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April 18, 2006
Can we question her patriotism?
Nina Burleigh has authored an article, "Country Boy," for Salon, the on-line arts and culture journal; the title doesn't reveal much, but the sub-title gives it all away: I cringed as my young son recited the Pledge of Allegiance. But who was I to question his innocent trust in a nation I long ago lost faith in?
Our family first arrived in Narrowsburg [NY] in 2000, as city people hunting for a cheap house. For barely $50,000 we were able to buy the "weekend house" we thought would complete our metropolitan existence. But soon after we closed on the home, we moved to Paris, spurred by the serendipitous arrival of a book contract. When our European idyll ended after two years, and with tenants still subletting our city apartment, we moved into the Narrowsburg house.
After growing accustomed to the French social system -- with its cheap medicine, generous welfare, short workweek and plentiful child care -- life back in depressed upstate New York felt especially harsh. We'd never planned to get involved in the life of the town, nor had it ever occurred to us that we might send our son to the Narrowsburg School. But suddenly we were upstate locals, with a real stake in the community.
In the fall of 2004, we enrolled our son in kindergarten at the Narrowsburg School ... "Do they even have a curriculum?" sniffed one New York City professor who kept a weekend home nearby. Clearly, Narrowsburg School was not a traditional first step on the path to Harvard ... When my husband and I investigated, we were pleasantly surprised. The school had just been renovated and was clean, airy, cheerful. The nurse and the principal knew every one of the 121 children by name. Our son would be one of just 12 little white children in a sunny kindergarten class taught by an enthusiastic woman with eighteen years' experience teaching five-year-olds.
Still, for the first few months, we felt uneasy. Eighty of Narrowsburg's 319 adults are military veterans and at least 10 recent school graduates are serving in Iraq or on other bases overseas right now. The school's defining philosophy was traditional and conservative, starting with a sit-down-in-your-seat brand of discipline, leavened with a rafter-shaking reverence for country and flag. Every day the students gathered in the gym for the "Morning Program," open to parents, which began with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a patriotic song, and then discussion of a "word of the week." During the first few weeks, the words of the week seemed suspiciously tied to a certain political persuasion: "Military," "tour," "nation" and "alliance" were among them.
Ah, jeez, the horror of life outside Manhattan: patriotism, the American flag and military veterans. Talk about "at-risk children." But dealing with these tres unsophisticate yahoos -- while lip-curlingly distasteful to our heroine -- hadn't crossed the line into fear country. Yet.
But it wasn't until our boy came home with an invitation in his backpack to attend a "released time" Bible class that my husband and I panicked. We called the ACLU and learned this was an entirely legal way for evangelicals to proselytize to children during school hours. What was against the law was sending the flier home in a kid's backpack, implying school support. After our inquiry, the ACLU formally called the principal to complain. She apologized and promised never to allow it again.
[...]
When we later learned that the cheery kindergarten teacher belonged to one of the most conservative evangelical churches in the community, we were careful not to challenge anyone or to express any opinion about politics or religion, out of fear our son would be singled out. Instead, to counteract any God-and-country indoctrination he received in school, we began our own informal in-home instruction about Bush, Iraq and Washington over the evening news.
So, inculcating love of country in a child, providing a moral grounding is "indoctrination," but running a daily Bush-lied-people-died-no-war-for-oil drill for a kid in KINDERGARTEN isn't brainwashing? Poor kid never had a chance.
If you knew nothing else of the world, if you were just 5 or 6 or 10 years old, and this place was your only America, you wouldn't have any reason at all to question the Narrowsburg School's Morning Program routine. Hand over heart, my son belted out the Pledge with gusto every morning and memorized and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." I never stopped resisting the urge to sit down in silent protest during the Pledge. But I also never failed to get choked up when they sang "America the Beautiful."
Listening to their little voices, I felt guilty for being a non-believer. When I was 5 years old, in 1965, did I understand what my lefty parents were saying about the Kennedy assassination, Watts and dead-soldier counts? Who was I to deprive my son, or his eleven kindergarten chums, of their faith in a nation capable of combining "good with brotherhood?" In a 5-year-old's perfect world, perhaps such places should exist.
