Once or twice a year, the comic strip "Doonesbury" really
nails it. (Or, in this example, I should say really "pins it.")
Recall last autumn when Senator Barack Obama was seen
by the Great American Patriot Patrol, the conservative right,
while in public without an American flag pin stuck up his lapel.
In what conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg described
as “staggeringly stupid,” and “the single dumbest thing I’ve ever
heard of him doing,” there followed a debate over Obama's patriotism,
of his allegiance to America.
Obviously, Obama was giving us all a signal of his real intention should he be
elected president: He intends to turn the entire country into a Muslim state!
Most of us who missed this missed the real danger Obama represents. But thanks
to those right wing extremists, those folks who miss checking for Communists
under their beds before retiring each night since the fall of the Berlin Wall back in '89, we learned how very unpatriotic and dangerous a man like Obama is.
Thanks to Gary Trudeau and this week's Doonesbury strip, we are again reminded!
nails it. (Or, in this example, I should say really "pins it.")
Recall last autumn when Senator Barack Obama was seen
by the Great American Patriot Patrol, the conservative right,
while in public without an American flag pin stuck up his lapel.
In what conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg described
as “staggeringly stupid,” and “the single dumbest thing I’ve ever
heard of him doing,” there followed a debate over Obama's patriotism,
of his allegiance to America.
Obviously, Obama was giving us all a signal of his real intention should he be
elected president: He intends to turn the entire country into a Muslim state!
Most of us who missed this missed the real danger Obama represents. But thanks
to those right wing extremists, those folks who miss checking for Communists
under their beds before retiring each night since the fall of the Berlin Wall back in '89, we learned how very unpatriotic and dangerous a man like Obama is.
Thanks to Gary Trudeau and this week's Doonesbury strip, we are again reminded!
I realize there are all kinds of "patriotism" but if sticking a flag pin made in China up your lapel allows you to violate international treaties on torture, subjugate the constitution and its guaranteed rights to all Americans, wage terrorism against the world by committing acts of terrorism against that world while bankrupting your country to the benefit of a privileged few at the expense of all Americans, don't expect to catch me with a flag stuck up my lapel.
In fact, I have a better suggestion of what you can stick your cheap metal Chinese flag pins of patriotism up!
7 comments:
I enjoyed the Doonesbury comic & I think he nails it a lot more often then you credited him for (at least in my book).
The lapel pin incident is a classic slice of rovian spin kind of stuff. You can torture, detain without due process, kill and invade, as long as you do it wearing your patriotic pin.
What's that I smell?
Constitution burning.....
Yes, indeed, Trudeau really was right on! I sure do miss his daily strips while he's on sabbatical leave.
Bill Moyers once did a short spot on one of his programs on why he didn't wear an American flag on his jacket. He, too, was right on.
It would be laughable if the Jonah Goldberg's weren't so damned serious. Really! He doesn't wear a flag pin (soon to be punishable by jail time), he failed to put his hand over his heart at the very beginning of the national anthem (oh, that slip will probably earn him a solitary cell so he doesn't pollute the other prisoners with his radicalism), his middle name is Hussein (yup, roll out your prayer carpets, america, time to get down on your knees when the muzzein calls -- which way is mecca, again?), and his personal pastor thinks maybe something about our country might inspire other people to want to kill us (uh-oh, time to lock up your bibles & daughters, and unlock your AK-47). Arghhhh! Thanks for the advice, Dada, thus saving me from all these terrible fates ... plus the additional indignity of having a cheap metal chinese flag pin stuck up my patriotism, which sounds like a very painful place.
Fran: re Doonesbury, I agree. Trudeau is most often "right on." But this one is one of his gem "keepers" in my book (scrap book, that is).
eprof: You mean Trudeau is on a sabbatical and I'm reading his reruns? OMG!!
I've often said as I get older I'll be able to reduce my small library of books until I get it down to 3 or 4 which - due to loss of mind - I'll be able to read over and over. By the time I finish my third book, I won't remember the first book I read four months ago. The rest of my library I'll save to burn on a cold winter's day for heat; to save having to scavenge among the unruly hordes for sagebrush for fuel (or to eat) in the post-Bushian World.
d.k.: I recently read what Bill McDannell (from Walk to End The War) had to say about the shocking pronouncements of (former) personal pastor of Obama's re the USA.
Bill summed him up in one word:
"Prophet"
quoting d.k. now: "plus the additional indignity of having a cheap metal chinese flag pin stuck up my patriotism, ... sounds like a very painful place."
Ouch, painful indeed! I'm so blessed I don't have one of those 'patriotisms' - I think I have a low pain threshold.
Jonah Goldberg is a despicable rightwing tool that got his job from family connections I think. Actually, his mother was the adviser to Linda Tripp during the Lewinsky deal with Clinton. She told Tripp to tell Lewinsky to keep the blue dress and not to wash it.
Adios para ahora mis amigos!
Yo soy un demócrata amarillo del perro.
Yo soy Horsedooty!
More to the point about flag pins. Years ago they were Flag Decals
here is John Prine singing his song "Your Flag Decals Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore". About a different time but is very effective now and relevant.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m1qE2vJdDw4&feature=related
Adios para ahora mis amigos!
Yo soy un demócrata amarillo del perro.
Yo soy Horsedooty!
According to the AZ Republic, Trudeau is on sabbatical leave and is running new cartoons for a future vote on keeping them or not once Doonesbury comes back. The Sunday cartoons ran the one you refer to this last weekend. Whether it's a re-run or not I couldn't tell you.
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