There were some protest marches and presentations on the eve of American independence day on 4th July 2008. The text of the notice appeared during the protest is given below. It was prepared by Granny Peg.
Dear People,
The 4th July is a time to celebrate. And what do we celebrate? We parade and picnic and have fire works displays to celebrate the political begging of our nation when on this day in 1776, 232 years ago, the constitutional congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. We declared our right to be independent from the tyranny of George III of England.
Today is a family day because we want our children and grandchildren to know about history. We don't want them to forget the great documents of our history, even while they are picnicking and enjoying the parades. We want them to know the true importance of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of rights.
That is why Raging grannies are singing to the parade on-lookers today. We believe the rights set forth in these documents by the wisdom of our forefathers are in danger. We believe it is our patriotic duty as elders to warn you all of this danger and so we are exercising our First Amendment right of free speech to tell you about some of these dangers. We are concerned about unwarranted domestic spying, about curtailments of free speech and rights of Assembly.
We want you to know we believe the executive branch of our government is taking too much power itself. Our constitution provided for the rule of law and for the separation of powers into three branches. But this president has used something called executive signing statements 157 times, challenging 1,100 federal laws. These statements say that he may decide not to follow that law was passed by our elected congress. Does this not begin to sound like George III?
We feel this government is ignoring global warming at our peril and responding very ineptly to major disasters caused by climate change. We believe the gap between the very rich and the rest of us has widened dramatically. We worry about our children's education as local taxes are stretched, and we worry about health insurance for all. We think that during this election year, there will be many diversions form all these problems and from the very disastrous military blunders in Iraq, from torture and imprisonment of many people. We believe war is not the answer and worry about a further war with Iran. We have included some figures about how your tax dollar supports the Iraq war. Speak out with us!
We are your raging grannies and we care !
Total local tax Dollars to Iraq War Levied from Massachusetts : $15,076,750,000.
