“We found one bloated, cruel, and useless agency that is begging to be abolished.”
My old friend Catbird asked:
Hi Roger—
When I heard rump’s “maybe they shouldn’t be in this country” comment about football players staying in locker rooms the other day, I wondered if they’d “pass” the Comic Book Code of America. I remember you explaining this to me decades ago. I suppose it depends on whether anybody acts on it.
What do you think?
Might it be worth a blog item?
I hope all is well with you and your “bearers of two X chromosomes.”
In the case of comic books, the industry was worrying, rightly, that the government might want to regulate it, to “protect the children.”It agreed submit the comics to a board for a stamp of approval. No excessive violence, no drug use shown, et al.
The owners of the NFL just wanted the bad press to go away – n.b., didn’t happen. They are worried about the bottom line, with ratings down substantially, although that may not be just a function of the anthem imbroglio.
There’s a more significant question you ask here: when DO we say in America, “My way or the highway?” Certainly, I’ve heard, “America, love it or leave it” a few times, usually when I was protesting some war, mostly Vietnam, but also Iraq. Yet, as I was wont to say, “I stay, and protest, BECAUSE I love America.”
When HAS the United States actually thrown people out of the country? In the past, not very often, in the vast scheme. It wasn’t until 2002 when the United States actually had an agency whose primary function appears to do just that.
As Full Frontal with Samantha Bee put it on May 23: “For Republicans looking to cut government fat, we found one bloated, cruel, and useless agency that is begging to be abolished. And no, ‘President’ is not considered an agency.”
It is, of course, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. I appreciate it when the ICE agents remove some MS-13 gang member. But, much more often, they are seen as a source of terror in the immigrant community, even for those who are here legally.
As someone approaching Social Security, I find this problematic, not just from a moral and ethical position, but from an economic one. Driving out productive young people from the country is a recipe for federal fiscal disaster.
So, there’s a lot of bluster about people needing to leave the country. But it won’t be football players going. Unless they were born elsewhere.
“A pledge reciter, who recites the words ‘liberty for all’ and yet accuses non-pledge reciters of un-patriotism, is breaking their oath as they speak.”
There’s a woman named Sara Niccoli, a farmer and a town supervisor in Montgomery County, who is running for the New York State Senate. The way districts are gerrymandered, the 46th District includes part of Albany County, but not the city of Albany. Otherwise, I would have supported her.
Her religious beliefs came under attack “after an anonymous Facebook page dubbed ‘The REAL Sara Niccoli’ posted” late in June “about the candidate’s [long-standing] decision not to recite” the Pledge of Allegiance.
“‘As we commemorate the birth of our nation and all those who gave so much to ensure its place as the ‘Shining City on a Hill,’ it’s unacceptable that [she refuse] to recite the Pledge… Tell Sara Niccoli to honor America!’
“Niccoli, who follows Quaker beliefs that followers do not take pledges or oaths, said …that she does stand and place her hand over her heart to salute the flag. She said the post, which makes no mention of her faith, underscores a need for Americans to revisit ‘what it means to be a patriot and how to act out our patriotism.'” She is probably alluding to Matthew 5:33-37, the Biblical invective against making oaths.
Sara Niccoli continues: “‘That means when we see attacks on faith, when we see attacks based on race or any kind of intolerance, we need to call it out, whether it’s coming from a politician pandering for votes or it’s coming out in the anonymous world of social media,’ Niccoli said. “What’s going on here…is very much a reflection of what’s going on at the federal level, and people who are sort of sitting on the sidelines disgusted by the hate and intolerance that they see, they need to get up and do something about it.”
Some came to Niccoli’s defense in the comment section of the Facebook post, though many of those were apparently deleted. Naturally, the verbiage became nasty, with profanity, “while one comment offered nothing more than an emoji of a handgun.”
Her friend and my fellow Times Union blogger Walter Ayres wrote a sterling defense in Sara, the Quaker patriot, noting “Quakers are not the only ones whose beliefs are misunderstood. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Amish, and others have beliefs that are not always in line with the majority views on serving in the military, taking oaths and/or pledging allegiance…we should respect their right to abstain from these activities as much as we rejoice in our ability to participate in them.”
It occurred to me that her position is not dissimilar to what I’ve been reading in Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. The Litany of Resistance from Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw says, among other things: One: To the transnational Church that transcends the artificial borders of nations All: We pledge allegiance
Found in Goodreads, Claiborne notes, “Some folks may be really bummed to find that ‘God bless America’ does not appear in the Bible.” Or as John Pavlovitz put it: “The heart of our Christian story is that God is not in a nation-maker or an empire-builder. God is a soul-lover.”
In this discussion, I’ve discovered a number of folks I know who, in their words, “do not pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth.” I can’t remember who wrote, “A pledge reciter, who recites the words ‘liberty for all’ and yet accuses non-pledge reciters of un-patriotism, is breaking their oath as they speak.” It is a form of Christo-Americanism, a “distorted form of Christianity that blends nationalism, conservative paranoia and Christian rhetoric” that has been especially virulent since 9/11.
I saw that on display at the Franklin Graham rally I protested last month. I was greeted by a couple “God thinks America’s the best” songs by a guy with his guitar.
Finally, I just came across Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?, a famous 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr. Baldwin addresses “What are the psychological effects of oppression?”: “It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.” A half-century later, this still resonates for many people in “the land of the free.”
Bob Crewe died at the age of 83. You may not know the name – I’ll admit I did – but you surely know the songs.
If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know I can have some strong opinions. But with the U2/Apple thing, I feel ambivalent. On one level, I’m oddly entertained by people freaking out over Apple’s forced iTunes download of U2’s new album, and wonder if it’s just a first world problem. I particularly loved how it ruined someone’s “carefully curated collection.” I’m impressed how well the secret was kept, with the release date of the next U2 album still unclear to the media as of last month.
Then there’s the Why U2? contingent epitomized by this quote: “It’s true that Apple’s wine-drinking, plane-flying user base probably overlaps with U2’s cool-dad core audience more than most bands.” Ah, U2’s not cool enough; here’s the album should have given away instead, and maybe they’re right. Fortunately, I’ve read plenty of suggestions about how to delete it.
The result of this apparent misstep is that the album, Songs of Innocence, is crap. 24 hours after release, it was deemed the worst U2 album ever, as though one could decide something like that so quickly. I still haven’t hear the thing, so I have no opinion.
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My old friend Catbird asked:
