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Photos Courtesy of Myself. Nick Agro © All rights reserved.
Chicago- March 19th 2008
The 5th Aniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war was on Wednesday. Of course living in the vicinity of a big city like Chicago I had to check out the local protest scene. When I arrived young and old were gathered to support the common cause of ending the war. As a hung around a little bit longer I noticed that not everyone was here for a common cause. The International Communist League set up a table, people paraded around with signs denouncing Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain all on the same poster. I heard yells screaming "I pledge allegiance to the filth that is America".
Where has American patriotism gone?
America has sure had it's fair share of incompetent leaders, but this is our country. Believe me, I'm already planning the party for Bush's Departure. I want to see a change as much as the next guy, but what is this "America the Filthy" stuff coming from. I remember the day of "America the Beautiful...from sea to shining sea". There must be something good about America, because, these students were pledging their allegiance to a "filthy nation", but they were still pledging their allegiance. We need to come together as a strong nation, not a nation with hate for itself, a nation with a low self-esteem, is not very successful. We are blaming all of our problems on everyone else, like a self destructive person, that can't see that they need to look at themselves to find the culprit.
I would love to see more protests to end the war, but if the protest is against the war, then make the protest only against the war. People were so scattered at the protest i attended I could tell if I was at an Immigration Rally or a Gay Parade. Show Washington that we want the war to be over.
I pledge allegiance to America, the American that needs improvement, but I believe can change
To really put a kink in the patriotism issue let me inform you of something quite interesting that happened in my high school yesterday. The I.B. teachers had a meeting and they were in the athletic office (my English teacher told me this), when it was time for the pledge they all had this awkward moment of "Do we stand or not?" well they did...but when they realized that there was no flag they searched frantically for red, white, and blue. They ended up pledging allegiance to the Pepsi machine. While I support them for their "patriotism" I think it was a bit ridiculous. So, I don't necessarily think patriotism is dead. I hear people supporting the troops and the country all the time. I think it's a lack of support for the government, but hey, who can blame us?
pledge allegiance to pepsi machine that sounds like an american thing to do
oh I know doesn't it...and leave it up to some teachers to come up with the idea...I think it's absolutely ridiculous...I think if we are going to have and support patriotism we need to do it right