(I wrote this before the election and never posted it. I feel it still has much relevance.)

Who am I to write this political stuff, not a Harvard grad, not a professor, just a person that has been alive, paying attention for 48 years? Why does my say not carry merit? Was I not affected by all this bullshit?

This is my 1^sttime voting. I was not living in the Continental US so I could not vote, but really it is the first time thinking someone can make a difference. Is it because I have been fooled by eloquent talk or is it more? Has no one else been eloquent?

The people that are not happy we voted in President Obama say I am foolish and I was fooled. Why do some people hate this man (Obama) so vehemently? Is it because he is black? I don’t believe the color can affect people this much.

I cannot attribute it to ignorance either. Although watching most TV programs and best selling movies like Saw and Chihuahua you would believe it to be ignorance.

I believe it is more. I believe it is fear; people cling to someone when they are fearful. A President(Bush) telling them he will make them safe is a popular place to cling. The intellect and fair thinking does not work properly.

The far right use fear to control everything around them. It is a way of life. It has been around for so long (probably since the beginning of time) that they truly believe they need to function from this gut wrenching fear instead of from the love in their heart. You will hear it in their comments when they think they are attacking  liberals, they think they are insulting us by saying we function from our hearts instead of our heads. This is not an insult, this is a good thing. The heart makes the blood circulate to our heads so we can actually think. We do not close our heart and leave our brain to be non-functioning. Love is how I would like to move the mind. I want a calm centered brain leading our country, not a fearful, freaking out, control-freak brain.  

Has there always been so much fear? Are people really afraid they will loose everything and they will live on the streets and dig out of trash cans.

Or worse, do they think that our nation will turn into the starving nations they see on TV. The ones we want to help but feel the organization that says it’s helping will just fill their pockets up and a small amount will trickle into the mouths of those starving. This is the same way we view our Gov’t. They take our money for projects to help us build our communities but we all know most goes into their pockets and some will trickle into our mouths. That’s after it gets abused and caught up going towards piles and piles of paperwork and through management down to another management and finally after paying all those above, a small amount will end up where it was intended to go to. Obama says he is trying to change this but is it possible when it goes through so many channels?

I know by me saying these things I will be called a radical, someone that stirs up trouble, a leftist, an anti-American.

Michael Moore is an example: people say he only tells part of the story, he is one sided, he is a troublemaker. Maybe what he is doing is telling the side of the story that gets hidden from people most the time because media does not want to step on any one’s shoes. Maybe we need to see this side so we can make a more balanced decision on what we think about certain things.

After 911, look at all the s** people got if they spoke up against Bush. Look what the Dixie Chicks went through, *** all because they spoke their minds and it was considered anti-American. People lost jobs because they spoke out against Bush. A group called PABAAH: Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood even had George Clooney on their list. 

Has the American Gov’t always acted humanly? No, the answer is definitely no. Should someone call the well documented 1954 US government and United Fruit Company overthrowing President Arbenz in Guatemala an act of terrorism, an act of terrorism done by our country to another?

 If I said this, the media and the pro American sections of the country Palin was speaking about would slam me. Apparently I would be the anti American section of the country she was talking about. I am saying America has not always acted in a humane way. Sometimes they acted in the best interest of certain people’s money and certain peoples desire for power, be it by obtaining control over oil or land or labor, or natural resources. This has been documented over and over. The list is long but yet I will be cast out with a scarlet letter if I say America has committed acts of terrorism against another country or persons.

I love American for what it can stand for, for what at times (a lot of times) has stood for. Not for what it at every second since it was formed as a nation, has stood for. I do not love everything America has done.

Define patriotic for me.

Define patriotic; now let your neighbor define it, and his neighbor until everyone that is able to hold an American passport gives you their definition. Will it be unanimous? Will it be uncontested? No. No it will not. So how, as Americans, do we decide what is considered a patriotic American? Who gets to decide this? Is it the media? Who owns the media? Is it those that own the media that get to decide what is American? Is it the independent media? Who owns them? Who gets to decide? Is it the president? The church? Which church? Is it the white majority, which is soon a minority? Is it who was here the longest (who was born here), who’s ancestors where here first, or who tried to get here the longest and hardest?

Do we judge who is American as the opposite of what our enemies believe? Who really are our enemies?

I know many community-minded strongly patriotic people that have college educations that don’t even know why we went to war with Iraq. They think it was to get Osama bin Ladin. Some didn’t even remember we fought Afghanistan until it started coming up in the news this past year. Did the sentence ‘We are at war’ not leave an imprint on them. This is in their lifetime. A very recent and current war.  Thousands have died. How do they not know the details?

There are facts and then there are opinions. Osama bin Ladin had nothing to do with the US going to war in Iraq. This is a fact.

So I will ask again, what is your definition of a patriotic American?

I am a patriotic American. I love this country. That is why I am so passionate about this subject.