Goddess, I just want to scream sometimes. I have been a loyal American patriot all of my life. I have worked tirelessly for the just cause of freedom and democracy. I am not a right winger by any means but I am just as American and just as much a patriot as any of them. I would never relinquish my citizenship for anything. It will be a cold day in Hades when I give notice that I no longer desire to be an American. I will be Red, White, and True Blue until the day the Earth Mother calls me home.
I was born shortly after Castro's take over of Cuba, lived through the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy's assassination, Johnson's war, the Civil Rights movement, Woodstock, Charles Manson, Watergate, the capture of the embassy in Tehran, Ronald Reagan's presidency, a four year stint in the Navy, Iran-Contra, Clinton's rescue of America, Gingrich's Contract On America, the rebirth of the Christian Right and the selection of Bush as Emperor.
You would think that I would have seen it all and could not be surprised by anything coming out of the craphole called Iraq.
Good Goddess, I was a fool to think so.
As an American, as a patriot, I can only say that after seeing the crap from Iraq, I am ashamed to be from this country. Saying this does not in any way take away from my patriotism, in fact, it defines it. I refuse to allow the Right Wing to tell me how to be an American. The great blessing that is American citizenship is our diversity and self-defining purpose. We are a great nation of differing views, cultures, ideas and values. We know what is right and what is wrong, even when the boundary between the two dim and fade. We make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Mostly, we do great things. We are people who strive to be free, even if we stumble.
The great American quality that has lasted over 227 years is our ability to grow past our mistakes.
I have watched the videos and seen the photos of the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. Images that sully the memory of Jefferson and Madison. Those who participated in these actions are spitting in the face of every American who ever put on the uniform in defense of their country.
To the Right Wing mouthpieces I say this: Call me any name you want, accuse me of every treasonous crime you can create, the one thing you can never do is call me a liar because the truth knows no party, it knows no political view, it knows no campaign. It only speaks clear and clean. The Truth is Free.
