Question
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U.S. Government
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/07/02/denver-preps-for-dnc-wi...
" Mayor John Hickenlooper’s annual State of the City address may get more attention for what wasn’t included than what was.
At the start of the event Tuesday morning, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem.
Instead, she performed the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” which is also known as the “black national anthem.”
When she finished, the audience responded with mild applause. The national anthem was never performed."
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Well, Well Well, The fun and games are relly ahppening now! Raven must be blowing somebody! My comments are disappearing from this poll very quickly and in front of my eyes!
Raven is the very same vile slug that pissed on my profile comments section!
we're gonna need a lot more DRs everyone
Raven is truly ROADKILL Now!
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which is the purpose and the point of ALL Obama supporters...
every penny i have in my Bank says that lady in the video supports Obama, and does so on a "racial" basis as opposed to any "issue-based" support...
anyone think i'm being racist in saying that can just deal with it... we all know it's probably the truth -
Put away the flags
Put away the flags
By Howard Zinn
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.
Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.
Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.
That self-deception started early.
When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of t...Put away the flags
Put away the flags
By Howard Zinn
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.
Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.
Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.
That self-deception started early.
When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."
When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."
On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."
It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to
war.
We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.
As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."
We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.
Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.
How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?
One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.
We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.
We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.
Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier,
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Answered No, somebody should have had the guts to protest this disgraceful act
I think it was a disgrace. They should have shut off the mic.
"The Star Spangled Banner", was ordered played at military and naval occasions by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but was not designated the national anthem by an Act of Congress until 1931.
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Answered No, somebody should have had the guts to protest this disgraceful act
This is America and the National Anthem should be left as is and not trying to kiss up to one specific race. Get over it Liberals!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Anthem will never be changed!!!!!!!!!1 -
Answered No, somebody should have had the guts to protest this disgraceful act
When they interviewed her, the excuse was that she wanted to get creative and expressing herself.
Well I don’t find that creative, creativeness is when you write the lyrics and the music yourself that is both creative and expressing; I call what she did laziness and disrespectful as well as disgraceful. -
Answered No, somebody should have had the guts to protest this disgraceful act
I would have gotten up and walked out . Although the song is beautiful, it is NOT THE national anthem, and that young lady who sang it should be ashamed of herself. I'm sorry to have to say this but, I see more racism coming from black people than white people in today's society, and the sad part is that black people today have as much opportunity as any white person to do well in this country, and many of them have and I congratulate them. Live in the present and not the past is what I say. -
Answered Yes, what better way to show your patriotism than by replacing the national anthem with a racist song
Lift Every Voice And Sing is not a racist song (hard to believe so many think it is), albeit she should have asked if she could sing it along with the National Anthem, to show inclusion of African-Americans, in a country who has largely excluded them. We are a divided nation, and that is easy to see just by reading many of the comments on this poll. You would think that America would be ready to embrace an African-American as President, but instead some white people see this as an impingement on our liberty and freedom. How sad.
Answered No, somebody should have had the guts to protest this disgraceful act
some may say 'big deal', some may say 'it is just a song'. But 'what and why is the National Antherm?would we stand and die for freedom as those in Fort Henry did.?