“1776”

The movie and the holiday…

My favorite holiday has always been the Fourth of July. A secular holiday, we could celebrate it with family and friends. It was not just for “natural born citizens”, but the fun, the fireworks, the food was appreciated by everyone who chose to participate in 4th festivities.

And part of the fun of the 4th of July was watching “1776” every year. Yeah, it’s a bit corny but the music is great and the acting isn’t too bad. I don’t think I’d ever accept any actors besides Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin and William Daniels as John Adams.

The movie (and stage play before it) has quite an interesting history. It was written and produced as a play in 1969. It was developed as a movie in 1972, during the Nixon administration. The

It’s the story of that hot summer of 1776 when delegates of the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to discuss the Need? Desire? Hope? for breaking away from England. Some of the delegates were for independence, some were not, and a few delegations were split right down the middle.

A committee was formed to write a document that would explain the need for independence from England. Thomas Jefferson was drafted to write the Declaration.

It was written, debated on, and then signed on July 4th.

But the little known fact about the problem of the movie concerned the song “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men”. The movie was produced by Jack Warner, who was a conservative and a great friend of Richard Nixon. Nixon objected to the song because he thought it depicted Revolutionary War era conservatives as “power hungry wheedlers focused on maintaining wealth.”

Sound familiar?

Eventually the song was added into the movie and was included in the movie’s soundtrack.

Okay, it’s now 2025 and our country is celebrating its 249th July 4th. Some lousy things were voted on today and will be signed into law tomorrow by many of the same type of men described in “1776”. What can we do?

We can, should, MUST hit our streets as we did a few weeks ago. And we must do it every two weeks. We cannot stop talking about the ugly way our country is heading. We have to believe that things CAN be turned around.

Let’s all watch “1776”. We cannot sit back any more. We have to join together to reclaim our country. There’s force in marching together!

Happy July 4th!