Because, you see, in Burleigh's twisted world, there are no nations "capable of combining 'good with brotherhood.' " And those of us who believe that the United States of America -- flawed though she may be -- is the most perfect nation in history, the greatest protector of freedom and liberty the world has ever known, the destination of choice for millions of people around the globe, seeking escape from tyranny and poverty -- well, those of us who believe this are simply as gullible and unsophisticated as Burleigh's five-year-old son.
That November, at the school's annual Veterans Day program, the children performed the trucker anthem "God Bless the USA" (one of the memorable lines is "Ain't no doubt I love this la-aand, God bless the USA-ay!"), as their parents sang along. About a dozen local veterans -- ancient men who had served in World War II, and men on the cusp of old age who had served in Korea and Vietnam -- settled into folding chairs arranged beneath the flag. When the students were finished singing, the principal asked the veterans to stand and identify themselves. Watching from the audience, I wondered if anyone would speak of the disaster unfolding in Iraq (which was never a word of the week).
Much to her surprise, one vet does say that he hopes none of the children have to experience war firsthand, a sentiment I've heard expressed by every veteran who has found himself under fire. Burleigh interprets this as support for her Bizarro World view that the other veterans who failed to state the obvious want their grandkids to have to kill and die for their country.
A month later, just before Christmas, my son and I drove together into New York City with bags of children's clothes and shoes that he and his sister had outgrown. The Harlem unit of the National Guard was putting on a Christmas clothing drive for Iraqi children. On the way into the city, I tried to explain to my son what we were doing, and -- as best I could -- why. As we crossed the George Washington Bridge and the Manhattan skyline spread out below us, I began to give him a variation on the "Africans don't have any food, finish your dinner" talk. I wanted him to understand how privileged he was to live in a place where bombs weren't raining from the sky. It was a talk I'd tried to have before, but not one he'd ever paid much attention to until that day, trapped in the back seat of our car.
Missing the forest for the trees, Burleigh fails to note that it's the freakin' NATIONAL GUARD that's collecting and handing out toys for Iraqi tots. Of course, it's the "Harlem" unit -- as she is careful to point out -- so it's the black troops, who know all about oppression; not the Southern rednecks in the other units who like killin'.
Sigh.
Sorry, lady, hate to disappoint, but, not content to kill kidsand old ladies, our military is trying to focus the terrible violence in its arsenal on the Bad Guys, while winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. This may be why only 18 percent of them want our troops to leave before killing more of the insurgents.
In simple language, I told my son that our president had started a war with a country called Iraq. I said that we were bombing cities and destroying buildings. And I explained that families just like ours now had no money or food because their parents didn't have offices to go to anymore or bosses to pay them. "America did this?" my son asked, incredulous. "Yes, America," I answered. He paused, a long silent pause, then burst out: "But Mommy, I love America! I want to hug America!"
Good for you, kid. So do I. Problem is, your Mom wants to kick Uncle Sam in the nuts and spit in his eye. Momma Moonbat fails to tell junior that Iraqi girls no longer have to fear that Saddam's sons will snatch them off the street for a little rape game, followed by Hide the Bullet in Your Brain. She fails to mention that Iraqi dads aren't being tortured and murdered for making off-handed jokes about Saddam Hussein.
And that the U.S. military is fighting the most precise war in the history of world, doing everything we can to avoid unecessary civilian deaths and destruction, at the cost of the lives of American fighting men and women.
Now it has been almost a year since my son scampered down the steps of Narrowsburg Central Rural School for the last time. We've since returned to the city, driven back to urban life more by adult boredom than our children's lack of educational opportunities. Our son is enrolled in a well-rated K-5 public school on Manhattan's Upper West Side; not surprisingly, the Pledge of Allegiance is no longer part of his morning routine. Come to think of it, and I could be wrong, I've never seen a flag on the premises.
Nice to know she's finally found a school that's devoid of American flags and other disturbing signs of incipient facism racism patriotism. So, the cycle is unbroken; her parents turned her into an America-hating Moonbat, and she and her husband are well on the way to passing on their anti-values to the next generation.
And that's how un-Americans are made.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 18, 2006 07:22 AM
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Comments
You know, as a kid I loved nothing more than reciting the Pledge of Alliegance and continually requesting we sing the Star Spangled Banner in my music class. And I grew up to be a liberal. So the kid probably would be fine.
Posted by: Alexander Wolfe at April 19, 2006 06:00 PM