Happy Birthday Vichy USA!
Get out your beach blankets and celebrate the country the USA has become--and take down a few Flock cameras while you're at it. It's what patriots should do.
Vichy USA Lyrics by C. A. Matthews. Sung to the tune of Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys (with sincerest apologies to fans of the song). If everybody had a notion ’cross the USA That everybody’s gone fascist—like Donnie Trump, oh yay! You’d see them wearing blond hairdos Doing their sieg heils too Everybody’s gone fascist! Vichy USA! You catch’em all heiling Hitler Inside, outside USA… In Washington DC Inside, out—fascist all the way! Kissing up to the cops Inside, outside USA… Flock cameras to stay Inside, out—fascists here to stay! All over the cities Inside, outside USA… And in the country, too Inside, out—fascist all the way! Everybody’s gone fascist Vichy USA We'll all be planning a rout We're rebelling real soon We’re taking out the puppets We won’t wait ‘til noon We'll be revolutionaries We’re guillotining today Tell the fascists we’ll burn down Vichy USA We’ll catch’em and toast them Inside, outside USA… In Washington DC Inside, out—fascists go away! Locking up evil cops Inside, outside USA… No more war crimes we’ll see Inside, out—fascist no-oh way! All over the cities Inside, outside USA… And in the country, too Inside, out—fascists go away! Everybody smash fascists And Vichy USA Everybody smash fascists and Vichy USA!
by C. A. Matthews
The 1976 Bicentennial was really something. I remember fondly all the fabulous fireworks displays, huge parades, and special band concerts in the park. It was nice to think about how the United States had stayed together and made it a full two hundred years. As a child, I didn’t really understand what all had happened in those two centuries and how the US had played a major role in maintaining violence and oppression both at home and around the world, activities that would lead to the current fiasco Americans find themselves in fifty years later.
I would have never thought that the “land of the free” meant that we’d come to deny immigrants asylum based on their race, religion, or ethnicity. I probably would have laughed at the mere idea that well-to-do white South Africans would be considered deserving refugees, but that poor black Haitians who fled a disintegrating country (helped to fall apart by greedy Americans) would not.
I would have never thought that locking up thousands of non-violent immigrants was “freedom”, nor that sending young children out of the country without their parents was a compassionate thing to do. These weren’t the concepts of freedom and morality I was indoctrinated in at church and school.
Fifty years ago, I would have never thought that anti-fascist activists would be labeled “terrorists” and sentenced to harsh sentences by a federal judge for trying to point out the crimes of ICE. These are the sentences of the activists who protested at the ICE facility in Texas: Benjamin Song: 100 years, Marisela Rueda: 70 years, Cameron Arnold: 50 years, Savanna Batten: 50 years, Zachary Evetts: 50 years, Bradford Morris: 50 years, Elizabeth Soto: 50 years. What essentially are life sentences for daring to set off fireworks and wearing all black clothing to a protest, no less.
Meanwhile, the ICE agents who murdered Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter have received a total of 0 years in prison. You read that right—the ICE agents responsible received sentences of zero years for their murders of Renee, Alex, and Keith. The similarities between ICE and the Nazi Gestapo are undeniable.
“Home of the brave?” Truly American activists are the brave ones while our entire political system is riddled with traitorous cowards, eager to do the bidding of a fascist apartheid regime bent on ethnic cleansing in Lebanon as well as in the West Bank and Gaza. My maternal grandfather served in World War II under General George S. Patton to defeat the fascists in Europe—not welcome fascists like Elon Musk and friends into the White House. My grandfather and the ICE activists are brave Americans, totally unlike the AIPAC-owned-and-operated shills in Congress.
Those in Congress who wish to merge the US military with Israel’s aren’t brave. They choose to associate our country with an ethnostate dedicated to genocide and most recently called to account by the United Nations for deliberate killing and sexually abusing children. They’re despots who’d sell their own mother for a chance to visit Epstein’s island of pedophilic delights and horrors. Congress members may have taken an oath to protect the Constitution, but they had their fingers crossed behind their backs the entire time.
I just don’t get it. How have Americans become so enamored of white supremacists and pedophile-rapists? The propaganda machine started in the First and Second World Wars and perfected in the Cold Wars has done its job well on our collective psyche. Americans now honor the dishonorable and worship the satanic while pretending to be a “Christian nation”—whatever the hell that actually means. In any case, I’m pretty certain we’ll be burning in hell for our unrepentant sins eventually.
Fifty years ago no one would have ever thought a good portion of the ruling elites and their US politician-puppets were morally-deficient criminals easily blackmailed and content to stay quiet while denying justice to those they’ve harmed. As an adult, I realize this is nothing new. It shouldn’t surprise anyone why the US openly supports another genocidal state such as Israel and is willing to blockade and starve entire countries such as Cuba. Americans have been involved in genocides since the very beginning of this country.
The largest genocide to date is the ethnic cleansing of the Americas. One hundred million lives lost is a conservative estimate. Innocent blood stains Americans’ hands clear down to the bone.
Maybe we’ve only opened our collective eyes to the truth now that the US has become a pariah in the world. Most will admit that the US has never been a democracy with “liberty and justice for all”. Big Brother and his Flock cameras are just a new way to keep the working class in the ghettos while data centers steal the family farm. The US has always been a playground for rich white males only. As the late great George Carlin said, “It’s a big club, and you’re not in it.”
