I mourn...

reply to post by TheRedneck


Star and Flag for the great post.

I stopped celebrating all the holidays several years ago due
to the commercialism.

I hope the US can find its way back to what it has lost, but I do
not see the majority stepping up to make that happen.

I see a lot of left vs. right, us vs. them rhetoric from some ppl
and I think they are missing the point.

As Clinton recently said of a former supporter of the KKK, he did
what he had to get elected.

That is very telling.

Basically it says Mr. Clinton and likely a lot of other politicians
will do to get elected, and that is damn near anything.

We have lobbyists in DC who make more than the president.

They have closed door parties where envelopes exchange hands.

You get internet like Chandra Levy that end up dead not long
after group orgies at Gary Condits DC apartment where they
found semen splattered everywhere.

The ppl we put at the wheel of the ship are not good ppl.

If you wonder why you feel like your on a road trip to hell
its because of who we picked to drive the car.

Good Luck to you all !

Very nice, redneck. Now get off the fence and say what you really mean.
We, as Americans will never give up. Bend, do not break. But dammit man, I'm hurting from being bent over double by the current administration and the 3 preceding it. Take solace in the second ammendment and the knowledge that the "ragtag" fighters in Afghanistan were able to stymie the Red Army for 8 years, we will do better, when and if we need to.
God bless the U.S.A.

reply to post by nixie_nox

Oh, nixie nixie nixie...

I have an overwhelming selection of free or cheap museums, theaters,science centers and aquariums to go too.

Does this have more meaning for you than your rights as a free citizen?

If my child gets sick, there are 24 hour pharmacies and urgent care centers that I can take him too in the middle of the night, 15 minutes away.

I remember when the doctor would come to your house, even in the country, in the dead of night to help care for a sick child. Which is preferable? A doctor or some minimum wage clerk in a drug store?

I am grateful that I get to choose my spouse, and choose to leave him if I want too.

As am I. Did you think I was speaking against that? That is a right you have... and one you can lose if this country continues to crumble.

I am GRATEFUL, that my child doesn't h ave to drop out of school at 9 years old to work at a sweatshop for 60 hours a weeks you can have those stain free clothes on your back.

As am I. He doesn't have to do that because he has basic human rights.

I am GRATEFUL, that even in poverty, my husband doesn't have to make the decision to take a job that will kill him in three years to make sure we get provided for ,for just one more till I am widowed.

Millions of Americans are about to be left out in the cold with no jobs nixie... no way to support anyone. After a few weeks of hunger, they will be ready to take any job, for any wage, doing anything. I have been hungry before; I promise you it will happen.

I am grateful people are no longer hung for something stupid like stealing a horse or gold, and that you get a trial at all.

Again, rights enumerated in the Constitution. Should we not keep that document?

I am grateful that I can go to a pool and it is clean and has a lifeguard.

I really don't see how I ever spoke against that...

I am grateful that I can fly in a plane and know that it is as safe as can be for 10,000 metal tubes being in the sky at any given moment.

As safe as can be? Have you been keeping up with the problems airlines are finding in their older planes, planes that are kept in service because they cannot afford new ones?

I am grateful there is no longer a draft.

I would prefer there not even be a registration... oh, never mind... that's for males only.

I am grateful that you are no longer killed for the color of your skin.

Again, you speak of a basic human right to life.

All of these things you are so grateful for have been provided by the country based on how it was during the last century. So now why do you feel it is good to abandon these principles that have carried us so far?

Without the principles that founded this nation, none of these things would exist today. Not your museums, not your education system, not your nice pool with the cute lifeguard. They are born out of the thing which is being destroyed before your eyes. If you are grateful, then why do you want change, change, and more change? Why does each change bring more problems than it solves, problems which then cry out for more solutions that cause more problems?

Where will this gratefulness end nixie? When the museums are closed, the pools are unattended, the workers are as those poor souls in the pictures you posted?

When will you realize what you have lost?

I have no intention of moving. This is my home. I was born here, raised here, and will probably die here, on this same mountainside where I have spent the vast majority of my life. This is my country, be it right or wrong. I do, however, reserve the right to cry out when it is being twisted into something it was never intended to be and cannot survive.

And that is a right I will not relinquish... neither for you, nor anyone else.

People cry about rights being taken away, and quickly forget what they have been given.

Which do you value more, nixie? Your rights, or your entertainment and convenience?

