BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY MAY 6, 2026) — Walk into most any store today and you’ll see for sale bric-a-brac, tchotchkes, sundry items, and other dust collectors related to America’s upcoming 250th anniversary — hats, key rings, paper plates, Frisbees, lip balm, even condoms … you name it, and some company will have manufactured the junk.

It is in a perverse way a fitting tribute the America of 2026, where lucre names the game, the lifestyle, and the ambition. That an a society-wide dumb down evident at home, locally, and statewide, where rigged elections have become de rigueur.

THE PLANET welcomes the upcoming jubilee more as a commemoration than an excuse to party. America means too much to us to get all stoopit about the founding of this country. We still, and often, recall the incredible courage shown by the Founders, men and women, who risked all to break free of monarchal rule. Farms, families, fortunes and more, pledged on a long shot. Each year, as a self-imposed exercise in civics, we re-read the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble, the Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Not bad.

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THE PLANET shall ignore at this time the appalling ignorance of the mechanics of citizenship and civics while we reflect upon “origins.”

Actually, while King George III (G3) — contrary to the misguided beliefs of the out-of touch Radical Left, America’s last king — gets cast as the heavy in the story of the American Revolution, it was Parliament who should be wearing the black hats. As a constitutional monarch, G3 had little power, same as today with King Charles III. The Lords and Commons alienated the Colonies, all because of war.

In the Seven Years’ War, one of the endless line of irrational European skirmishes begun for no reason, England defeated France. The “Forgotten World War,” which ended in 1763, left England with a massive debt. This caused Parliament to raise taxes on the Colonies (sound familiar?) to help pay down the obligations, including the infamous Stamp Act and tax on tea.

The Continental Congress appealed to the king, but G3 didn’t have the power to dissuade his legislators. We know the rest.

And here we are. Home of the Fee and Land of the Rave.

———- ooo ———-

America might have had a chance to pull off its radical experiment in self-government, but the forces against it were too great. In 1945, the United States won the war but lost the peace. For the first time in its history, it didn’t revert back to a peace time economy. Roosevelt and Truman got skunked by Uncle Joe Stalin and fell for his bluff. Enter the Cold War, which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial conflict and assassinated a man who would have gone on to become the greatest president of the 20th century. Cue the “war on terrorism,” which brings us to today.

Perpetual war, with us to stay.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

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“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” — George Orwell, 1984.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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