Tuesday, May 02, 2006

The Flag Resurrected

Thank you, immigrant protesters, for giving us our country back.

Thank each of you for grabbing that red white and blue fabric by its balls and yanking it back to its truth.

After the current administration has so prostituted the symbol that my friend blurted, horrified when shown the latest "Liberty" flag stamp, "Do you have anything less patriotic?" to which the post office worker confided, "You have no idea how often we hear that now," -- we feel ashamed to put the flag on a humble piece of mail.

Yesterday, with tears in my eyes and lump in my throat, I watched as, resuscitated by the hands of immigrants, the flag was brought back to its proper life.


Those who are without standing stood to remind us all of the promise. The promise of America.

It takes an outsider to see what we had allowed to be trampled and shot full of holes.

The promise this country had lost thanks to this administration and their complicit lackeys in Congress and the major media: of fair treatment, opportunity for all, justice, blindness to race and class and origins. Our founding principle honors the equality of human beings. This was the noble promise we watched come close to death.

Thank God, Goddess and All There Is that it was remembered by those the country has ignored and abused.

To every person protesting yesterday, I say with all my heart on many levels, "Thank you." We've been waiting in despair, those of us who know, waiting for this.

We did not even know we were waiting. And we could not have predicted it. But now that it is here, we know -- it was what we desperately needed.

Those who are most disenfranchised had to stand up. They had to say, "Enough." They had to stand for what they deserved. They had to lose their fear.

They had to stand en masse to say they deserve honor and dignity. That they deserve it simply because they are human.

What you have done has resonated in our subconscious -- there, we've absorbed your bravery of saying each person deserves honor, that we deserve dignity. We had forgotten.

We had forgotten we were all once immigrants here looking for honor and dignity.

Each one of us now can stand for it again in our own lives with less fear, because you have shown us that it is possible.

The message will reverberate in subtle and overt ways through this country. Indeed through the Earth. I, for one, am most grateful for your gracious lesson and gift. Each step has lifted our country and returned to us its soul.

A greater gift I cannot imagine. We are deeply in your debt.

1 comment:

The Noel Olken Show said...

Glad I stummbled across your blog. Great writing! I write about a lot of the same things. Check out my blog, It's Okay, sometime if you like. I just posted a photo of the Knowwar photo shoot from June 3rd. It's awesome.

And no, I'm not about selling college degrees or cheap pills, just making art and stopping wars.

Peace,

Noel