You do realize that those two things are not mutually exclusive? That one may have advancements without losing their liberties? You mention slavery (although my 'good old days' do not go back quite that far)... how is a cry for lost rights in any way supportive of that? How is a desire for freedom in opposition to helping the impoverished? How is a yearning for self-reliance directly opposed to a better standard of living and higher education?

I value both... and I mourn the loss of one, for with it goes the promise of the other.

TheRedneck

It really isn't about liberal vs conservative anymore. Both parties are equally put us sheep into our place.

Look far we've come in the last 10 years. We used to bash Bush for having the Patriot Act. Now we still have it, if not 10x worse from Obama along with 100 other things he wants to take from you. It's like each president slowly but surely is taking everything from us bit by bit as if it were part of some elaborate plot.

I'm honestly debating if i should move to Canada while there's still time.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Great post, especially the gratitude list, things most of us take for granted.
I sensed you were close to my own age from the way you wrote, and I was correct.

I am grateful as well for what we still have, (and losing daily) but I think if the deck was not stacked against us, things would be as they should: USA being the greatest, most respected beacon of freedom in the world. Now the USA is going 3rd world; I have lived in a 3rd world country as a kid, so I know what I'm talking about when I say 3rd world.

I have many of the same sentiments as yours OP, but I will try to be brief as to why. We were taught the work ethic at an early age (me at 13 working for relatives in the SW desert, every summer until 18), and worked as hard as we could from then on.

We were taught to believe that if we worked hard, everything would be righteous. So we worked harder and harder, some of us made ourselves sick or dead because of it. We watched our parents and grandparents working hard, some well into their 70s. And for myself and most that I knew, it worked out, and dignity was maintained.

At some point things changed. For me in 2003, a 17 year hi-tech job that disappeared overnight. I have made it since then, but it was like rolling back my work progress (seniority) 20 years.

When I was an impressionable kid, I used to believe that America was different, that our future was golden if we worked for it, by the year 2000 may of the problems we had when I was a kid would be obsolete. What has happened to our country since 1990 has broken all those dreams. 9/11/2001 and thereafter have caused total disillusion. Terrorists attack us from overseas, and our govt. clamps down on US???? (PATRIOT acts, illegal wiretapping, no-fly list, passports to go on a cruise liner, etc.)

For so many, the policies and priorities of our government have shown up to wreck the lives and carreers of our hardest working, best and brightest.
Outsourcing, maquiladoras, excessive work visas, China favored trade status .... ad nauseum.

So I'm not going to light any fireworks tonight either.

reply to post by TheRedneck


It's so funny to see this post. Just last night I was at a gathering at my gf's and her cousin was visiting from Tennessee where he owns a Mexican restaurant and I asked him how the rednecks were treating him and he says to me "rednecks are some of the best people your country has, it seems to me rednecks have more common sense then most people in this country." I was like....whaaat a conservative Mexican??? But I agree. Great post but I'm still celebrating, as I'm sure the socialists would love it if we stopped showing any pride in the U.S.A.

[edit on 4-7-2010 by ALlENATlON]

I thought today was good . I had 1 big hot dog and going to shoot fire works .

People if we cry and moan about the NWO every day it will not help . I think days like today the NWO hates . They love work weeks and fear. This should be a day to be with people you love eat BIG meals .

Heck we celebrate the holidays - if we didn't, boy life would be boring around here and all run together.

Cost me 2.00 for a 4th of july tablecloth that I'll put up for next year, and 1.98 for a watermelon.

We must be crazy, we celebrate ALL the holidays. The old pagan ones, the Christian ones, and the secular ones. Birthdays..anniversaries...

We don't always spend a lot. Some maybe nothing at all.

But we always celebrate them and teach our children the meanings.

Holidays are fun. You don't have to do anything but realize it is day of remembrance of something. Smiling and remembering holidays past is nice too.

All of the luxuries a poster names off will be her shackles.


You are right OP. When we do not recognize things being taken away and these changes as long as we are entertained and cushioned... we will lose our rights. We will lose our freedom , and most of all... we will not have "America" to rely on anymore.

In my line of work Ive seen worse things up close and personal than the pics a poster posted.. right here in the midwest. Starving children and old folks left to die of starvation in their own excrement, children dying and things I dont even want to remember. . Much more.. you dont even want to know. You must understand that these things are not televised so you are protected from it and you THINK this is a phenomenon only found in 3rd world nations. Guess what... while youre at your museums and in your pool with a lifeguard.. someone is STARVING in the middle of the land of plenty. Its HERE..... NOW. And it will get worse.

