![]() ![]() A diverse population can be scary for those who never venture beyond static social parameters. A refuge is a place walled-in from the world - that is why would-be scoundrels gather there, in a shrunken community, unable to recognize and dismissive of those outside their circle. There have always been pharisaic elements in in the American character and Johnson rightly used the word “scoundrel” to delineate this profile, but by looking more closely at the word “refuge,” something different emerges. Country can exist in fantasy, but the land buffers that with gravity, the agent that serves up a reminder when you fall down. ![]() One thing we are is out of balance with the land. I’m openly and honestly raising questions.Ĭountry may be the same thing as national character or imagination, the aspiration or idealization, or the hard look at what we are, viewed truthfully. Nothing I’m saying here can be accurately described as “runnin’ down my country” In 2016 he commented on Trump: “ I think he’s dealing from a strange deck.” You could see this process in his songs, appearances, and interviews for the past two or three decades. They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of meīut since then, his views have expanded somewhat, something that happens to a person when they stick to what they think and feel and observe instead of clinging to some ideology. ![]() When they’re runnin’ down my country, hoss One might argue that my walks fall within what Merle Haggard deemed “milk and honey” in his song The Fightin’ Side of Me, a Viet Nam-era single.īut they preach about some other way of livin’ There is nothing “national” in the flavor of my feelings. I walk with my dog Jackson Bailey every day on the public land near my house - this is when I feel love of country, but if I’m honest, I would be just as likely to feel this in the Swiss Alps or the Amazonian jungle (maybe even on the rocky coast of Greenland). It’s August during a particularly prolific monsoon here in New Mexico. Country hovers above the land, may even bear an absurd relationship to it. Given that, patriotism becomes “loyalty to country.” But what is country? It’s not the land. Words of their time, for sure, but if you can’t find that funny, please borrow my screwdriver and loosen a few.īut what is patriotism? Maybe if you just say “loyalty” instead, something may get clarified. His quote that day in 1968: “I regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.” Abbie Hoffmann comes immediately to mind. People used to get arrested for this sort of thing. Now we are in an era in which the American flag, a symbol embraced genuinely and disingenuously, suffers all kinds of abuse abuse that waves all the way from alternately hued appropriations by sub groups of the population, to those who will subject it to complete degradation by emblazoning it with the image of a disgraced and truth-disabled former president or the White Jesus - or both, with a little Rambo thrown in for bicep appeal. ![]() ĭylan offers this: “ They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings, steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.” Though taken out of context, Becker and Fagan provide a handy line - “If he’s holding it high, he’s telling a lie.” That song, Only A Fool Would Say That, was written as a man-on-the-street response to John Lennon’s Imagine. It has always seemed there was more wisdom in his comment than can be contained in the simple explanation that it was an indictment of false patriotism, mere display. Samuel Johnson’s pre-1776 comment that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” has long lingered in my mind as a question. That is their right, their business, and is of no consequence to me either way. And wounded animals create concern.īTW, I’m not concerned if someone does or doesn’t fly a flag. Or maybe it’s a form of rallying around a country that seems more and more like a wounded animal. Maybe this flag mania is symptomatic of some kind of need or maybe it is something similar to the mid-nineteenth century proliferation of stove pipe hats, which came about as fashion mimicking industry. Hills Snyder, “Empire,” installation view at Artpace, 2001, newspaper and flag outlines cut in wall, dust remains, newspapers from Germany, Texas, France, U.A.E, and The Netherlands. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |