7.12.2006
The 6th grader gets it
I know this is a little late since the flag burning ban failed a couple weeks ago, but I still thought this was worth the post:What the American Flag Stands For
by Charlotte Aldebron
The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.
School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.
Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag's real meaning remains.
Charlotte Aldebron, 12, wrote this essay for a competition in her 6th grade English class. She attends Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle, Maine.
Via Cheers and Jeers on Daily Kos. By the way, Cheers and Jeers is usually worth the daily read, but I thought today's was pretty good, here's a snipet:CHEERS to India. They certainly need `em after bombs ripped through 7 trains yesterday in---oh, you're kidding---Bombay, killing 183 (probably higher) and injuring 714. No one is sure yet exactly who coordinated the attacks. Officials, working through the night to comb through the damage, suspect it was the work of dickheads.
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JEERS to deficit deception. Here's how the game's played: the White House deliberately puts out a terrible deficit forecast. When the actual deficit numbers come out, they make it sound like it's Free Ice Cream Day in America
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Next, the reality-based community steps in to point out that it's still the 4th-largest deficit ever (the top 5 all happened on a Bush's watch). And the final step: George W. Bush continues to be the worst president in history. Remember that, children, when you're paying all this shit off.
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