Bonum Certa Men Certa

Fourth of July in the United Kingdom and the United States

'Ghost towns' have become commonplace lately

Industrial Cityscape Southern Harbour



Summary: In these bizarre times Independence Day is still being celebrated, even as so many people are out of work, running out of hope and being fed xenophobia in social control media with a racist 'celebrity' president (the "user in chief")

TODAY is a special day in the United Kingdom. Our Prime Minister, born in the United States (no joke!), decided to reopen pubs today, after more than 3 months. Independence from sobriety!

The United States may be celebrating its Independence Day with a president who declared independence from facts and independence from sanity. Good luck with that. See our Daily Links for political commentary to that effect.

"Today may be a good day to declare one's independence from social control media."The world isn't in a good shape. It doesn't matter if you're in "the West" (a vague concept) or in "red China" or in the Russian "federation". Cynicism aside, the current economic system isn't working; it's failing far too many people, who right about now lose the temporary reprieve from mortgage payments and exemptions/deferral when it comes to utility bills. August is going to be really terrible, economic analysts have argued for a couple of months. Judging by the resurgence in number of COVID-19 cases in the US, another shut-down is potentially imminent. We say "potentially" because with the most irrational president in the world (bar Putin perhaps) anything is possible. It's also possible that this year's elections will be called off or delayed, potentially with the declaration of martial law in some form. So much for Independence Day.

Independence has a special meaning when it comes to software. Independence from the clown computing hype. Independence from proprietary software, from 'telemetry' (surveillance embedded in programs), from DRM and all sorts of other nasty things.

Enjoy Independence Day, wherever you may be. Celebrate responsibly if you do.

Today may be a good day to declare one's independence from social control media. Start a blog instead. Advertise an RSS feed. Let's go back to the days Web sites were actually independent. Not de-platforms for and by shareholders of social control media giants. ⬆

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