PrintJanuary 22, 2009
Marin County Surrenders to Patriotism
When I drove home at the end of Inauguration Day, my very liberal Marin County neighborhood was awash in American flags. I was dumbstruck. People in Marin don't put up flags (unless they are conservatives) not even on federal holidays. With the exception of a few Republicans, I don't recall anyone raising a flag in this neighborhood to commemorate the 2000 or 2004 inaugurations. Even on 9-11 we were the only ones with an American flag and a yellow ribbon affixed to our front door.
One neighbor has a large flag displayed and 4 mini flags placed around the garden. In Marin, this is serious patriotism. Normally, the assumption would be that this is the home of a wayward right wing nut job. Actually, this couple hates Bush. They blame him for their child's handicap. Although the child came to this world before Bush came to the presidency, his position on stem cell research became the scapegoat for their anger and suffering. This is the price I pay for warm weather.
So, now that the Democrats are in power -- and they are in power big time -- it's ok to hang up a flag. It is ok to be patriotic when it is defined by the left.
I'll be honest. I didn't feel so patriotic on Inauguration Day. I really did try but I was overcome with fear and melancholy.
What made me fearful? The adoring crowds, the adulation, the hypnotic fervor and the sheer numbers. My fear had nothing to do with color or politics, but rather with the psychology of the masses and where that will take us. I never doubted a black person could be President. I was raised in a home and in a country and during a time when that possibility was never shot down but was always laid out before us. (Rev. Lowery: FYI., white people were instrumental in making things right and fighting the fight that facilitated BHO's ascendancy to the Oval Office.) But I fear the young people who were holding up pictures of GWB on a playing card booing and chanting with indescribable glee the "Nah nah nah nah/Hey hey/Good bye" song. I fear them because they are either ignorant about or agree with a socialist agenda.
What about the melancholy? I realized that everything I hold dear has been renounced in a matter of weeks and will be discarded in due course. They just don't hate Bush. They hate all of us. They only want unity, bipartisanship and patriotism if it is on their terms. While conservative pundits might wax poetic over this or that about BHO, my yoga classmates were crying today, comforted, relieved and emboldened by this man who is going to end the tyranny of the right and bring about change to the left, sounding the death knell to all we accomplished, the values and policies we endorsed over the last 8 years.
In their eyes, we are ALL tyrants.
These past 8 years looked pretty darn good to me. They can re-write and re-package the history of the last 8 years, but the fact is we were safe, our economy flourished and we weren't as hated by the rest of the world as the elite media and intelligentsia of the West would have you believe. (That people in the West have the time and means to prioritize global warming as a national security issue, is a testament to our prosperity and good fortune.)
To hate Bush is to hate me. I agreed with him on a lot of issues. To want change from the past 8 years, is to want change from me and everything I have taught my children. To hope for a new tone in this country is to call for a new tone from me, a tone that was silenced by the onslaught of ridicule and vilification I experienced trying to have civil conversations with democrats.
Yes, it's upsetting because it isn't fair. WE asked for patriotism; WE extended olive branches; WE tried to talk; WE took on issues common to all. But, we were rebuffed at every turn. And now, suddenly, flags are raised in a liberal stronghold like Marin County and poof! It's cool to be patriotic in America again. Of course so many of us are upset. Double standards, double speak, double whammy.
It isn't fair but we have to get beyond this and tackle the future. Contrary to popular belief, we did not lose this election because John McCain could not get the conservative vote. Millions of hard core conservatives -- who didn't like McCain -- voted for him knowing that we'd be better off with some of his policies than all of BHO's. The problem is that millions more voted for BHO. We lost because the Obamamaniacs either don't care about encroaching socialism or fail to recognize it.
This should not come as a surprise to any of us. For some 30-40 years, our youth hasn't been properly educated about socialism, its history and its relationship to communism.
The only way to fight this endorsement of socialism is to take on America's indoctrination centers (aka schools) and propaganda machine (the massive main stream media, including Hollywood).
I call on conservatives in Hollywood to make movies about the gulags, the Stasi, the bread lines and the suppression of speech, religion and artistic expression. Why are all of the books we read in Book Clubs steeped in liberalism? Where are the authors? We need to organize and take our schools back from the community organizers and their agendas. ‘Nuff said.
Yes, we need to organize at the grass roots level and encourage busy people steeped in their jobs and families to run for office, but these two phenomena will only occur when people have faith that (1) the Republican Party will support truly conservative candidates; (2) the media will return to objective journalism, or be replaced by new media; and (3) they can run for office without their lives and families being ruined by the left wing attack machine.
Yes, dissent is patriotic, but so is fighting for your values. Let's get to work, hang up those flags and keep them waving.