Op is correct in pointing out that things are slipping. If there are those who are too blind or ignorant to see it.. or at the very least recognize it.. they will be the ones standing with their hands out wondering what happened. Things that can be prevented are being ignored.

Today, the birthday of our Nation (actually July 2nd is but whatever) I am ashamed of all the people who are well... ASHAMED to be American. It pains me to no end that our patriotism is slowly wilting away and being replaced by guilt and self loathing.

Wow Redneck.

Thank you for that post.

I'm not an American, but I certainly understand that it is nations like yours and mine which have been the herald of freedom and justice in this world.

I have consistently said, here and on these boards that we the people are to blame for what has happened to our nations and our world.

Our complacency has reached an all time high, while our so called freedoms and rights have reached an all time low. There is something to be feared in a population that trusts capitalism and government to do the right thing.

It is certainly not something to be proud of either.

I certainly hope and it seems to be that the next generation are aware of our socio-economic problems and will work against those who have enslaved us for the past 100 years.

Perhaps it's only that there are more people connected to eachother than ever before and that more news is available to us 24 hours a day.

I've tried my damn hardest to instill the ideas of freedom in my chidren, even going as far as teaching them American History, as IMO, the constitution in it's original form (with the added of the civil rights amendments among a few others) is a perfect system for society to follow in order to keep our freedoms intact and secure.

I will continue to raise awareness of these facts, hoping that one day, most likely when I am gone, that we will reclaim these freedoms for ourselves and learn from history as opposed to repeating it.

Days like today, are the ones where I can say:

God Bless America.

~Keeper

A solemn post deserves solemn consideration.

I share some flaws that are common in us all, but perhaps not some of you. I see and expect that which has been to continue to be. Not that I don't welcome change and variety, which can certainly be the 'spice of life'. Not that I expect life won't have it's varying degrees of ups and downs.

But as I have grown in years, I have watched certain things evaporate from what I had grown to consider my country, my community, and the rest of that which makes up the experience of being an American. Even more deeply, even that which I considered the 'human condition' has changed.

What makes the changes I perceive so demoralizing is that it takes a double form in the manner of materializing.

The first is the inevitable comparison to 'how things were when I was younger.'

Many are familiar with the chain-mail in your in-box recalling the days when children could go out unsupervised until all hours, people never needed to lock their doors, etc. Of course, they fail to mention that those were also the days of nuclear bomb drills in school, and people believing that cigarettes and liquor were OK for pregnant women. So in the end, the first can be tolerated.

The second is the realization that things were never quite what you, and nearly everyone you ever knew, were taught, or led to believe. In me, that may be a source of my own cynicism, because I was naively inclined to anticipate honor and good-will from strangers; it led to many unpleasant experiences.

I have experienced the rise from poverty, comfortable financial self-sufficiency, and the unpleasant free-fall back into the 'living to survive' situation I am in now.

I don't attribute politics to the development. I suspect that in the final analysis, it can only be up to me to have avoided this situation. But this is small consolation.

I suspect that one possible avenue to surviving 'emotionally or spiritually' is to not care. To simply refuse to accept the meme of social order assigning value to wealth.

I have often criticized the mentality of those who simply will not stop at "making a living..." they compel themselves to the necessity of "making a killing." In a world of finite (albeit virtual) wealth - the logic is inescapable, for some to be inordinately rich, others must necessarily be extraordinarily poor.

In our country we have a fulcrum against the danger of injustice; redress to the government, representation, and personal sovereignty. Each seems slowly to be 'forgotten' or marginalized out of our reality. This bitter disenfranchisement is not irreparable, but those empowered to change it will not recognize it, or only use the strife to evoke loyalty in ideals which rather than uniting, divide us.

Our children are not being taught civics any longer. They are being taught loyalty for a 'greater good'. Sadly, they are eager to comply, not knowing that in politics 'the greater good' is subject to the winds of back-room negotiations based on anything but morals.

One truth however is that there are still a significant number of human beings out there. The humans don't see every stranger as a potential mark for some degree of self-satisfaction, as a result they are inclined to actually consider other people as worthy of respect, simply because they are people. Some are witnesses. you could emulate their life and be happy. Others are healers, they listen because they enjoy happiness in others. In fact, there are many varieties of humans out there. They are not picky about their 'station' but understand its burning relevance to those who live for a 'construct.'

I must confess, as I sit here listening to the "bombs bursting in air" and catching glimpses of "the rockets' red glare" I can't help but wonder at how differently each person experiences the 4th of July. As a younger man I was moved with patriotic pride; as of late there seems to be a hint of added melancholy.

Shucks.... I'm rambling.

[edit on 4-7-2010 by Maxmars]

reply to post by Maxmars



A solemn post deserves solemn consideration. I share some flaws that are common in us all, nut perhaps not some of you.


All solemnity aside... that right there is whats called a freudian slip.




Seriously though, Ive been feeling melancholy today myself. Things just seem to have a pall over them due to all of the issues flooding us right now. Hubby and I got into a discussion about the positives that we still have and that are worth fighting for.... Sometimes its the little things that are important and make a difference

too bad Jesus wasn't born on Dec 25 and it is a pagan holiday of the winter solstice. There are never sheep and shepherds in the field in december there. There is no date of his birth in the bible for a reason. It was never to be honored as an important date. It is pagan not Christian so you might as well give up that too. The only date Jesus wanted us to remember was the Lords evening meal.

[edit on 4-7-2010 by IN DEEP GYPSY]

reply to post by IN DEEP GYPSY

It's amazing to me that you could read all of that, and pick out one small sentence in the opening that never even said what you want it to say.

I know the history of Christmas. I said it was a celebration of an event, not an anniversary.

Wanna know something crazy? I wasn't born on Fathers Day either. Don't tell my kids.

TheRedneck


[edit on 7/4/2010 by TheRedneck]

Originally posted by Dixie70
reply to post by Maxmars

 

A solemn post deserves solemn consideration. I share some flaws that are common in us all, nut perhaps not some of you.

All solemnity aside... that right there is whats called a freudian slip.

Argh! It figures I would miss THAT of all typos....

I think its part of the plan most are mourning the changes to there particular country.
well if your over 40 years old

Nw0 seams to want it like this me thinks , countries in europe hoodwinked to the Eu.. I hate every day every time i watch the no real news no more

Im real sad for the young ones,they wont know what we experienced .

just having older adults who was trust worthy and not lacking godly values.
we was lucky my parents never new any junkie maybe 1 or 2 alcoholics ,too many young people with powerful jobs might be half the problem,easy to bribe as they want all the candy yesterday, when older guys got top jobs they were slower paced and wanted a quiet life after work were already settled down,They was not scoring coc aine on wall street at dinner time. they got promoted after experience as well as the odd qualification but the main ting was time served,you was not geting a top job without your time put in,,Its easy to accept a bribe when you want a porsche and your 27 years old.. maybe im wrong ..i dunno but nothings the same, i aint bothered if 2012 comes accept for my kids sake but what comes after maybe worse the way things are going.

[edit on 4/7/10 by impyroo]

Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by IN DEEP GYPSY

It's amazing to me that you could read all of that, and pick out one small sentence in the opening that never even said what you want it to say.

I know the history of Christmas. I said it was a celebration of an event, not an anniversary.

Wanna know something crazy? I wasn't born on Fathers Day either. Don't tell my kids.

TheRedneck



[edit on 7/4/2010 by TheRedneck]

your on ATS and (that) amazes you ??? stop living a lie then. i am not American and that is all i had to add sorry.


[edit on 4-7-2010 by IN DEEP GYPSY]

Last guests just left. Had a turnout of about 40 people!! Nice fireworks, had a little pickup football game 5 on 5! Lots of fireworks, no major injuries. Had about 14 kids here from 2 to 17! Lots of bikinis on each other's wives, LOL!

Cooked up over 100 hot dogs, 50 burgers, 12 Deer burgers, ran out of Coke, Rootbeer, and Beer (4 cases didn't last long at all!), and had to make a run to the store. Someone broke out the Crown and Rum and a couple of parents embarrassed their kids real good! That is always fun.

Shot up about $300 worth of fireworks, pretty good display.

Had family from Atlanta drive down, family from Crawfordville drive up, friends frmo Panama City drop in unexpected, lots of friends and family from Tallahassee. Last weekend with my brother's family, they are moving back to Missouri on July 9th.

No family spent more than probly $30 (except for travel, but no hotels, everybody had a place to stay), they got a full day and evening (and night for some) of fun and sun and food and drink and pool and exercise and a free tan!!

All told it was a beautiful Sunday for the 4th of July! I am entirely exhausted and satisfied, and I think I will go see if the wife has another 30 minutes of energy in her before we go to sleep!!

Gnite! xoxoxoxo

reply to post by getreadyalready


We will miss all these weekends with so many love ones around. Sucks how life changes so quickly and how so many move away so abruptly.

To the future Christmases and July 4ths! ... Darn, no beer emoticon. lol. Well, I will just go with thumbs up and happy face.