Its Independence Day!! And Im about to get really obnoxious about it! LOL

Rolls eyes

Exactly! I don't know how many people have asked me how I can listen to Bruce Springsteen and his patriotic machismo bullshit when they don't even really listen to the words and know what he's singing about.
Happened again with his new album Wrecking Ball and the first single off it - 'We Take Care of our Own'. Well, if you read the words and listen to it you'd see that what he's saying is that we (in the USA) are SUPPOSED to take care of our own, but very disappointingly (to him at least) it hasn't turned out that way, and we need to get back on course.

And he's someone who loves his country - warts and all- enough to celebrate it and sing and write about and remind us all of what the intentions were/are and how we might better go about changing things to make it better for ALL people.

And Gracie - I got the same **** over here on the fourth which was a Wednesday - so I had to work and I got people sneering 'Happy Independence Day' - don't you celebrate stealing the land from the natives?'
And I answered, 'Not over here - I'd be eating a hotdog with sauerkraut and enjoying the fireworks if I were there - probably down at the boardwalk at the Jersey shore if I were home - but honestly- I celebrate my freedom and independence every DAY because I was lucky enough to have been born and grow up in America- and - ahem - MY ancestors didn't steal it from the Indians - yours did - in fact some of my ancestors WERE Indians - HELLO!

I wouldn't have traded the experience of being born in the USA when I was for the world. I got to be a part of and witness the courage and struggle that was made as people did strive and continue to strive for equality and freedom.
I was raised in a place and by parents who started out dirt poor and because they were raised to believe in self-reliance and the rewards of hard work, and in a place where it was possible - they flourished and thrived without any other government intervention than the GI bill, which because my father was a veteran of the Korean war, helped him and my mom to buy their first house.
And then they both took it from there- without having to curtsy to anyone or having it handed to them so that they became dependent on a system.

I was raised in that place and in a time where I saw the opportunities and horizons expand for many, many people - black, white, natural born and immigrant populations.
My husband was a poor, black foster child who used his brain and his determination to take the oppotunities offered to him and make a better life for himself and his children.
And my children don't have to live in segregation - ALL OF THIS HAS CHANGED AND BECOME POSSIBLE FOR ALL IN AMERICA IN MY LIFETIME (and I'm not that old).
Now we just got to get this healthcare thing figured out.

You know - there IS a lot of good that has happened and should be celebrated
No - it aint always perfect - but we have alot to celebrate.
People who don't live in the US only read about all the bad without experiencing all of the good - so they don't know. When I moved here and told people that my parents never owned a gun (they thought ALL Americans did) they figured my family must have been Amish - all you can do is laugh.
It's sort of like how I might have though all English people spoke like Princess Diana - and all the buses were double-decker and red - until I lived here and saw that's not the whole picture.

Here's my favorite pro-American Bruce song - and it has nothing to do with patriotism - it has to do with the gentle and lovely pace of life in small-town America, which is something I do cherish and celebrate and often think of with fondness and miss - especially on the fourth of July- which brings to mind ANOTHER of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs:
so yeah - Happy Fourth of July!

Sayng that to most Americans will only result in More incteful ****. I liked Izzy's counter cartoons. I for one love to see the graphic spins of the other countries on their own jingoistic patriotism. Why feel ashamed of it? SOmetimes you are a bit too PC msolga, I mean this with all respect.
Hell, we suffered through three days of Royal wedding and Diamond jubilee ****. It was all over our TVs. Nobody complained, we were, for the most part either bored shitless or fascinated at how others celebrate things without destroying large farm vehicles or blowing something up.(Not that wed try the English way cause we kinda like blowin **** up)


Hell, If I was a Canadian Id be out setting off fireworks every celebration time commemorating when they kicked the **** outta the US in our little attempted takeover ofthir country. Canadas pretty cool about it though. Now, We are like Canadas big loudmouth brother-in-law who's a;ways braggin about his bass boat.

NEVER RUN FROM HISTORY, Its lessons are too important .

