Those who know me, know that "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." My patriotism has always been an important part of who I am as a person.
My roots run deep in the United States of America. I am a descendant of the Cherokee Vann family and have familial ties to Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth. I am a descendant of one of the first Africans enslaved in what was then a British colony. I am also a descendant of slave owners and abolitionists. I am also the kinsman of numerous soldiers who have served this country in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, WWI, WWII and Korea. And I also served honorably in the United States Army during the time of the First Gulf War. Yes "I'm a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam."
This year, for the first time in my life, I didn't attend any Independence Day celebrations. I had always jubilantly joined in the cookouts, fireworks and parades; but I could not bring myself to celebrate a country that I felt was not keeping faith with its institutions and traditions. In fact, I had vowed to myself never to observe the Fourth, display the flag or stand for the nation's anthem again if Donald Trump was reelected! I believed that it would be hypocritical and disingenuous to continue to celebrate a nation which no longer existed.
Fortunately, a strong majority of our people have repudiated Donald Trump and placed the presidency of our republic in the hands of a decent and capable institutionalist. For now, at least, this great experiment in self-government continues. Four years of Trump has done incalculable damage to our institutions and traditions, but he has thankfully been unable to completely destroy them.
I can't even begin to put into words just how good it felt to dig that flag out of the back of the closet and slip it back into its holder on the front of our house. I pray that I will never feel compelled to put it away again.
I can enjoy some good old fashioned patriotism like Miller and DBP display.
ReplyDeleteKenny (wickman) and Chris (Col) say hi! Rob (bespierre) can't come for celebrations!
Nck
Lonnie,...be careful now. Are you celebrating too soon? Does it feel like a horror movie where the monster just died and there's still 30 minutes left in the move? Is the MSM being setup for more epic failure?
ReplyDeleteIt does DBP, it does.
ReplyDeleteIn horror movies, friday 13th, halloween etc, the virgin goes clear, only the promiscuous teenagers get incapacitated. This indeed looks like a modern one where the teenages already know the script and are in for a surprise............
I don't know what the surprise will be, so far I see that even the abysmal Fox news is cutting away from Mceannany press conference full of insults without ANY back up or sustained by facts...............but hey who needs facts while watching this flick, pass the popcorn.......
nck
Movie Script: Here's a twitter thread that sums it up quite nicely.
DeleteDBP
ReplyDeleteVery apropriate to draw attention to a horror movie scenario just days before friday 13th.
What do you think, 2 months of President Pence and VP Kushner??
nck
I dislike Kushner far far more than Trump but both have done some amazing things. Economy, no new wars, Peace in the Middle East, etc.
DeleteHate or love the ending but...
Two Scoops!
Two Terms!
I'm not going to debate the 5 points you raise. I have a different view.
DeleteI'm interested in the process.
To me it looks like Trump is the ultimate "winner" im posing, uncompromising, yet still a democrat who will resign in january.
If I am mistaken, then Trump just staged an "African coup" and it is "Germany 1933."
Since I have faith in the Institutions, this will mean Trump will be arrested or shot.
I am going for the Trump is a poser scenario. The 2nd will lead to a couple of thousand civilian deaths too. That would be a shame.
Nck
Coup D'état
DeleteDBP
ReplyDeleteI'm ok with hard bargaining in the way Trump is conducting. Although I'm used to waging it on the Sandinistas, the Soviet Union or North Vietnam. Not the American people.
He has crossed a line in how to govern a people. It is my hope that in january he will go down in history as just a very unique person. Not the one who put self before the Nation or the idea of America. If the idea is gone America's enemies and allies will transfer its power to another through the monetary system, like stop aiding the USA in sustaining its debt.
(I'm not talking war, just the reduction of power as granted since 1945 by those who TRUST.)
Nck
By the way it's also an answer to your "Peace in the Middle East".
ReplyDeleteArms have been twisted as the majority of voters arms are twisted. Funny at the schoolyard, fascism for adults................ from january on, ....... until then, childish, unique, annoying and therefore entertaining.
Nck
It seems Mike Pompeo agreed with my 8:41 on Foxnews as he basically said the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI find them all highly entertaining. They remind me of the fat pigs in the animal farm animation movie shown at our 1977/78 Feast site as family fun night.
