There's no cause for joy or a celebratory mood at a time of perpetual US war on humanity at home and abroad on multiple fronts — including by kill shots with mass-extermination in mind.

Hegemon USA is a gangster state, a war-making machine, a plutocracy, a fantasy democracy, never the real thing.

Its geopolitical agenda is all about carving up whole continents for power and profit, terrorizing humanity, demanding all nations bend to its will.

Imperial rampaging, predatory capitalism, and growing tyranny are its defining features.

So is governance of, by and for the privileged few at the expense of most others.

Reality in the US — and West — is defined by rotten jobs, poverty wages, poor or no benefits, weak unions, and workers exploited for maximum profits.

Police state laws, growing repression and mass incarceration greatly eroded freedoms — ahead of eliminating them altogether.

The nation I grew up in long ago no longer exists.

Never beautiful, rarely ever peaceful, it was at a time when public school teachers taught and classroom decorum was conducive to learning.

It let ordinary kids like myself advance to higher education when it was affordable, when the US was industrialized, before most career opportunities were offshored to low-wage countries.

Today's manipulated public mind is over-entertained, uninformed and distracted to conceal the diabolical agenda of the nation's ruling class.

America's permanent war economy pours countless trillions of dollars down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse to enrich its military, industrial complex and privileged interests overall — at the expense of the great majority.

An obsession with national security exists at a time when the nation's only foreign threats are invented.

Terrorism is state-sponsored on an unparalleled scale.

The so-called war on drugs is war on the nation's poor, people of color and others most disadvantaged — while dangerous opioids and other harmful legal drugs are sold freely for maximum Pharma profiteering.

On Independence Day and all other days of the year, mass resistance against dirty business as usual is needed, not celebratory activities that shift attention from what's most important in a nation that's increasingly unsafe and unfit to live in.

Not according to big money-controlled MSM.

In its July 4 edition, the pro-war, pro-privilege, anti-peace, equity and justice NYT turned reality on its head, saying:

"Our founders bequeathed to us something radical, something unprecedented: the tools with which to build a multiracial, multiethnic, pluralist democracy (sic) that extends the privilege of American identity to all (sic)."

And this Times perversion of reality:

Hegemon USA is a "laboratory of liberty (sic)."

"(W)hat makes America great (sic) is…our act of becoming more perfect (sic)."

"What makes the American people exceptional (sic) is that we have the strength to acknowledge our failings — moral, structural, personal — and the courage to make wrong into right (sic)."

Ignoring the dismal state of the nation at a time of perpetual wars, the risk of nuclear war, soaring inflation, economic decline, shortages of basic goods and most Americans struggling to get by, WaPo and the WSJ changed the subject.

A WaPo piece discussed Independence Day celebratory activities in the nation's capital. along with saying:

"While most communities shoot off their fireworks on July Fourth proper, some communities celebrate throughout the long holiday weekend."

"(I)t's possible to enjoy bombs bursting in air every night between Friday and Tuesday."

According to the WSJ:

"Some cities and towns are rescheduling their Independence Day fireworks shows because of a shortage of fireworks or workers."

And this Fox News rubbish," saying:

"The July 4th holiday brings out the best of America (sic)."

"(L)et's commit to restoring the American Dream" — what you have to be asleep to believe, George Carlin explained.

It showed in an AP News/NORC poll last week.

When asked about the state of the nation, 85% of respondents believe things are heading in the wrong direction.

And this from state-controlled Voice of America propaganda:

The fake Biden is "hosting a (PR stunt) Fourth of July barbecue for (carefully vetted before invited) military families on the South Lawn of the White House Monday afternoon."

"Later in the day, they will watch the Independence Day fireworks display at the National Mall."

"Fourth of July celebrations include parades, picnics, political speeches and fireworks (on) the (nation's) most patriotic day (sic)."

All of the above and much more of the same shifts attention from the dismal state of things for most Americans — with no relief in sight from a nation beholden to privilege exclusively at the expense of most others.