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Red, white, blue and star-spangled
Thos.P.Jackstraw Updated: 2004-06-04 09:24
I am an American -- no one is going to tell me how to behave! Which part of this proclamation does the rest of the world not get?
Hide behind another Nationality? Only in jest!!
Because I am an American, I am perhaps, not so shy. I might not know a lot, but I am ready to try, so talk with me. If I don't want to talk with you, that is what I will say, and if you persist, I will get nasty -- I don't care where you are from!
If you feed me the old line, that seneca so correctly points out, that you admire me, because of your perception of what you think I have, be it money, freedom or whatever, then I will tell you that you are insulting me and the conversation is over.
If you want to tell me about something, I will probably listen, t least initially, and then I will smile at you, because I know you don't know, I will tell you that I have no control of my government and that I am looking for a way to encourage a world of peace and if you have some ideas, then let us share them, if you just want to say ugly things to me, then I will tell you I deliberately choose not to walk past the garbage bins on my way to the library, so I take the extra few steps required to avoid them -- that is my responsible choice!
You see, I had to learn early about things. In China, being sometimes the sole American at one of the many Chinese-style Dinner gatherings, I have often enough had to fend for my own sanity in defense of such frequent anti-American (government ~ people haziness) sentiment by the crowded number! The load of hatred and racism that runs a strong theme in this forum, often finds me seeking a respite from the galling ignorance -- I look for Lau Guan Kim on those sandy beach evenings, we share a solemn, sad disgust.
When I am in China, my lapel has a Chinese flag, in the US, my vehicle has a Chinese tassel.
Wherever I am, in China or not, my heart pumps red transfusable and life-giving blood, doesn't yours? We must walk this world together, or surely, not at all. And when all is said and done, and the smoke finally clears away, leaving the battlefield, only, praying and awaiting for the moaning to die; then one might try and ask oneself, what was the reason? And, if there is anyone left to ask -- is it their cause, at least, that won?
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