Business Is Hopping!

Be still my beating heart...

Business Is Hopping!

I do not equate patriotism with flag-waving. The analogy that works best for me is that of the church-goer: Because one goes to church once a week for services, does not make one a good person, just as standing for the “Star-Spangled Banner,” does not make one a patriot.

People criticizing pro athletes for refusing to stand for the National Anthem, are unclear on the concept of what it means to be an American. In my book blindly following along with patriotic protocol, even if you find it distasteful, is tantamount to living in North Korea, where patriotism is mandatory.

Stand up for the flag or take a bullet.

The freedom to express disapproval of social injustice, by sitting or kneeling during the playing of the state song, is what distinguishes this country from that of a totalitarian regime. The hard part for me, is that once upon a time, I too felt a genuine love for this country, and all for which it stood.

That feeling is gone, gone a long time ago.

I did not understand what “trickle down” economics meant, when Ronnie Ray-Gun implemented it, way back in the seventies. I may have thought I did, but who pays any attention to “breaking economic trends?” Not this school-going veteran, barely staying out of the soup kitchens.

What it meant was that rich folks paid less into the national coffers, and more into overseas bank accounts, and lawyers controlled it all. Over the next several decades, we saw a shift from the middle class controlling the bulk of the money, to an elite set of ten percent of the population, controlling ninety percent of the wealth.

This is not a good fit for the current fifty million Americans, at or below the poverty level, because they have no advocates. More and more, the poor are being subjugated into their tiny little existences, with ongoing controversy swirling as to whether or not they should be tossed a bone, in the form of a raise in the minimum wage.

How exciting would that be?

Oops, there goes $38 billion to Israel, last week, in military aid.

Imagine the difference that money could have made with the problem of poverty in this country, if it were not in the national “best interest” to keep that lucrative weapons thingie going. That way war criminals such as Dick Cheney and his crony, Halliburton Corporation, can continue to reap $39 billion windfalls, as they did from the Iraqi “conflict.”

There is a certain poetic symmetry to Cheney having ripped off-sorry, earned-$39 billion, and then having the country turn around and give ANOTHER $38 billion in aid, to its good buddy over there in the Middle East.

Heavens to Murgatroid, but business is hopping!

Not only that, but the Republican Party, behind The Donald, is primed to keep these unfair economic practices in place, to the further dismay of the poor. I think THAT is pretty damn unpatriotic.

Who else is going to stand up for this huge mass of people? Those fifty million folks are not just adults, or those in the prime of their lives; no, they include children, and a huge percentage of the elderly. 

In other words, they are those least able to stand up for themselves. Again, I ask, who is going to show support for these people if Colin does not? He is as American as Paul Revere was, and I refuse to be dissuaded. It takes courage to stand up for one’s principles, especially when it comes to symbols such as the flag.

If you are upset at what you perceive to be unpatriotic action on the part of Colin Kaepernick, then why are you not upset at what our government is systematically doing to the poverty-stricken in this country?

Please? Can you address this question for me? 

Pretty please?

Otherwise, admit that symbols and flag-waving are good enough for you, and then, when your parents are forced out onto the streets because they lost their home, you can all stand together and salute the flag. While doing so, you can listen to not only the Star Spangled Banner, but a version of "God Bless America" for good measure!

Gotta love this great country of yours, or not.