Pastures of plenty must always be free

Today is the Fourth of July, the day of the red and white and blue, the 231st anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. It's also a day to ponder what the US stands for in these times of political and environmental turmoil.

The US for long, and rightly so, was known as the land of plenty. But with the passage of time and many an event later it acquired another tag, that of a big bully. What unfortunately the rest of the world has been seeing in recent times is more of the latter.

The way the world has evolved, or has been made to evolve, after World War II has a lot to do with that image. History is proof of why and how the world is different for different people. The rest of the world has shockingly accepted the paradigms, lock, stock and barrel, set forth for by the Western part of our planet - from social, political and economic development to novel ways of destroying the environment.