There's an editorial in The Nation today that reinforces the basic premise that began this blog. It ends where I began, with a quote from Tom Paine that reminds us about what it really means to be a Patriot, a call, as relevant now as it was more than 200 years ago, that "Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!"
The librarians of this country, under the auspices of their organization the ALA showed the same dedication to freedom of thought and the value of culture when they chose to hold their convention this past week in The Crescent City. Such a move falls directly in line with their dedicated agenda to keep people aware, thoughtful, and free.
The Nation article discusses some of the ways that the ALA's members have kept up the vigil to fight some of the more egregious aspects of the Patriot Act and it's important to remember, on this patriotic weekend, that the U.S. was founded NOT on the principle of beating other people INTO our idea of freedom, but in securing, nurturing, and maintaining freedom at home.
This weekend we come to this greatest of our national holidays - a holiday filled with everything (both good and bad) that makes the U.S.A. what we are. The White House, its current resident and the whole collection of sycophants that gather around him in nearly rabid devotion to every whim of the Shrub and his Gardeners, have made up THEIR minds about what patriotism and love of country are supposed to mean, and their definition is pretty damn narrow. I don't like their narrow vision and I steadfastly refuse to accept it. To me it's people like the librarians of the ALA, the members of Code Pink, the Cindy Sheehans, and the Max Clelands that remind us that part of being a Patriot is loving your country enough to fight for the rights of those at home. In another piece, also in The Nation, George McGovern, the man whom I first voted for at 18 when he ran for President in 1972 (the first time 18 year olds could vote), speaks to the issue directly and personally. That is how it should be, for the issue IS direct and it IS personal.
I have a number of friends, and they are certainly not alone among the populace, that feel one should not discuss politics or argue political perspective. They feel that politics is personal and such discussion only causes unnecessary strife. To me, on the other hand, it's not only important to discuss these things, it is imperative. We do not have the right NOT to discuss them. When we elect officials who send the youth of our land off to be killed on the other side of the world, when we lend our agreement to policies and laws that attack freedoms at home (freedoms that those young people are supposedly giving their lives for somewhere else) and presume - in our name - to declare what is right for the rest of the world, when we agreeably pay tax dollars that are burned by the billions on war while children in this country die of starvation, suffer from lack of adequate education and drown in a cess pool of flood water caused by inadequately constructed levees... WE ARE RESPONSIBLE... WE ARE COMPLICIT... WE ARE GUILTY.
It takes courage, strength, hope and faith to stand against the true believers and the opportunists and speak to the idea that We The People means ALL OF US!
As Little Steven sang some years ago during another right wing manufactured crisis... I am a Patriot, and I Love my Country... Because MY country is all I know.
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