We love those of our blood the most, especially our children. I’m casual about the fact that I’d willingly die or kill for my daughter. This is a commonplace, and humans are probably hard-wired genetically to have this attitude.

I’d make great sacrifices for my tribe, many of whom read and post at EOB. These are the people as individuals and groups that I’ve voluntarily adopted into my life. Maybe risk my life for them, though there’d be more thought involved. It wouldn’t be as reflexive as stepping in front of a bullet for Rachael. I’d certainly help my tribe hide the body. Or bodies.

I was once consciously proud to be a Texan. We were bigger, better, more open-hearted, warmer. At least that was the myth I grew up with. I was part of the Texan tribe.

And I love my country. I was programmed for that by the culture that I grew up in, especially by school and the mass media. I grew up knowing that we’d saved the world from an awful fate in WWII. We were the best country, and our ideals were a shining beacon for the rest of humanity. I was proud to be part of the American tribe.

Then came the Sixties, and the Viet Nam war, and the terrible realization that we too often didn’t live up to those ideals. And that too many of us didn’t want to. We just wanted the pretense. It broke something inside of me. Something that’s never healed.

And it just got worse after that. Those rights we were taught we had, they seem less and less inalienable every year.

When I think about my country now, there’s still some pride, but I know I’ve lost any perspective on the subject. I find it harder to recognize good news even when it’s right in front of me.

When I think about my country now, I vacillate between rage and sorrow.

The Iraq War is currently the bluntest, most obvious symbol of what’s happened to us. As citizens, we get programmed to be willing to die and kill to preserve our blood, our tribe, our country. If not going to those violent extremes, as least to sacrifice to make it safe and good for us all as a group. And, as a promised extension of that effort, to improve the lot of the rest of us flawed, struggling humans around the Earth. Our biggest, most inclusive tribe.

Our soldiers are the ones who risk most to keep us safe.

But they require wise and honest leadership, and they don’t have that any more. Haven’t for most of my life, as far as I can tell. They make courageous sacrifices, dying and being maimed, at the direction of corrupt, lying, cowardly leaders. Leaders who have avoided all sacrifice and all risk in their own lives, but who’ve casually sent them into the killing zone, with no visible remorse. They’re expended as if they were bullets, not humans, not members of our beloved tribe, who should be cherished and protected and risked only with the greatest forethought.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of our historic revolution in service of freedom and the upward climb of humanity from violent barbarism, with us ruling ourselves, not ruled by a coddled elite.

The Fourth of July is about Patriotism and the American Flag that is the embodiment of our love and aspirations.

For the last forty years, the Flag and the word ‘Patriotism’ have been perverted by the monsters among us, who’ve wrapped themselves in those symbols and used them to viciously manipulate our tribe for their own selfish purposes.

On good days, I see signs that the next revolution is finally brewing. A non-violent one, I hope, with people finally rejecting what’s been done to them in the name of Patriotism and the Flag. I have no idea what the outcome might be. Failed revolutions usually leave something much worse in their wake, and even successful ones can degenerate into reigns of terror.

Recently, I’ve gotten into motorcycling. There’s a huge and growing group of bikers that is composed of members that I might not agree with on too many things. I don’t even agree with some of their organization’s rhetoric. But their patriotism and their use of the flag makes me proud. They’re determinedly non-political. They honor our tribe.

The Patriot Guard was founded to protect the families of our dead soldiers who were being harassed at funerals by a family of fanatics so foul that I refuse to name them here.

I don’t join groups. I’m considering joining this one.

I want my patriotism and my Flag back. I miss them, and what they can stand for.

:

We’re going to Readercon tomorrow and while we are gone, we’re having someone house sit for us. Howard Waldrop is watching my dogs.

This doesn’t happen in Ohio. I mean, Howard Waldrop is a national treasure. We’re having a national treasure watch our house. This is a little like having Princess Di watch your house, except that Howard wasn’t hounded to death by papparazzi. I’m assuming if you read Eat Our Brains, you probably know Howard, or know of him. Me, I didn’t meet Howard until a couple of years ago. I met him at Walter Jon William’s Rio Hondo Workshop. The fact that Walter invites me to the Rio Hondo workshop already makes me feel pretty cool. The fact that Howard was coming made me a little nervous. I’d heard lots of stories about Howard, like how he doesn’t use a computer and how he gave a lecture on how to live on $4,638 a year and he sounded facsinating, but what if I wasn’t, you know, cool enough? People who’s opinion I respected a great deal adore Howard. What if I somehow failed to measure up?

Howard doesn’t measure. Howard is generous of spirit. And he knows more stuff than almost anybody. Howard and I got into a discussion of the fall of the empires of mezo-America and the effects of unexpected amounts of rain on the Pueblo cultures. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a conversation so much as I listened and thought, damn, I’d never heard about that. It was cool. Especially when you realize that this guy doesn’t have google.

I have tried really hard to impress on the dogs that Howard is going to be staying here for a few days. The good news is that Howard has met my dogs and, well, Howard likes dogs. And my dogs like Howard. But they aren’t going to be treating him with proper reverance.

The good thing is, I think Howard prefers it that way.

(This link to Howard’s story, The Ugly Chickens, isn’t supposed to work anymore, but as I type this, it still is.)