Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

I AM A PATRIOT

i love this country. if you dare question that loyalty and appreciation, you’d be wrong. i don’t believe that i’m a bad american because i disagree vehemently with what george bush, cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, et al have done to this country. i don’t believe this country is one man or even the majority of men. i believe in the principles upon which this country was founded. principles that have been eroded, slowly, without most even noticing. our principles and values have been replaced by warm fuzzies. patriotism is now symbolized by the flag. the pledge of allegiance. parades. we think we’re teaching our children something real about america by having them place their hands over their little hearts and promise not to question. we teach them that this nation is guided by god, not men.

we are creating idiots. an idiot is someone who does not exercise their duty to question, to probe, to protect this fragile republic.

we’ve sent our children to the other side of the world to ... protect us from terrorists? if we thought we were targets before we invaded iraq, then i don’t know what we are now. more hated than ever. and with a lot more reason. george and company pretended this was about terrorism, and it was sooooo easy to believe that. anger feels gooood. so much better than fear.

if the u.s. were invaded and reduced to rubble in the same way iraq has been, would we celebrate those who holed up and fought? yes, we would. oh, but wait. i keep forgetting that that’s only because we’re RIGHTEOUS. riiiiight. guided by god. riiiiight.

[AP PHOTO] Abbie Hoffman, wearing a shirt with stars and stripes on the U.S. Capitol grounds in 1968, is arrested and charged with mutilating the American flag.

that’s why today when i wore my flag shirt to work and people said something about it, i told them it was my abbie-hoffman shirt. not because i celebrate everything abbie hoffman said or did. but because i celebrate that we live in a country where i can say what i believe, even if george and friends are trying to take away that right. in a much scarier way than even richard dailey and richard nixon imagined. but because georgie and buds call it the PATRIOT ACT, we ignore it. how bad can it be – it’s the PATRIOT act, for fuck’s sake!

don’t think it didn’t break my heart that only ONE person had any idea what or who i was talking about when i mentioned hoffman. it’s hard not to think about hoffman and company this summer. democratic national convention coming up. bill and i’ve been talking about this stuff a lot lately, especially today. he said it was hard not to feel hopeless. i sometimes feel myself falling down that hole, too. but we will not stop fighting. in our small, small way.

and don’t you fucking DARE say that it’s only because i live in THIS country that i’m able to express these views. duh. if that thought has crossed your mind, and you think that should make me shut up, then you don’t have a fucking clue.

Posted by Stacey at July 2, 2004 10:55 PM