Most 14 year olds over here are total morons. I get more inssightful history of colonization and separate "ways in AMerica" from the AMISH than I do from "English" kids. Th loss of historical references that my generation took for granted is an insidious creeping dumb down of our kids.
I used to be the irate parent who went to schoolboard meetings to scream about how my local school was dumbing down several subjects including history. Th chool, without saying, felt this was a justifiable "egalitarianism conferred by stupidity" sorta -thing. I get really depressed and I hope that Gracie knows the significance of the symbols she posted. We dont emand excellence anywhere anymore.(Maybe the CAtholic SChools still worship scholarship instead of football)
I did ask up front in this thread about the commemorative date of our Independence. That got totally blowed off but , I can always hope that there are pockets of ranom historical knowledge out there.

Bear with her msolga, we only do this once a year and youll never see a big to=do for , say labor day or on the Anniversay of th Batte of New Orlean used to be the irate parent who went to schoolboard meetings to scream about how my local school was dumbing down several subjects including history.

DIdja ever watch SCTV? Ever see their film reviews? 'It was a pair of Canajuns (John Candy, Eutene Levy) who came up with the classic good ol' boy line on that . . .

'He blowed up good . . . he blowed up real good!"

You especially enjoy blowing up innocent foreigners, if you can`t get them for hands on torture. That`s been your real specialty, Farmer. And then you whine and complain about the missing war criminals who crashed their planes while bombing innocents.

But I`ll be you never complained to the school board because they failed to teach that in history.

And here`s one of them good old boys who helped in the slaughter of the Vietnamese people.

I read a book by a British journalist in Korea (Eric Linklater, not at all a left winger) who was visiting an American infantry unit recruited from the rural Midwest where he observed the young draftees using local Korean farmers tending their fields for target practice, and betting cigarettes on who was the best shot. He observed the WW2 veteran platoon sergeant looking on with a not-very-happy expression, and said that the young farm boys appeared to be acting more like cold-blooded killers. The sergeant replied that in his experience there was no more cold blooded killer than "your average American farm boy". This used to happen in the Pacific and Vietnam too, where "gooks" were widely seen as subhuman. I imagine the reek (or "wreak") of freedom must have overwhelming.

But why should saying what I genuinely believe about overt patriotism result in more "inciteful ****", farmer?
Heck if the view I've espoused is good enough for Leo Tolstoy it's good enough for me, too!
But seriously, I saw this as a thread which focused on patriotism in a big way & wanted to put a counter-view. I did that as tactfully as I could. I actually said more about my concerns about the creeping, ugly patriotism in my own country than anything I said about the US. And it is a real worry here at the moment, trust me, in a country with such a large & diverse multicultural population.
Why can't we discuss patriotism & whether it's a good thing or not?
I think it's a conversation worth having.

This is actually very interesting. The expectation seems to be that I'd find the post full of pro-England images annoying, somehow, as an American. When I didn't in the least.

I wonder if this is being framed incorrectly -- that it's less about patriotism and more about style. Class, age, something.

I'm on Facebook with several younger people, I've seen many of the images Gracie posted before, or saw the images that the images she posted are riffing off of, or saw similar images. I'm familiar with the idiom, so to speak.

(I actually love the bulldog one.)

and I repat, you are being way too sensitive. I think a broader and deeper sense of humor is what you need.
Ive tried to keep my replies on the jocular side but I guess it aint catching.

Theres too much wasted time being sensitive to customs, punctuation, spelling (see how Ive brought it around to me?) AND history. SOmetimes thos place gets downright like a convent where the nuns and deacons bend over backwards to be plain vanilla without any spices. Oh well, if you must be offended, do it with class.
Im done with this subject so if you repond, Ill read but I wont keep it going (nother of my own pet peaves)

yeh, I think we USers got a bigger smile on the Izzy pix than did others .

You can post more of them.

As they aid about SPringsteen. He is one of our best chroniclers . I was listening to his newalbum about how New Jersey got fucked over (Wrecking Ball album)

Good point. This'n was my favorite:

I've misunderstood then.
I really thought you were being serious in the post I responded to.
Ah well.
My mistake.
(No need to respond.)

Most of the time Malvolio, I was beating up on you. That's a lot more fun.

So did we.

You actually watched it?

It wasn't all bad, watching Liz and Paddy the Greek looking well and truly miserable in the pouring rain was pretty good.

This was mine.

Ha.
And now you have the Olympics to look forward too!
Bumper year, hey?