaded our cities, jailed, kidnapped and brutally assaulted our immigrant families, disappearing them to cruel detention centers and gulags in foreign lands never to be seen or heard from again. Even a five-year-old boy was ripped from his family and callously used by ICE as bait to trick and capture other innocent immigrant family members who hide behind locked doors of their homes, afraid of being abducted themselves.
He is constructing sprawling detention centers reminiscent of Hitler’s concentration camps of World War II in towns and cities across America, where he and his ICE agents intend to imprison thousands of immigrants and their families in squalid and inhumane conditions for indefinite periods of time. One would not be surprised if he began to round up and imprison peaceful protestors for simply questioning his authority and opposing his corrupt regime.
He has demolished the left wing of the White House to build his palatial, billion dollar ballroom for his rich friends in which we the people and our children will never dine or dance.
His extensive relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein is still unknown to the public, due to his blocking the complete release of all the Epstein files, many of which were redacted before they were turned over.
American citizens’ constitutional rights are violated to meet his impossible quota demands that lead to the brutal and reckless rounding up and detention of countless innocent people.
His masked ICE agents dragged an elderly man out of his home into freezing weather, convinced he was an undocumented immigrant and dangerous criminal only to discover he is an American citizen and not the man they were looking for. This costly mistake by ICE agents is repeated again and again.
He has falsely portrayed himself as a great peacemaker deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, but when he failed to receive the highly coveted award, he became petulant like a spoiled child, claiming that he never really wanted the “Prize” in the first place and, “no longer feels bound to think purely of peace” as he quickly reverts to his imperialistic warmongering persona by threatening to annex Greenland.
He claims to need Greenland for national security, arrogantly boasting the world is not secure unless, “we have complete and total control of Greenland,” while his interest lies not in security but in the gold, silver, and valuable minerals that lie beneath this proud and sovereign Arctic nation.
Greenlanders, hear me. He is a threat to your freedom. Resist him at all costs, everyone into the streets, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, all of you. This land is your land and not his. It belongs to you. He can only cause trouble. Do not let this bully, this thief, this fraud and hustler push you around and take it away from you. Do not give up an inch of your precious land. Resist him at every turn and at all costs.
Through his violent and reckless “gun boat diplomacy” and without congressional approval, he brutally attacked and murdered dozens of Venezuela’s citizens on the high seas of the Caribbean, claiming that he was preventing the flow of illegal drugs while trying to hide his true intentions: stealing, exploiting, and plundering Venezuela’s oil.
He kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, both now in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on narco terrorism and drug charges while Trump continues to reject democracy, choosing to support what remains of Maduro’s illegal, criminal, and dictatorial regime.
He has amassed millions of dollars in gifts including a multimillion-dollar passenger jet from the nation of Dubai.
He has threatened congressional lawmakers and highly decorated
combat veterans with imprisonment and execution for informing our soldiers of their right to refuse to obey illegal orders; some citing as example the Nuremberg trials of Hitler’s Nazis after World War II.
He has dismantled USAID and its wide range of crucial programs from mental health, children’s school lunches, to distributing HIV medication to those most vulnerable and dependent upon them for their very survival. He has cut international aid programs to the poor, condemning the most vulnerable to suffering, ill health and death.
He has rewarded his wealthy friends and family with lucrative tax breaks while abandoning the poor and destitute to hunger and homelessness.
He and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s illegal, reckless, and unprovoked attacks against the people of Iran and Lebanon, the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, the murders of countess government officials, inadvertent slaughter of 168 Iranian school girls, and killing and maiming of thousands of innocent Iranian men, women, and children, came with little concern of being accused of war crimes, or the potential blowback that may occur, placing the American people in even greater danger of a terrorist attack than ever before.
Which major American city will they hit, and how many more will die because of this foolish and reckless President’s decisions? He and his administration have become a danger to us all, and one can only begin to imagine what will happen if, out of Iran’s anger and desire for revenge, one of our nuclear power plants is hit, potentially spewing radioactive material and killing countless people. Not since 9/11 and the attack on the World Trade Center have we as a people been in such grave danger.
