A Family Of (Apparent) Writers

While I am busy blogging here and at my other two blog sites, my beloved is a regular chatter on a science-fiction based chat board. He is, among many wonderful things, a sci-fi afficionado. This particular site he frequents was born out of Star Trek fans' interests but the talk reaches to other sci-fi franchizes, to musical theater, to world affairs and to politics, among other topics. Another member, from Denmark, was criticizing America, our politics and our beliefs this week. I realize that the politics in this country are in a sad state right now and that it may be dicey but it is, after all, our country; we don't really want it under attack, do we?--Even if the attack is only verbal. Pat wrote a couple of empassioned posts during the heated discussion regarding patriotism aroung this fourth of July and he copied them and left them in a Word document for me to read. He is so artistic a soul that he, a professed non-writer, wrote, so naturally, with great eloquence of his feelings, his thoughts and, eventually, his favourite musical 1776. I saw them on the computer screen and read them and was so moved, so impressed, that (without his permission!) I am posting them here. I don't think he will mind since, as I told my girlfriend Lisa-Gabrielle, if someon has a blog, a site or even a posting on a chatboard, they want it read. I hope I was right. Here are two patriotic missives from my man, Pat, seen above in a photo I did of him.

#1 A first reply in a thread about Patriotism

Hmmmm - I wasn't sure about weighing in on this one, but the more I rolled it around in my head...

I understand that many Americans are disillusioned and ergo approach their "love of country" with cynicism or even disgust. Patriotism to me is about an ideal. An ideal of freedom for one and all. A nation with the notion of the Marlo Thomas philosophy of life that we are (or should be) Free To Be You And Me. To that end and to that ideal, I have a fierce loyalty and unshakable belief. I believe in the foresight of our county's founders to frame a republic with rules that were amendable. They knew that they could not know, predict or even guess at everything posterity would lay upon them. So they made it a living breathing evolutionary body. I do acknowledge with regret that the body is now sick and wracked with fever. This is due in no small part to the greatest of aphrodisiacs - POWER. Those who have attained power in this country do not wish to relinquish it, and so they have made rules and regulations and even framed a caste based society (something the founders dreaded the thought of) in order to maintain their hold. The longer a system of government remains in place the more bloated and corrupt it becomes. That is history; it is an inescapable truth especially where the great experiment known as democracy is concerned. Government by the people seems fairest and strongest on paper but the truth of history is no democracy in the history of modern man has lasted much beyond 3 centuries. In truth, the only tried and true system of government with any kind of longevity (800 years or more) for modern man is Autocratic Monarchy. Another system requiring supreme patriotism owed to the crown. But the government we have is the government we must work with and so our allegiance, if we are to remain citizens in good standing in the US, is to this government. When it is right, there is nothing better, more equal or more laudable then our system working as it should. When it is wrong, it is a tragedy which is usually globally embarrassing. And so yes Captain R. there are those patriots outside the urban areas who exercise their patriotic right to wave our flag just as there are those of us in the urban areas who exercise our patriotic right to burn that flag in protest. The ideal is something that is worth fighting for and therein lies my sense of patriotism. Wave that flag or burn it the message will and must be one of freedom. Whose freedom? Whose Vision of freedom? The people must duke that one out at the poles and on the picket lines. The greatest challenge to freedom is ignorance. Ignorance of the issues, of the representatives of the very constitution that so many pledge to protect. The kind of blind fumbling ignorance that causes many to be so easily led by those who wish to have power over them. The best we can do is continue the fight for our freedoms. For the agitators to be the squeaky wheels of history and the supporters to be the fighters for our traditions of patriotism and for all to educate themselves and our posterity for the fight ahead.

For me - that's something to believe in.

#2 An afterthought in the same thread, after a viewing of the film 1776

Well I am going back on topic. That being the measure of Patriotism here in the US and more specifically MY patriotism. And (yes I began this sentence with AND - AND why not??? Though it is incorrect usage ) what better day for it than the 4th.

This morning, as has become my tradition since the release of the directors cut, I slipped in my DVD of the movie musical of 1776. Most who have read this board for ... oh ... more than a day have read the references to my past life as an actor. I studied and pursued the profession with blind passion from the age of 12 to about 31-32 when I back burnered it all to make a real living for Ste and myself. Talk to any actor, musical theatre centered or no and, those who take the acting part seriously; will pretty much agree that this is an all time favorite among us theatrical types. I say ACTOR in the male sense of the word. This is a lousy show for women. This show was something that had NEVER been done before. There are only 2 women in the cast and they are not a part of the chorus at any point. Their voices are singular and solo and drop in at moments in the show to comment on the founding fathers solitary (read lonely) pursuits in Philadelphia during the time of America's beginning.

This show came about at a time of great turmoil and change in America much like the events that it dramatizes. 1969 was as much a turning point in the history of this country as 1776. The civil rights amendment was being shoe horned into the constitution over the objections of the majority of Americans. For once, congress turned the pages of history in opposition to the prevailing sentiments. That being - "We will stop discriminating... you don't need to slop that mess into the constitution." This is recalled in the final scenes of 1776 when Dr. Lyman Hall of Georgia quotes Edmond Burke of the British Parliament who said "A representative of the people owes them not only his industry but is judgment and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their Opinion"

Now I do recognize that patriotism, like the Christmas spirit, is something that should carry over beyond just one day. But days of commemoration are just that. Those moments we chose to heighten our awareness and focus our attention. If it only last for a day, well that's one day that we would not have had if we didn't commemorate it. We celebrate the events that lead up to the Declaration of Independence because, just as with my favorite musical and the civil rights movement, it had never been done before. No country had ever broken from its parents stem in all the history of the modern world. It was unheard of and unpopular and in the truest sense of the word - Treasonous. It was the agitators John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Payne, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and a few others of the privileged landed gentry of the colonies that pushed this idea into the American mind by force. They shouted themselves horse and everyone within earshot deaf until the COMMON SENSE of the subject was undeniable. For the populace of the country at that time - the uneducated rural farmers - the idea of the war they were fighting was to stop the filthy red coats from entering their homes, taking their money and resources and conscripting their sons to fight for British causes. In the end, they themselves did not expect to cease being British subjects, but as the ideals of independence seeped down through the ranks of the continental army, and the common sense of the subject became defined through our declaration in terms so plain and firm that they commanded their assent, they were given something around which to rally. A cause to fight for... Freedom. Freedom of thought and expression without fear of reprisal. For it is reprisals that deter actions... good or bad.

This was not nothing. Commemoration of these events is not FOR nothing. It was SOMETHING. Those men did something worthy of praise and commonality of national recognition that to this day echoes across the world. We were the first. We set a precedent for freedom. One followed shortly by France in its struggle against their bloated royalty, by India and South Africa and others who looked to what we did first. This is not nothing. And pride in these events and their commemoration and pride in those ideals is not jingoism as long as their is a balance to those feelings of National Loyalty. Pride in a national accomplishment does not separate us from the world be it a world of Laureates or serial killers. It's all in the balance of waving that flag or burning it and the right to do both or neither or none of the above.

My patriotism is best expressed at the polls, in the picket lines I have joined and right here on these boards. My expression of ideas and the EXCHANGE of them with people with whom I may not agree, but who can serve to bring new life to my national pride by challenging me. I thank all the free thinkers of these boards for mixing it up with me and keeping me thinking.

As always it's just my :twocents: