Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:28pm

Too American

 

Firemen Raising the Flag

Yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds and tenpence a man.  Are you worth more? Prove it. Tonight the American flag floats from yonder hill  or Molly Stark sleeps a widow!
General John Stark prior to the battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777

The above photo epitomized the American spirit in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.  Who could object to it?

This iconic picture of firefighters raising the stars and stripes in the rubble of Ground Zero was nearly excluded from the 9/11 Memorial Museum — because it was “rah-rah” American, a new book says.

Michael Shulan, the museum’s creative director, was among staffers who considered the Tom Franklin photograph too kitschy and “rah-rah America,” according to “Battle for Ground Zero” (St. Martin’s Press) by Elizabeth Greenspan, out next month.

“I really believe that the way America will look best, the way we can really do best, is to not be Americans so vigilantly and so vehemently,” Shulan said.

One of the main problems in the country today is that too many people in positions of authority really do not have an ounce of patriotism and simply do not like America.  Cold indifference to the country at best, a strong distaste for her not infrequently, and occasionally a bitter hatred is the order of the day among too many who are regarded as elites.

Benjamin Franklin after the Constitutional Constitution in 1787 was asked by a lady what form of government the new nation was to have:  monarchy or republic.  “A Republic Madam”, Franklin responded, “if you can keep it.”  Our current want of patriotism is an alarming manifestation of a lack of will to keep what the Founding Fathers fought to give us:  a free nation.

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Foxfier
Admin
Monday, July 29, AD 2013 10:46pm

What was that line about being lukewarm?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, July 29, AD 2013 10:58pm

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/29/creative-director-of-911-memorial-museum-not-such-a-big-fan-of-america/

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One of the main problems in the country today is that too many people in positions of authority really do not have an ounce of patriotism and simply do not like America.

The curator in question is an issue of Harvard University (class of 1970 or thereabouts).

Gordon Campbell
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 1:31am

As a Canadian I have always LOVED the way Americans have expressed their love and patriotism,for and of their country.

Something awful has happened to your country. Your politicians and Administrators consider themselves Patricians-so far above the plerbians or the hoi polli.

Patriotism is outre because it is TOO COMMON and these effete Liberals want to dictate the conversation and the agenda.As Catholics and Americans it is time to take your country back from the dark diabolically influenced coven or cabal and return it to it’s former exceptional status.

Canadians by nature are quiet about our Patriotism BUT not our current Conservative Government.The leftist institutional poo-bahs like the CBC elite-Communist Broadcasting Commission or the publishers of the Toronto “Red” Star are keeping a much lower profile because while Canadians are slow to anger once angry,stand back-just ask the SS survivors from WWII.

Please take your country back and save it from the effete “elite”,the pornifiers,the vulgarizers and DOMESTIC ENEMIES that are like a viper at America’s heart.

Best wishes and prayers from your Canadian Brother in Christ.

Sylvia Hebel
Sylvia Hebel
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 6:44am

I love my country. I was born here, even though my grandparents were immigrants, it has never ever run through my mind to bad mouth this USA. Disagree with, yes, protest about policies, yes, but to dislike or hate where I live would be like some of the animals who foul their nests and then build new ones somewhere else. One of Author Taylor Caldwell once put some words in the mouth of her character: ” If we think this country is going down the wrong way, we had better roll up our sleeves and get it back!” Not a precise citation, but we have a job in this America, we, the ones who live here, to get America back to what it was made to be. A bastion of freedom, not license, somewhere that people, ordinary people, can live without fear of being arrested for being your religion. God please help us to live the life that you want us to , and to do the one job that You have put us here to do, show the world Your life.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 7:31am

They need to write history to advance their agenda.

I bet he displays not one picture of the scores (if not hundreds) that jumped rather than be incinerated.

Shulan and all self-hating, elitist spucatum, with their deep-rooted disgust with the uses most Americans make of our freedoms, can go to hell.

trackback
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 7:39am

[…] L. Gray, CStnd In America, Every Baby is a “Royal Baby” – John Kirkwood, Catholic Lane Too American – Donald R. McClarey, The American Catholic Looking for the GOD & CAESAR EDITION, […]

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 7:51am

@Gordon Campbell: St. Joseph, patron of Canada, pray for us!

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 9:08am

I recall a monument in front of a Catholic school in New Jersey that said simply,
“God – Family – Country”. Patriotism is a virtue and a manifestation of the love of our neighbor.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 9:53am

Reading this I kept hearing the Marseillaise (with cannon booming). That song brings a full feeling in my chest and behind my eyes because it calls to the true hearted people of the countryside, who knew their patrimony; and I apply it to us. Gordon’s note also seems to be calling those of us who are like the people referenced in the opening lines of that anthem.
I pity the poor ones among us who have not recognized how they have been blessed by being Americans. It seems they are distracted by a kind of false worldliness, with savoir faire to beat the band– but sans the simple knowledge that everything of any value is at home.

J. Christian
J. Christian
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 12:04pm

“America is unique, but we should not make too much of its uniqueness. In the long run we love our country for the same reasons any man loves his country–not for things that can be bragged about, but for things that can hardly be communicated, and are understood by outsiders mostly by analogy with their own patriotic affections. You communicate your love for your mother not by expatiating on your mother’s singular virtues, still less by calling her the Great Mother, but simply by using the word ‘mother.’ Every man born of woman will understand. Well, almost every man. There is always the occasional misfit who is alienated from his mother, or who thinks that motherhood is outmoded. But it is wisest to direct the conversation to the others.”

-Joseph Sobran

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 12:48pm

Educate me, J. Christian. What does Sobran’s commentary have to do with a museum curator who cannot abide a photograph of firefighters raising a flag?

J. Christian
J. Christian
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 1:00pm

The curator is the misfit, using Sobran’s formulation.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 1:07pm

Gordon, you are not the first Gordon to offer Americans an encouraging word. This journalist did so around the time our misguided curator was completing his indoctrination at Harvard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_okAgAUGE

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 1:28pm

Eh- Mike Petrik! Wonderful link I will pass it on to our family

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 5:44pm

The curator is the misfit, using Sobran’s formulation.

Unfortunately, the misfit is in a gatekeeper position which distorts and disfigures public memorial.

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 8:21pm

My best memory of 9-11 wasn’t the day it occurred (I didn’t watch TV at the time; still don’t), but a couple of days later, when all the planes, etc were still grounded. That week-end was the “balloon fest” in our town. Dozens of balloons from all over the country come one week-end in September to go ballooning and engage in some kind of balloon completion. (The balloonists also visit various schools, have a food drive, etc. And because of the attacks, they too were grounded.

Nevertheless, the pilots were allowed to inflate their balloons at dusk to float them up just a few feet while tethered to the ground. They would turn the burners up on “high” and the balloons would really illuminate. Beautiful sight. They do that every year, but that year it just seemed very impressive. And I remember thinking how great the US was and how we would never be defeated. If you could have put that feeling down on paper, I’m pretty sure the museum director would have labelled it “kitschy” and “rah-rah American.”

Gordon Campbell
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 10:38pm

@Donald R. McClarey-Newfies ROCK !

Ask your Mom what the pun is.

Thanks for the song Bro.We are ALL in this together.

Gordon Campbell
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 10:48pm

@WK Aiken-AMEN.Patron Saint of the Church and my 18 year old son.Thanks for your blessing.

Mary,Immaculate Conception,patroness of the United States of America,pray for us.

Our Lady of Guadeloupe,patroness of the Americas,pray for us.

St.Katerina(she belongs to BOTH of us) pray for us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us.

Gordon Campbell
Tuesday, July 30, AD 2013 11:01pm

@Mike Petrik.Mike I’m old enough to remember when Gordon Sinclair made the original broadcast on CFRB and even though I was a kid,I knew he had said something quite important.I was very proud of him and the solace it provided to our brothers and sisters who were under siege,within and without-not unlike today.

America will NEVER be down for long-the Free World NEEDS you back in the saddle-CANADA needs you. You’ve survived tougher times than this-you’ll survive this horrific Administration and the dying corrupt Vichy Main Stream Media.

God Bless President Reagan and God Bless America.

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