Otsego County Democrats

Today is the 4th of July. Each year, this is the date that we officially observe as the birthday of the great American Experiment. 250 years ago, a group of men – many with their equally capable wives helping to guide and support them – formally declared this nation independent from the British monarchy. The United States was born.

Like any young and growing thing, there have been fits and starts. Moments of shining excellence, like when emancipation came to all enslaved people, when Jim Crow ended, when Americans stepped on the moon, when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, or early this morning, when Kelsey Pfendler, a 32 year old from Boonville, NY not only beat – but demolished – both men’s and women’s speed records for solo row from California to Hawaii.

And we’ve had our challenges. Our country was formed at the expense of Native Americans who were driven, violently, from their homes and onto reservations where generations later they still experience poverty and violence – an inheritance of broken American promises. We have seen periods of intense political violence, eras until recently we thought were behind us. We have the 5th largest percentage of incarcerated people per capita in the world.

Like many of us, I have spent today, and the days leading up to today, reflecting on where we are as a nation, and on the concept of its birth. Ideas of birth and death have been on my mind a lot lately. A few weeks ago, I marked my first birthday since the passing of my mother. We were estranged when she passed. Our relationship had always been rocky, but I had always hoped that after a needed break, we’d find a way to meet each other in the middle. When she passed, not only did I lose the woman who birthed and raised me, but I lost the chance of better days. Her birthday would have been in August, and while it is quite possible nothing would have changed, the chance was there.

Today is America’s birthday. So many of us are feeling the strain of the relationship, on all sides. We can’t figure out how to talk to each other about the things we’re doing that hurt the other. We can blame, but we find reflection hard. Some behavior we are seeing and feeling is wrong, and we rightly want it to stop. But it can be very hard to get people to stop hurting you when the very act of hurting you feels like it’s helping or protecting them.

But what I do know is that at 12:00 am Sunday morning, America will begin its 251st year. Because it’s not dead and buried it can still change. We still have time to find the words to ask for what we need, the strength to stand firm for what we won’t accept, and the patience to find the compromises, however small, upon which we can build a stronger union.

We have so much to fight for, so much good today to rejoice in, so many lessons still to learn. So while we enjoy the BBQ, swim in the lakes, and gather with loved ones to watch fireworks, remember to let the love and the joy and the pride in being American flow through you. Do not set it aside. Do not say it’s too late, and it’s lost. It is not lost. It’s all around us.

Fixing our union is the job of every one of us. It means building a country we love loudly, where ALL people are equal, where there truly is justice for ALL, were we are ALL free, and where we are ALL loved by no god and every god, where we ALL lay our heads at night in safety and comfort with a full belly.

I am proud of my country. I am proud to be American. I am proud that while we struggle, we also keep struggling. We don’t give up. We never have, and as long as we never do, America has many, many more birthdays ahead.

So happy birthday America. And many more.

In Solidarity,
Caitlin Ogden, Otsego County Democratic Chair

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