Charleymane: My wife and I didn't raise our 3 sons under what we consider the superficial banner of "God, Family, Country." We raised them under the banner of Learning, Family, and Conscience. Learning is the God of our Household("The uneducated life is not worth living.") and Education is its Religion. We are not mindless flag waving Americans and we chose to live in a community where that dogmatic attitude is not prevalent and where people think for themselves critically and independently.
During the Vietnam War, I refused to stand and sing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events or pledge my allegiance to the American Flag in public school. I never got any criticism over this attitude from anyone, including my teachers, in public school. Perhaps I didn't get any flak from this because many others did the same thing. Plainly speaking, I did not respect the USA for being in Vietnam and I went to most of the Anti-War Demonstrations and spoke out. That is how I expressed my patriotism. Still, I never burnt an American Flag. Actually, I wouldn't waste my money buying one. If I ever hated this country enough to burn the flag, I'd move to another country.
Mindless Morons like President Reagan(he is getting his due now), afforded me the opportunity to become rich; I saw the handwriting and future bull market on the wall back then but I didn't sell out. I'm still a radical liberal with socialist leanings, even though I'm an Entrepreneur today and put all my money in equities when the Dow was trading at 800.(Still got some $$$ in there today).
As for Kerouac, I still like him. Yes, since Learning is my God, I can learn from someone and still treat them with respect (under certain circumstances) even though we disagree politically speaking. Maybe I have mellowed a bit in my middle age since I service conservatives too in my business and they also pay me.
I hitch hiked across the country 4 times in the early 70's and learned a lot from being "On the Road" and climbing mountains in the National Parks in the US and Canada during summers when I was in College. There are very nice progressive people in the heartland of this Country too. The problem is that there is not enough of them. |
