I am not usually prone to get choked up but yesterday

[no_hypocrisy]

I was teaching a bunch of third graders. After The Pledge, they were singing along to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA".

Now first, I'm not a kneejerk patriot and I'm an atheist. This song rubs me the wrong way on a lot of levels.

But I was scanning them singing along and I considered their innocence. And I thought of all the canvassing I've done for local and state candidates in order to flip our districts to democrat and for Phil Murphy (governor) in order to change the course of this country for their benefit. It's for them as much as it's for me that I resist and I campaign.

They may not be my children, but they are our children. They are our future.

My district is multicultural: white, African-American, Latino/Latina, documented, undocumented. I work hard to keep them up to speed on whatever they should be learning. To give them opportunity in the future.

Let them sing and be unaware of what's going on in the adult world to some extent. I hope the lyrics have a different resonance of hope instead of blind allegiance to an illusory democracy when it's their turn.

[genxlib]

1. That song

Is going to get you a lot of negative commentary on this site. Don't take it to hard.

For most of the 99 thousand times I have heard it, that song has really turned me off. But, like you, I have a story about a time it struck me as something else.

I was at the World Trade Center on search and rescue after 9/11. They had re-purposed one of the party boats into a mess hall for the rescue workers and we were there for lunch. There were some celebrities there on a USO style meet-and-greet. Lee Greenwood was one of them. On urging from the crowd, he stood on a chair in the middle of the room and sang that song.

What I always hated about it is the simplistic and manipulative nature of the sentiment. But on that day, I could hear it as something else. It was during that brief window after 9/11 when we were united to recover. It is still sentimental hogwash, but sometimes sentimental hogwash can be soothing after trauma.

As an aside, it is not my strongest memory that day. I got to meet Olivia Newton John who was my biggest boyhood crush. Later at a different location, I got to meet Al Franken which was a huge deal for me. It was pre-Senator but I loved his books.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. Same here.

I'm still not able to share the story behind the time it hit an emotional chord in me. Went right back to not caring for it, but that moment was a powerful one.