An odd July Fourth silence here at TBV leaves me wondering if the entire cohort is feeling the same exhaustion and despair about the current state of The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as I am. Maybe so, or maybe my compadres are just taking some time off to enjoy the summer holiday with friends and family. I've sat with my fingers on the keyboard for hours on end over the past several days, trying to put my thoughts and feelings into words. Over the past weekend I also spent a lot of time catching up on news of the nation and the world. If I hadn't done that, perhaps my thoughts and feelings would not have resembled such a miasma of hopelessness and despair. Our president doesn't read the news, so he feels great about this holiday, and can say things like this in his weekend radio address to the nation:
Today, a new generation of American patriots is defending our freedom against determined and ruthless enemies. At this hour, the men and women of our Armed Forces are facing danger in distant places, carrying out their missions with all the skill and honor we expect of them. (My emphasis)
Yes, even end the speech with these shining words:
As citizens of this good Nation, we should be proud of our heritage, grateful for our liberty, and confident in our future. Two-hundred-and-thirty years after America declared its independence, the spirit of '76 lives on. And our Nation remains proud to carry freedom's torch. We still place our trust in the protections of divine providence. We still pledge our lives,our fortunes, and our sacred honor to freedom's defense. And we still believe in the promise of freedom for all.
Well, I really don't know what this man believes in, but our belief styles are worlds apart. This morning, however, I came across words that I could absolutely agree with wholeheartedly, from which I could even draw some hope. This essay by Cindy Sheehan (one of the rightwing's favorite targets for mockery and spite, yes indeed - so, bring it on!), Bombs Bursting in Air, expressed my exact sentiments on this day:
The star-spangled banner, which I can now see whipping in the wind outside an airport terminal where I am writing this, does not fill me with pride: it fills me with shame, and that flag symbolizes sorrow and corruption to me right now. The flag represents so much lying, fixed elections, profiting by the war machine, high gas prices, spying on Americans, rapid erosion of our freedoms while BushCo literally gets away with murder, torture and extreme rendition, contaminating the world with depleted uranium, and illegal and immoral wars that are responsible for killing so many.
Read the entire piece here, and give some thought to her invitation to join her at Camp Casey in Crawford, TX this summer. If these words ring as true in your heart as they do in mine, if they help you realize that all our souls are in need of saving,
BushCo and the neo-con regime embarked on this disastrous misadventure in Iraq to prove to the world how strong and virile Pax Americana is. Their abjectly failed mission, which was evil and corrupt from the beginning, has not proven how strong our nation is but, on the contrary, how weak. However, the neo-cons have managed to prove that even though they have the "mightiest" war machine in the world, an insurgency in a country smaller than the state of California can hold their false freedom and deadly democracy at bay. One other thing that the neo-cons have proven is that America is no longer the moral touchstone of the world but is a nation that commits torture and crimes against humanity with the presidential seal of approval. BushCo has destroyed any credibility our nation ever had in the world and all of us need to fight to regain it and thereby redeem our own souls.
then please consider joining Cindy in Crawford, or wherever and however you can, in this coming year. Make your elected representatives aware of your beliefs about this country, work towards removing this Republican Congress in November, and towards strengthening the spines of the Democrats who replace them. Show up at protests, write letters to the editor, don't be afraid to make your voices heard. At this time in our history, being a patriot is not a matter of saluting icons, making brave referrals to 1776, and singing hymns. It is something far more difficult and heartbreaking, it is looking at our truths face-on, realizing how far from anything resembling high ideals we have strayed, and resolving to give everything we can to this struggle for the heart and soul of this country, of this world. It is time, as Howard Zinn says, to redefine patriotism:
Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism that has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade-- some call it "globalization"--should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.
