Letters to the Editor
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Griffisi: that would be "brava"
But the article still sucks, from start to finish.
Brian Farrington: thank you for a cogent, heartfelt letter. I believe if more conservatives like you and liberals like me chose to get together and listen to each other we could clear our respective parties of the pond scum we've both managed to not only get stuck on our shoes but elect as leaders these past few cycles.
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It's not an either/or thing...
Why do some liberals think they either have to love their country or criticize it? As the saying goes, "My country, right or wrong -- when right, to be kept right, when wrong, to be made right."
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Paging Bill O'Reiley
Thank's for nothing Salon!
By allowing Ms. Burleigh to perpetuate negative stereotypes of "Red State" mentalities, you have handed firebrands on the right an oppportunity to claim that those on the left hate their country.
I must echo my fellow posters to this thread. Is this the best you can do?
EG
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Lost some faith in her ability as a parent?
I grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. I grew up making construction paper contraptions for every conceivable holiday under the sun in those same public schools. I owned at least ten toy guns and a real BB gun. As a child, I died ten thousand deaths for my country in mock combat. And as someone who hit the age of five in 1971, I can remember almost nothing about the evils of the war in Vietnam.
What I do remember is being a child. I went to school and recited the pledge. I came home and played with my friends where we shot down bad Indians and Nazis or, later on, played the game of Risk where the objective was to take over the entire world. In other words, I was a child.
Today, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool blue-stater. I loathe the Bush administration and everything they stand for. And how did I get this way? My parents.
But they never sat me down at age five and regaled me with information about Vietnam or the bombing and invasion of Cambodia. I never heard about the My Lai massacre. I didn't need to. I was five.
What my parents did do was bring up me up in a household where they taught me about being involved in my community and the world. We planted flowers in the community. We helped out at civic events. We participated in neighborhood cleanups. And gradually, as I grew older, I naturally began to take notice of world events and politics.
I don't begrudge Ms. Burleigh for contacting the ACLU or being concerned about what her child is being taught in school. That's only natural.
But I think she's gone a bit astray and lost a bit of faith in her ability as a parent when she sits down her five year old child to talk about bombing Iraq. Forgetting the fact that it's pretty difficult for a five year old to wrap his mind around that, what does she believe he's going to get out of it? A sense that America is doing bad things? In the long run, it's not going to make a difference. And she needs to trust that the most influential people in her child's life will be her and the child's father.
The killing fields of Iraq are not a subject for small kids no matter how passionate one is on the subject. If they ask, talk to them about it. If not, let them be kids and trust that under the tutelage of two parents who care about the world around them, that they're going to turn out okay.
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What Burleigh experienced for two years, we experience every day
Nina Burleigh's essay elicited conflicting emotions from me. As a liberal and a Democrat who was opposed to the war in Iraq, I sympathized with Burleigh's concerns over her young son's being influenced by a local culture that was at odds with her family's lefty values. But, having just spent an Easter weekend with my own right-wing, working-class, Southern Baptist, conservative family, I also recognized in Burleigh the characteristics of liberals that prevent my extended family from even trying to understand us "lefties": the condescension of well-educated people who can afford a second home and extended stays in Paris, the sneering attitude toward people who cherish the symbols of faith and of patriotism, the urban dweller's boredom with "country" life. When my father, who had spent the weekend nurturing his huge vegetable garden and assisting several cows in birthing their calves, told me that people from the cities (i.e., those "blue" political spots on the map) are not "like us," I quietly disagreed with him. Then I read Burleigh's essay.
Unlike Burleigh, spanning the political divide is not a "weekend" experience or a short sojourn for me and my children. We live in red-state America, and our allegiances are torn between family and personal values. When we voice our opposition to the war in Iraq, we risk alienating those family members who are military and military dependents. My brother-in-law will soon return to Iraq for a second tour of duty. I have been opposed to the war in Iraq since its beginning and am horrified with the way our leaders have led that war. My family knows this. Should my brother-in-law not return from this tour, one sister and her family will be devastated, and the memories of the words I say now could have a much more lasting and divisive effect.
My children have said the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning of their public school experience. They have bowed their head in silent prayer; they have listened to prayers at band banquets, football games, PTA meetings, prayers that typically end "in Jesus's name, amen." Every winter, the school choirs inevitably include Christmas carols and spirituals in their public performances. Despite this daily submersion in conservative values that are not our own, my children argue with their classmates for the rights of gays to adopt children and to marry, they see through the manipulative techniques of military representatives who are invited to speak at school functions, and they understand the meaning of separation of church and state.
But this independence and understanding comes at a price, a price that the Nina Burleighs do not have to pay, with their second homes in neighborhoods they can leave behind. It's easy to be a liberal in a blue state. Try convincing the family you love that your values are not foreign and frightening. And do that without condescending to their values.
I try to do this. I am not always successful. More often than not, I'm just heartbroken.