And I’m glad I’m not in that club in spite of how much I may personally suffer from being denied entrance. Take a hard look at where this big club ranks alongside the rest of the world:
What USA thinks it’s #1 in (and its actual rankings):
Life Expectancy: 46th
Free Press: 42nd
Healthcare: 30th
Education: 26th
Happiness: 23rd
Freedom: 17th
What the USA is #1 in:
Military Spending
Number of Billionaires
Incarceration
Bankruptcy filings
Medical debt
Gun deaths
Funding Israel
Medical debt wasn’t a big thing when I was a kid as I recall, but only because health insurance companies weren’t for-profit before 1973. In the 1970s, the racist death penalty was a thing of the past. Violent crime was on the downturn throughout the decade. Only media hype (propaganda) made Americans think it was the opposite.
Thanks to the “trickle down theory” of economics from the 1980s onward many Americans now find themselves without health care. We’re dying for our lack of wealth. Many more of us are being locked up for looking at a cop the wrong way or simply being a person of color (if we’re not shot dead first by that same cop). Divide and conquer is the billionaire oligarchs’ preferred tactic to keep us working stiffs in our place.
Capitalism has a lot to answer for.
In the year 2026, all I can say is that this isn’t the same country I grew up in. This isn’t the country I actually believed in back then. All we can do now is to mourn its death and get to work burying it so we can create another America, a better one. Perhaps this new nation could live up to the some of the decent dreams of the founders, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This time around let’s make these ideals for everyone, not just the rich white guys who don’t give a shit about the rest of us and the planet we all share.
In closing, I’ll say this: Americans who criticize their country and point out where it’s gone and is still going wrong should be seen as patriots. They actually care enough to dig up the dirt and expose it to the light of day. They care enough to purify it and change the dirt into healthy soil in which to grow an actual free and democratic society.
So, here’s to all the patriots out there working hard to make America great, not again but for its very first time.
Happy Bastille Day! (And don’t forget to take down a Flock camera near you.)
Conscientious Objectors: Call the G.I. Rights Hotline at 1-877-447-4487 or the Center for Conscience & War at 1-800-379-2679.
Exercise Your Free Speech and Critical Thinking Skills—Read Indie Journalism!
How To Mobilize Against Flock Cameras https://www.yourfavoriteguy.com/p/how-to-mobilize-against-flock-cameras
Obliterating Gaza’s Children: The Damning UN Report https://www.juancole.com/2026/06/obliterating-children-damning.html
The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/the-ndaa-proposed-merger-of-the-us
Israel Bombs Palestinians in Beach Tents in Gaza https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-bombs-gaza-coastline-tents-beach-displaced-palestinians
Last Chance for Petro on Palestine https://husseini.substack.com/p/last-chance-for-petro-on-palestine
Iran War: Most unpopular US war in history https://www.stephensemler.com/p/iran-war-most-unpopular-us-war-in
Russia vindicated as top U.S. intel confirms lethal Pentagon-funded biolabs in Ukraine https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/06/19/russia-vindicated-as-top-us-intel-confirms-lethal-pentagon-funded-biolabs-ukraine/
Protests Over Kushner-Backed Development Threaten to Topple Albanian Government https://truthout.org/articles/protests-over-kushner-backed-development-threaten-to-topple-albanian-government/
Serbs Just Forced Their President to Resign Because He Tried to Push Through the Jared Kushner Trump Hotel Project in Belgrade https://mandissent.com/p/serbs-just-forced-their-president
The EPA Relied on an Influential Glyphosate Study Even After Learning Monsanto Was a “Ghost Writer” https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2026/06/epa-roundup-glyphosate-monsanto-ghostwritten-herbicide-cancer-bayer/
“$1 trillion is an unfathomable amount of wealth. If you make $60,000 a year after taxes, to make $1 trillion you’d need to work for over 16 million years.” —Lee Camp, It’s So Telling That Our First Trillionaire Is A Con-Man Space Nazi https://realleecamp.substack.com/p/its-so-fitting-that-capitalisms-first
As billionaires’ wealth soars, US workers struggle: ‘The rich keep getting richer for no good reason’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/26/billionaires-wealth-soars-as-workers-struggle
Over 425,000 Kids in U.S. Face Deportation Hearings Without Lawyers https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/children-attorneys-immigration-court-deportation
Just FYI: The SDNY Got Evidence of What Epstein Did to a Five Year Old and Responded With Two Words https://lastpagefirst.substack.com/p/just-fyi-the-sdny-got-evidence-of
Carbon Captured: How the fossil fuel industry turned the plan to solve climate change into a plan to save itself https://projects.propublica.org/carbon-captured/
PFAS Pollution & The Data Center Boom https://www.thebrockovichreport.com/p/pfas-pollution-and-the-data-center
Common Pesticide Alters Bumblebee Genes, Threatening Future Pollination https://scitechdaily.com/common-pesticide-alters-bumblebee-genes-threatening-future-pollination/
New Report Highlights Growing Partnership Between Surveillance Tech and ICE https://truthout.org/articles/new-report-highlights-growing-partnership-between-surveillance-tech-and-ice/
Cops Warn CEO Bodyguards That Luigi Mangione Fever Could Spark Class War https://theintercept.com/2026/06/25/police-luigi-mangione-wealthy-ceos-threat/