susandennis | Patriotic

Becoming an adult in the 60's and early 70's means living with a war that everyone hated and that killed your friends with penises. It was not a good war like your parents remembered WWI and WWII. It was a horror show perpetuated by our government.

I remember a difficult conversation I had with my father once about my country right or wrong. At one point he accused "that sure does not sound very patriotic" and I countered, "I hope so because I am no patriot." I was young and he was of a generation. And we stayed in our corners and just dropped it for the sake of cocktail hour but I've thought about it many times.

Flag waving and red white and blue wearing and patriotic music played so we all fall in line, makes my toes curl. I resent it even today. I have never really reconciled all of this and mostly just swept it under my own personal carpet. But, ugh.

One of my dreamwidth friends wrote an amazing entry this morning that is the reason for this one.
Please go read what Molly wrote.

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From:

mollywheezy

WOW. Nobody has ever shared one of my entries before! Thank you!

fauxklore

It's a powerful piece. I'm glad Dusan shared it.

Thank you!

susandennis

I rarely share whole entries but this seemed too powerful to keep to myself.

wpadmirer

I am with you on the word patriot. It's been hijacked by the extremists. When I was a child I was proud of my country. When I was a teen and young adult I was one of many who protested, marched, and voted to make changes from the narrow-minded stands to something broader, which I could be proud of.

Now I see this steady march, particularly by the very poor and the very rich whites, to taking us back to a time of bigotry, control of women, and general ugliness. What makes me particularly angry is so much of it is turning back the achievements that had been made.

It makes me angry and sad, all at once.