Proud to be an American?

[elfwitch]

Poll question: Proud to be an American?

After all that has gone on, are you still proud to be an American?

[indigo32]

1. It is not my Country I am not proud of

it is the current administration I am ashamed of.

[Redbear]

2. Chimpy and Company are a drop of scum

in a beautiful ocean of humanity.

[blindpig]

3. never

history, read it and weep.Wish it wasn't so.

[GainesT1958]

4. Just as they can't take my country's flag away from me...

They can't my LOVE for my country away from me--no matter how much they act like--and try their level best to make us LOOK like--reprobates!:mad:

And they NEVER will!

:kick:

B-)

[DenverDem]

5. Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

6. I am just as proud as I would be if I lived somewhere else.

[prodigal_green]

7. I'm proud of having brown hair

and wearing a size 9.5 shoe.

I'm not sure how pride comes into it. It was not an accomplishment to be born here. I've always thought the idea of pride (or shame) in one's nationality to be a bit absurd.

[gpandas]

20. pride in hair color and shoe size? n/t

[prodigal_green]

21. Yes, that is my point

Place of birth isn't a source of pride any more than anything else I didn't earn.

[gpandas]

23. missed it. thought you were...

serious, and to think they used to call me "fast fred". what a drag it is getting old. lol!

[cmf]

22. Me, too

I did nothing special to become an American. Just a lucky accident of birth. Do I admire some things about this country? Yes. Am I upset by other things? Yes. But pride based on my nationality? I've never understood the concept.

[tom_paine]

8. Choice #2: I'm running with the crowd

It wasn't perfect. At times, particularly when the Imperial Family (before they seized Amerika) did things to foreign nations, we have blemished ourselves and our honorable intentions.

yes, our intentions weren't always honorable. But we tried. And during the Days of the Old Republic, Americans were a kind and generous people, wholly unlike the Imperial Subjects of Amerika whioch will get worse when the WWII and Korea generations finish dying off.

They will take their freedoms to the grave with them, I'm afraid.

But it was once great, with all it's faults and flaws.

[Demeter]

9. I Am Grateful to Be Born Here

and for that, I thank my great-grandparents and Henry Ford, who made it possible. I was embarrassed at times by the riches that were mine by birth, now I am embarrassed by the evils done supposedly in my name, and infuriated at the evils done to me and my fellow citizens by my "elected" representatives, who seem to have no understanding about what America is, was and is supposed to be.

I can answer yes to all the choices in this poll, but my optimism says that we will restore this nation to its former honor.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I can be proud of keeping a business going for ten years or

earning a Ph.D., because these came about due to my efforts (and a little help from my friends and family), but being an American is just an accident of birth.

Whatever pride I had in the United States was destroyed when Reagan invaded Grenada in 1983 and supported state terrorism in Latin America, and little has happened to change that in the intervening years.

America is where I was born and grew up, so it's "home," but I'm finding myself more and more alienated from the mainstream as time goes on.

[AG78]

11. Never was

It just seems an odd concept to me to be proud to be from any country.

I could've chosen what America stood for. But outside of mass social movements, what did "America" ever give anyone who wasn't a white male?

The constitution doesn't gauarentee anyone any rights. They say it does, but I haven't seen it. It took a war to end slavery. Then it took a massive social movement 100 years after said war before black people were actually considered human beings. It took massive social movements by women, and by labor, before they got any rights.

Then you have the native people, who I guess were created equal, except for that whole Manifest Destiny thing.

So I'm not proud of being an American. Afterall, it's just the name of a land mass with arbitrary borders.

[seventhson]

12. Nationalism is a fascist disease

I am happy top be an earthling. I am proud of the ideals expressed in our constitution and proud that we TRY to adhere to them and promote them.

But we are failing miserably and America's history in many respects is NOTHING to be proud of. There are high points and low points. But in my lifetime America has become a fascist rogue nation and we the people have failed to stop it. That shames and saddens me.

If we l;ived up to our ideals and used tyhem to make the world a better place, then i would be proud of this country. But since we are failing I am not.

[Oddman]

13. What America WAS and what it IS are completely different

amazing how things can turn around and be destroyed in just 4 short years . . .


A Pathetic Excuse for a pResident

[Rob H.]

14. Well...

I'm glad that I'm an American citizen, but it's more in a "wow, it's lucky I was born to American parents" kind of way. I find it hard to stomach the current atmosphere of flag-waving, rah-rah, go America BS that seems to permeating (polluting?) American discourse at the moment--

Regular Joe: Did you see that tie Dubya was wearing at his press conference last night? Damn! Talk about butt-ugly!

Rabid Superpatriot: What?! (Wailing, clutching his breast) Why, oh why do you hate America?

Given some of the truly repugnant shit that the current administration is party to, if I were traveling abroad and someone asked me if I'm an American, my answer would probably be, "Yes, BUT do I blindly support all the things that Dubya and his cadre of advisers are doing? Not even a little bit. Do I believe any of "reasons" he gave to gain support from the U.S. public in the run-up to bombing Iraq? Nope. Not one of them. Will I be happy when he's forcibly ejected from the White House? Almost unbelieveably so."

[Gruenemann]

15. I visited all the historical sites

in Phildelphia a few years ago, and realized what a truly revolutional thing the founding of this country was. I also realized just how far we'd strayed from the ideals of that founding.

I really like Philadelphia and thought it was a shame they moved the capitol from there to DC. More recently I read an article in American Heritage explaining exactly why they chose that location: it was a slave area. Yes, our capitol was built where it was so they could use slave labor.

Liberty indeed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. "Patriotism...is the passion of fools" Schopenhauer

Full quote: "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions and the passion of fools."

[indigobusiness]

17. I am an Earthling first...

and America has done more disservice to the Earth than any other Country. For that I am saddened and ashamed.

America has squandered its great promise and defiled itself through hubris, arrogance, and conceit.

Loyalty to the founding principles is one thing, pride in contemporary America is quite another.

[BadBush]

18. Not really

I am truly embarassed at the message that we've given to the world....yep, embarassed is a great word

[dorktv]

19. I am DAMN proud that the sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart

just got Class Action! YIPPIE!!!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20040622/bs_nm/retail_walmart_discrimination_dc


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