Re-Laird the flag waver?

[telebob x]

>From: "tary owens" <reddrum@realtime.net>
>To: "telebob x" <telebob98@hotmail.com>, <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>Subject: Re: Re-Laird
>Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:08:13 -0600
>
>Bob, I was wrong to call you a flag waver, I
>apologize.....................Tary
**************************************************
Goddamit...this is just the kind of tarbaby mixedmetaphor quicksand I was 
threatening to quit about...what a time sink. tele

Tary-

Don't apologize for that.  I AM a flag waver.  Have you seen the New Yorker 
cartoon of the 'urban sophisticates' sitting at a cocktail party 
saying...."We're adjusting to the idea of becoming patriots." It is very 
funny, and mainly because it is true.

I like the idea of being a patriot, but I hope for the right reasons.  One 
of those reasons is just the fact that we are free to fight, squabble, and 
express ourselves in this simple forum.  Not that that right is not 
available in other countries etc...

But I am a patriot in the sense that I like our freedom to fuck up.  If that 
means that we as a nation have allocated too much power to the corporate 
structures or that the powerful have tools that the rest of us don't get to 
use...well, it is our job to change it.  That is part of what is great about 
Roger...who is probably one of the better Americans among us....he really 
exercises  those rights that make me a flag waver.

I am worse than a Norman Rockwell painting.  I think of the USA as people 
who are my neighbors, who teach my kids in school, who fix the plumbing, and 
run the shops and stores and preach at the local Pentacostal trailer park 
about a fiery end.  I admit that lawyers are Americans too, reluctantly. 
Stockbrokers, model airplane designers, and scumbag politicians are all what 
make up this badly assembled puzzle of a country. It is not a totally 
functioning device, many parts are worn or broken, or stolen, still it seems 
so much better than the other places I visit. (Though a lot of them sure 
have some nice scenery, better trains and architecture...and god 
knows....food.)

I wave the flag mainly in that it represents the stuff I like.  The stuff I 
do not like is obviously "Un-American" and I think there are lots of 
Americans who do Un-American things (things of which I disapprove). Still I 
wrap myself in the flag like Bob the all-American Burrito. What I am waving 
it about could be very easily different than what Joe Blow down the street 
is waving his about.  The good thing is that neither of us know what divides 
us...and that the same flag is something we can agree on.

Now the line that 'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' doesn't 
mean that all patriots are scoundrels. I think we all took a few classes in 
inductive and deductive reasoning to understand that argument.

So on that note, Roger waving his flag and me waving mine...though we agree 
on little, are both agreed that the flag that represents a right to have an 
independent opinion, is ok with both of us. Both us should be pissed if 
someone spits on our right to peacefully disagree.

The bad part is when someone doesn't care about what we believe or not and 
just starts killing our friends and our disloyal opposition as well.  That 
really makes me into a flag waver, a gun toting one.

Hmmm...is that clear...? I wish it were to me.

Best to you Mr. Owens,

tele

PS- Yes, I was recommending Arianna's column this week.






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