The 4th of July Never Sits Well with Me 
(I propose a 12 step recovery program for those who grew up in a Fear-Death cult culture to be called ALACult)

"Hi, my name is David and I grew up in a Fear-Death Cult Culture."

A chorus goes up from the group in unison, "welcome, David."

I grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional American Culture. This culture caused me continuous feelings of PTSD throughout my entire life. I can recall no time in the past when my culture did not traumatize me. Instead of a dysfunctional family, I grew up in a very sick county. My county is a violent, arbitrary, punitive, negative Fear-Death cult that makes every attempt to permeate the very beings of its people, controlling, manipulative and predatory in its essence some terrible "thing" that uses (us) for its own aggrandizement. This country (my culture for me like the waters that fish swim in) razes its people and resources at a continuously increasing and almost painfully frenetic pace like some madness of the mind.

Our people, our children and our children's children have been and continue to be transmogrified by this monstrous process that has become our world into the hard, cold metal of The Machine. Into the machine has gone our hopes and dreams, loves and passions. And The Machine will not stop until it has our souls. This military machine that spans the surface of the earth and below the earth; that operates across the great oceans and beneath them; that occupies the skies above us even up into space itself. As we here on the ground weaken and wither away in our strength, this Machine grows stronger and stronger - and that's a correlation that should speak for itself? This Machine does not exist as advertised to protect us, it feeds on us.

"The Machine is upon you now," I hear a voice say once at 7:12PM Winter of 2010 while I am reading peacefully one snowy evening in New Mexico - maybe it is just the wind, I think? "May God help you all," The voice finishes. This mild mannered male voice terrible for the implications of its deep, heart felt tone of compassion for ... us all?

But hey, I am my own person not subject to the whims of this toxic Death-Cult - right? I can remove myself from this sociopathic "family" and stop the madness now. It's time to bring out those Facebook memes of hard won victories and suck-it-up-buttercup pick me ups and, of course, the ubiquitous puppies and kittens, man, puppies and kittens!