But I gotta go, clean the blood on the Pentagon stairs from the 4 beheadings.
Cleaning up for the new policy chair replacement who called Bidens former Chief a "threat to national security".
Nck
Look.
ReplyDeleteAt best those chimps will use the next weeks to destroy evidence of 4 years of wrongdoing. At worst they are exchanging US secrets to the enemy.
Like the peace bought through strategic F35 sales to UAE, anyone knows where the proceeds go......Interested in Jareds future career, that will be a sign of what had transpired the next 8 weeks and what State secrets had been squandered....... the next weeks.
Nck
The reason I would fly a flag for the USA is because of the TRUE HEROES in this story.
ReplyDeleteLike the garden center guy not correcting the most powerful people on earth,, booking space for a press conference.
I say, are there any medals for "heroic call center guys taking the phone."
nck
nck,
DeleteI wanted to say again that I appreciate your comments here. You always inject a kind of prickly, even-handed practicality to the discussion.
When I fly the flag, I'm celebrating America at its best - the ideal. There is much to celebrate in the "better angels of our nature" - the impulses for equality and freedom - for compassion and cooperation.
Like you, however, I am acutely aware of America's frequent failures to meet the standards of the ideal. I'm thinking about things like the exploitation of resources and other people, the arrogance and bullying and the impulse to go it alone. In other words, some of the very things that Trump embodies and personifies. I am not naïve. I know that these too are features of the American character (witnessed by the fact that 72 million Americans voted for Trump).
Like you, I understand that we are all citizens of this earth - that we have responsibilities to this planet and the folks and life forms who share this space with us. I also understand that many, many other nations/cultures/peoples have contributed to mankind's development and survival - that while America's contributions have been significant and important - they are also part of a whole. And, getting back to celebrating America at its best, I believe one of our greatest strengths is the fact that our people are composed of folks from all over the globe - the e pluribus unum thing!
Anyway, enough of that, bottom line, I appreciate the perspective you bring to these discussions. It appears to me that we share the joy of provoking thought and consideration of alternatives.
Lonnie
Thank you Lonnie.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one small addition and I believe you agree.
What we share and I certainly also appreciate in DBP, is not so much a healthy criticism of "America(ns)", but indeed an appreciation of the dangerous impulses of concentrated power and the dichotomy between power and ideal.
Of course this topic today conflates in America.
In the end we are not battling "a particular people" but ourselves and negative impulses we might or might not have recognized in ourselves or others and indeed stall the progress of mankind.
nck
Yes, I don't want ANY President exercising the powers that Trump exercised during his tenure (including Joe Biden). I would very much like to see the Legislative branch exercise more of their Constitutional prerogatives (In my opinion, they've ceded way too much authority to the Executive over the last fifty years). The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is NOT a good trend for a progressive democratic republic.
DeleteYes Miller.
DeleteYou are very practical and concrete.
My war is a war of ideas. A battle versus the idea that Huxley and Orwell represent opposites.
My fight represents a struggle against a structure in which human beings quite enjoy being slaves of "adjustment".
Ever noticed people taking a selfie in front of the Taj Mahal. Sit for a day and take pictures of them, rearrange them. Everybody is doing the same thing, sending the same information, WHY. It is not imposed behavior, it is horizontal conditioning.
This is just a simple example to make my point on slavery of the mind and commercial possibilities of exploiting such conditioning.
In a speech to veterans Trump literally quoted Big Brother. He said "you cannot believe what you see or what you hear.... BELIEVE ME", literally posing as Big Brother the all knowing friend.
The press is complicit. During the campaign, thousands of local newsstations from the Sinclair network for weeks broadcasted scripted messages straight from the White House.
It is extremely creepy to see thousands of anchors repeat the same message word for word at the same time.
Its like a dystopian horror movie, but it is Trump fascism in practice with scripted press reporting.
I cannot take people too far in "my world." In the end most people would like to live normal.
I'm happy to provide that for them or let them be. I don't have that luxury of being ignorant. As a matter of fact I revel in abnormality. Like Frankonstien..... Whose brains did you use....... Erm abby, abby who?...... Erm abby normal?
Nck
I just realized that I actually just gave a description of bourgeois philistinism.
ReplyDeleteNck