He promised to end the forever wars, lower food prices, and boasted America was about to enter a “Golden Age” of prosperity and peace, but that is not at all what has happened, for this King of Lies and Deceit, this pathetic fraud has betrayed us again. We have been tragically misled. We have been deceived. We have been promised peace but we have been given war. We have been told there would be change but nothing has changed, and rather than learning the lessons from our disastrous “entanglements” in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, America continues down the path of aggression, brutality and destruction.
As the war drags on, citizens here at home struggle to survive. Each day that passes, the crisis grows worse. The spiraling price of gas and groceries leave citizens desperate, as food lines grow, reminiscent of the Great Depression, now stretching for blocks, and families paying a heavy price for this incompetent fool in the White House.
The people cry for bread, but there is no bread, the people cry for peace, but there is no peace, only war, heartache, sorrow, and pain.
These are provocative words, and the truth may be deeply unsettling, but when will we speak the truth, when will we end this silence? How much longer must we wait before we are ready to finally admit that the tyrant now lives in our house, that this government of the people, by the people and for the people, that we entrusted long ago with the sacred task of protecting life and liberty, now, by its every reckless, unjust, and immoral actions, threatens the lives and liberty of us all?
Have we become so complacent, so cowardly and intimidated by this President that we have forgotten our own revolutionary birthright of rebellion and dissent? Have we become so paralyzed by fear that we would give up our liberty and freedom for the promise of a President that, by his every action and foolish utterances now threatens that very freedom? What will it take before we realize the true reality of this crisis?
How many more must suffer and die before we awaken? How many senseless wars, flag draped caskets, grieving mothers, paraplegics, amputees, stressed out sons and daughters before we, the people, finally break the silence of this shameful night? Let us open up our hearts and speak in a way we have never spoken before, knowing that lives now depend on it, and the very survival of our nation is now at stake.
Let not our silence in this crucial moment betray us from our destiny. There comes a time when a people can no longer wait. There comes a time when a people must act. Each day that passes it seems another freedom is lost, each hour that goes by it feels another right is taken from us. Bold, creative, and decisive leadership is needed, and I do not believe there is a group more suited for that task than the good and decent people of these United States.
Two hundred and fifty years ago a brave and daring people rose up in rebellion against a king, and now, two centuries and fifty years later, with our freedom and democracy hanging by a thread, and tyranny at our doorstep, it becomes the solemn duty of every citizen to now rise up, and through numerous bold and daring actions that may include massive street demonstrations, boycotts, general strikes, and other acts of non-violent civil disobedience make clear to this President and his administration that tyrants and dictators will not be tolerated, and that any attempt to subvert our democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly will be resisted at every turn and with every ounce of our being.
Just as our forefathers two hundred and fifty years ago were willing to risk their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor so that this nation might be born, let us now be willing to risk all again so that our nation may survive and long endure.
I ask all of you in these difficult days ahead to bravely and with great dignity step over that line you’ve not stepped over before and begin to exert that powerful, moral, and spiritual force that you as citizens represent to raise your voices, reclaim our country, and end this tyranny forever. This is my hope, this is my prayer, with admiration and great respect, Ron Kovic.
Artists of Conscience
All throughout American history brave artists of conscience have arisen in times of great conflict to awaken, educate, and inspire us with their powerful songs that moved us deeply. There was Alfred Bryan’s 1914 World War One protest song, “I Didn’t Raise my Boy to be a Soldier,” Woody Guthrie’s, Depression era and empowering “This Land is Your Land,” Billie Holiday’s haunting, “Strange Fruit,” Bob Dylan’s powerful antiwar indictment, “Masters of War,” Phil Oaks, “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s deeply moving “Ohio,” Pete Seeger’s rendition of the stirring civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” And now Bruce Springsteen’s powerful and provocative “The Streets of Minneapolis,” written in response to President Trump’s growing tyranny and the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
The Streets of Minneapolis
Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead
Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis
Bruce Springsteen
Download and Share the Book and Happy Fourth of July:
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.
Please share this story and help us grow our network!
