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DECLARING INDEPENDENCE ON 4TH OF JULY

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness --
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed --
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government..."

Greetings Orwell Today Readers,

Even though I'm a Canadian I've always loved celebrating July 4th -- the USA's Birthday -- even more than our own which falls on July 1st. I think the whole world knows about America's INDEPENDENCE DAY as it's a role model for "we the people" rising up against tyrannical government. It was the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE that inspired the AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Then -- adding icing on the cake -- my first child was born on the 4th of July in 1976 -- the 200th anniversary of the signing of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. As explained previously, our family, when the kids were young, used to travel to the USA during summer vacation. See WE CANADIAN AMERICAN COUSINS

Here's the birthday card I texted to my son yesterday:

me to him: Happy Independence Day 1776-1976...Your Birthday #49 on USA's #249
him to me: Thx mom. Fourth of july kid
me to him: You can listen to JFK read Declaration of Independence
him to me: Big celebration down south today. I remember being down there as a kid for my birthday
me to him: Yes n we used to tell u all those fireworks were specially for u

Often on July 4th, in honour of INDEPENDENCE DAY, I post articles and images on ORWELL TODAY about the American Revolution and Gettysburg and General George Armstrong Custer and their connections to that day. Here's what I posted on the website yesterday:

USA BORN 249 YEARS AGO

watch JFK Read Declaration Independence listen
July 4th, 1776 - 2025

"4-score & 7-years ago our fathers brought forth"
CUSTER-LINCOLN-JFK-JURA AT GETTYSBURG

BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 162 YEARS AGO

"Come On You Wolverines"
July 1-3, 1863 - 2025

While googling for an image of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE -- to post with a link to JFK's reading of it -- I suddenly remembered a treasure-trove of a book I'd acquired a few years ago -- at a Library Book Sale -- and ran to the bookcase to find it.

1776: THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION
Excerpts from the acclaimed history, with letters, maps and seminal artwork
by David McCullough

It's a huge, heavy, beautifully-bound book bulging with copies of original documents including, godcidently, the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, which I thought I'd remembered seeing, in amazement, when I'd first brought the book home. And sure enough, when I went looking, it was there in one of the gold-sealed see-through envelopes inserted between the pages in each chapter. It was folded in half and when opened could be used as a poster -- a proclamation.

Above I've scanned both halves and placed one atop the other. The caption page describing it says, "...Historic front page of Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet, carrying the full text of the Declaration of Independence, July 8, 1776..."

Wow, I hadn't realized, until reading it just now, that this is how the citizens and the world learned the news of the declaration of war -- the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE -- it wasn't just a scroll unfurled and placed under glass. It was headline news -- like the Proclamation of Emancipation would be in the not too distant future -- but there was no telegraph -- just word of mouth and written word.

I was holding the closest thing there is to the real thing right here in my hands. As the citation in the source notes says, "All removable documents are reproductions of original items and are not originals themselves".

(click on image to enlarge for reading)

I wanted to get this godsend original version of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE posted on the website as one full page and it fit perfectly when the headlines and side-stories were removed. Later I followed along, word for word, as JFK read aloud from the original original.

JFK died 100 years after Gettysburg Address

JFK OPPOSED MONOLITHIC CONSPIRACY

Then today, when I was adding an update on JFK speaking out against tyranny -- as had Jefferson and the other founding fathers -- I came across a fascinating article explaining the story behind the owner of the newspaper that published the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE -- a replica of which I have in my possession.

How the Declaration of Independence was once bought for $4 at a flea market
Clict, July 3, 2025

...On the evening of July 4, 1776, Continental Congress printer John Dunlap began production on the first published copies of the Declaration of Independence. Experts disagree on exactly how many broadsides he produced (estimates range from 200 to 1,000). These copies were used to spread the word around the colonies, sent off as messages of America's independence from the crown. Some were pinned up in town squares, others used to read aloud to the townspeople. Many local printers in the colonies produced their own broadside copies using the Dunlaps as a reference. The "Dunlap Broadside" printing is the most valuable of the multiple printings identified. Today, around 26 examples remain extant, with nearly all in public institutions...

This tidbit adds another dimension to my appreciation of the literal and tangible attributes of the USA DECLARING INDEPENDENCE on the 4th of July -- a day going down in the annals of history through time immemorial.

...In practice this meant that no book written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox (goodthinkful would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to ideological translation -- that is, alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government...

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government...

The DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE is cited on the last page in Orwell's 1984 -- as an example of "crimethink".

All the best,
Jackie Jura, July 5, 2025

watch JFK Read Declaration Of Independence listen

CUSTER'S GETTYSBURG ON THE PLAINS (Jackie Jura visited in 2016)

LINCOLN & KENNEDY AT GETTYSBURG (Lincoln visited in 1863 and JFK visited in 1963)

Battle of Gettysburg 150th Anniversary magazines

Washington/Lincoln/Civil War Books/DVDs owned by Jackie Jura

WALT WHITMAN/PAUL POTTS & ORWELL

(Whitman Press almost published Animal Farm)

listen O Captain! My Captain! by Whitman watch
Email/YouTube, Sep 20, 2013
8.Classes of People