Fellow colonists-

[dancingdoc2]

Happy 4th of July!

Have a great holiday weekend.

[dlb]

You too doc! Even though we are celebrating as expatriates (please note that does not mean ex patriots) we are remembering our American Heritage and our forebears who fought for freedom in the Carolinas and Virginia.

Have a great weekend!

[Brandye]

The Fourth is widely celebrated in Europe. Several years ago, I was in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, watching a "real" American celebration: fireworks, brass bands, parade led by Uncle Sam and Miss Liberty, lots of patriotic music - some of which sounded disturbingly English to me, but the Danes seemed to know American words.

We Scots missed our chance at the Battle of Bannockburn!

[dlb]

Originally Posted by Brandye

The Fourth is widely celebrated in Europe. Several years ago, I was in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, watching a "real" American celebration:... lots of patriotic music - some of which sounded disturbingly English to me, but the Danes seemed to know American words.

We Scots missed our chance at the Battle of Bannockburn!

Some American patriotic music sounds "disturbingly English." Well "Yankee Doodle" was an English tune, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" uses the same tune as "Britannia, the Pride of the Ocean," and " My Country 'tis of Thee" is the same melody as "God Save the Queen." I am sure there are other examples. Also many of our traditional tunes are in fact traditional Scots or Irish melodies or variations on them; brought by the Ulster Scot settlers in the Southern Appalachian mountains. Thanks to the Scots the Americans were able to invent Country Music and Rock n Roll and Gospel music; the latter two being a fusion of African and Gaelic influences.

You missed your chance at Bannockburn? How is that? I always thought you won.

[dancingdoc2]

I am curious about some Europeans celebrating the 4th. Are you celebrating to be celebrating something on your own of important significance, or, celebrating that our forefathers and mothers left?

[Brandye]

Funny. If all those had stayed, we would have run out of room a hundred years ago. Consider the world events that were triggered by the American Revolution: From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, the freedom of millions is directly traced to the shots fired at Bunker Hill. Europeans in general have a keener sense of history than most of the world. We spent at least a thousand years kicking the daylights out of one another before Churchill sounded the alarm and used the term "United States of Europe" (in 1947). We still are at it. Kosovo (where my Croatian fiance died), Northern Ireland, Basque separatists are not aberrant uprisings but a continuation of European history since the Romans tried to eradicate the Celts. My Scottish father and German mother caused an uproar on both sides of the family and through their communities and friendship networks - partly a class thing and partly nationalism.

For better or for worse, all those in the world striving for a degree of freedom pattern themselves after their own interpretation of the American Revolution. The British Empire, in the form of the Commonwealth, continued for 200 years but with increasing self-determination every where. And today the word is "Devolution" although the Welsh have not figured out what their parliament is really for. What we are seeing in Iran right now is based upon American initiatives. Your songs of rebellion and of peace are sung all over the world - in English more often than in native tongues.

Tivoli in Denmark has celebrated the Fourth, since the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. The three Scandinavian countries, with Copenhagen as the nerve center, are certainly cooperative and mutually dependent but neither Norwegians no Danes really like the Swedes. They, too, saw themselves following the U.S. in separating from what they considered oppressive, foreign rule.

You Americans should take more credit for freeing the world. It was your model that has been followed for 234 years. Please do not elect another president who willfully tries to blow it.

Yes, we won at Bannockburn but the Flower of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, let Edward and few remaining friends retreat relatively safely. Only Edward's demise could have convinced the English to stay on their side of the Tweed. And never again did the Clans cooperate in meeting English incursions. Hence, Culloden three hundred years later when the Jacobites were without leadership or organization. and Bonnie Prince Charlie fled to effete France dressed as a woman.