Comments on: Born on the Fourth of July

By: Rory Harper

Rory Harper — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:03:11 +0000

Huh. I just realized that my feeble attempt at humor in my comment #13 about Erin’s newspaper piece comes across as flip. At best.

It wasn’t meant to be that way. I just wrote too quickly while multi-tasking. My bad.

It’s a damn good, serious piece of writing and deeply addresses the agony a lot of us are feeling.

By: Erin O'Brien

Erin O'Brien — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:06:46 +0000

Thanks for reading Rory and Morgan.

By: Morgan J. Locke

Morgan J. Locke — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:19:03 +0000

I found that deeply moving, Erin. It certainly reflects my own love of this country’s potential, mingled with sorrow and anger over the abuses that have been perpetrated in the name of the flag.

By: Rory Harper

Rory Harper — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:30:16 +0000

Erin — I really enjoyed that ‘Banner Yet Waves’ thing you linked to. I think it’s got some metaphors and similac in it, though. I have problems with those, as you know.

But it was nice.

By: Erin O'Brien

Erin O'Brien — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:02:48 +0000

Banner Yet Waves

By: Rory Harper

Rory Harper — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:43:54 +0000

Steve and Laura and T.N and N.G. — My best wishes to you all. My experience is that this sort of thing hurts far longer than anybody who’s never been through it can know. Only time gets you to the other side of it.

Everybody else — Thanks for your comments to this post. I think a lot of us are paying attention to what’s happened to our country much more than we did before 2000. I’m hoping that that increased attention and awareness will make a big difference in the long run.

But it’s going to be a protracted, perhaps endless struggle. Too many assholes benefit from the on-going destruction of our 230-year experiment. I fear for the worst, hope for the best.

I live in a place where my vote is meaningless. About all that’s left to me is to write and to find some small amount of money to give strategically.

I’m in the early phase of trying to find some way to make a difference, as I’ve felt swept along by the poisoned tide for much too long, and am deathly tired of it. Tired of just bitching and feeling helpless.

By: T.N.

T.N. — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:17:22 +0000

*sniffle*

By: Steven Gould

Steven Gould — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:00:43 +0000

We did Earl’s funeral today.

Because he was ex-military (Army Rangers), the army sent a color guard to fold a flag and present to my mother-in-law, Elizabeth, during the service. The seargent who presented it talked very quietly to her as he gave her the flag and I was six seats over so I didn’t hear it but the phrase I did catch was “from a grateful nation.”

This was the most meaningful 4th of July moment for me, this year.

By: Steven Gould

Steven Gould — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:56:29 +0000

When fascism comes to America… Sinclair Lewis said it.

By: Barb

Barb — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:02:15 +0000

Oh, one more thing – about those nutjobs picketing funerals, I agree with Sara. They have been picketing funerals at least since the 1980s when I lived in Kansas, but never really provoked a response when it was “just” gays. Now that it’s soldiers, they’re getting the pushback they have always deserved.
“When they came for me…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

By: Barb

Barb — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:56:42 +0000

Rory, thank you for writing this. You are right on target – our sense of patriotism has been stolen and perverted. How can I wave a flag if it links me with those who are using the flag to justify evil actions? Why would I want to?

By: Caroline Spector

Caroline Spector — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:35:52 +0000

“When fascism comes to America, it’ll be draped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

I’m not sure who said it, but boy howdy, it’s true.

I am also terribly fond of my country. But that fondness is bound to the knowledge of how good we can be, not how crappy we often are.

I come from a military family. Mine is the first generation where all the men didn’t serve in some way. And I’m with you, Rory, give me my damn flag back.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:49:57 +0000

I’m a Kansan, as a result I have been disgusted and embarrassed by these particular crazies for decades. They do serve a purpose however. By being so hateful, they force people to examine their own prejudices, and perhaps realize that discrimination is a slippery slope that can easily lead to ugly bigotry.

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 03:09:28 +0000

Good post, Rory–we were thinking in similar ways, obviously.

I love my country. I’m proud of what she could be. I’m willing to work to get her closer to that point. Politics in the last twenty years have taught me why some dogmas hold that despair is a sin: it paralyzes you, and makes it easy for evil to take over. So: no despair. I want to be able to wear the flag, or fly the flag, whenever it pleases me, without feeling like I’m subscribing to someone else’s ugly agenda.

By: Paul Cooper

Paul Cooper — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:41:42 +0000

Have you noticed that the last few years it has been displayed more and more often? Today it’s everywhere. Even the basic postage stamp is a flag now. The worse the United States behaves, the more people fly the flag. We must be a very bad country right now.

I’m a veteran and proud of my service, but I have to agree with Rory; I can’t work up much pride in my country anymore.