Absolutely nothing… Should it? Maybe that’s a sign of my lack of emotional connection with the US
Lots of big building, flags, statues and images of soldiers. America has a narrative about freedom that has little relevance to reality these days.
renunciation day for me has been confirmed for March 1
I am a non-combat vietnam era veteran.
Many on who post on this site would disagree with.
At the time, right or wrong about Vietnam I believed that the US promoted liberty and the rule of law.
Not any more.
My personal sadness about renunciation is the sense of betrayal to the people I served with and those that I personnally knew who died in Vietnam
They are a reminder that once upon a time, America was a shining beacon of freedom for the rest of the world to look up to; to envy; and to emulate. Sadly, those days are long gone, and I fear they will never return.
I didn’t have any trouble with the film. That’s the America I grew up knowing, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Many made incredible sacrifices for the future of the country. That’s what the film said to me.
However, in my mind, there was another narrative playing simultaneously. I kept wondering how the pure, early concepts had become so bastardized. I’ll just be honest here. I see the GOP as the party of hate and I was thrilled to see Obama elected in 2008. Only recently have I come to see Obama as being a major force behind all this FBAR, OVDI and FATCA nonsense.
I don’t have the time or inclination to sort it all out. I just want out of all the hassle. I will relinquish my US citizenship.
It’s about 7m 50s too long.
My immediate thoughts without digging into all the baggage I carry around:
This is the US case for exceptional-ism;
The utter waste of so many young lives and that those young lives were generally not from the more well to do of America;
Deep sadness that the intelligence of man cannot be harnessed for peace and good rather than the continuation of wars, which includes maintaining the vast US Military Industrial Complex. Some wars may have been needed but wouldn’t it be more sensible to have learned from history. We do not.
Just my idealism talking to me about what I was looking at — just me.
It says propaganda to me. Having lived outside their borders for so long, it doesn’t mean anything to me.
@Rivka: I could be considered (to use Arrow’s term) a “spiritual draft dodger” because I wasn’t subject to the draft as a woman. I was opposed to Vietnam, but I never harbored any animosity to those who served, especially those who were drafted. My first love, friends, cousins and high school classmates were among them. Although they all survived the actual war, it took a devastating toll on them physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. A classmate committed suicide shortly after returning to our home town. We believe a cousin’s death later was caused by exposure to Agent Orange.
I don’t think you are betraying soldiers who died in Vietnam or elsewhere. Instead, it is US who is betraying the very foundation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I think those who were killed would be appalled to see what is happening. I know my grandfathers, father and uncles who served in two world wars would be outraged.
Even my niece’s husband who is in US Air Force (but loves Cuban cigars I take to him!) is incredulous.
When you renounce in a few weeks, you are actually standing up for freedom and justice. How very sad.
I have nothing but negative feelings for political statues and buildings. Especially the Capitol, the seat and symbol 535 congresscritters who repeatedly vote to destroy our liberties. In Hong Kong, our monuments to liberty are ugly, squat government buildings sitting in the shadow of 80-story residential and commercial skyscrapers. Our largest statue is a giant bronze icon of the founder of a religion more than half the population doesn’t believe, funded entirely by private donations.
My view on the gravestones is more complicated. The US got in a lot of wars last century, some good and some not so good. I have no quarrel over old wars and I respect those who went off to fight to protect their friends and hometowns. But the wars themselves were mostly not the “bringing freedom to the world” that they were made out to be. The reason I’m an American in the first place is because US soldiers invaded and annexed my grandparents’ homeland. So they emigrated to the US. Should I be grateful to the US for that? Lots of other imperial powers let their subjects or ex-subjects migrate too. That’s why there’s hundreds of thousands of Koreans in Tokyo, or Indonesians in the Netherlands, or Tajiks in Moscow.
So to the rows of gravestones and to the ones who look at them with pride, I can only say what Ataturk said to the Australians decades after Gallipoli: “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours… You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”
As far as the people who ended up in Vietnam are concerned, you are renouncing the state that betrayed them (on so many levels – the pointlessness of the war itself, the class-weighted draft, and on and on)
Sorry, as somebody who moved to Canada as an very small child in the mid 1950’s, this means very little to me. It reminds me of the overly dramatic scenes from an old war movie. My patriotic memories include the memorial services of the Canadian Legion in Newfoundland for the local guys who never came home from Europe and those still tug at my heart.
Whilst I was watching this I couldn’t help but think that such a montage would be absurd from Italy or Belgium. I feel like the only other country that could get away with an 8 minute montage of government monuments with stirring music would be France, which has a similar tradition of deep patriotism…This would be a laughing stock in Italy if an Italian version were to be produced.
For example, most Italians view the largest equivalent monument in Rome to the first king of a united Italy to be an overbearing monstrosity:
Reblogged this on Stop Unconstitutional Double Taxation.
Absolutely nothing… Should it? Maybe that’s a sign of my lack of emotional connection with the US
Lots of big building, flags, statues and images of soldiers. America has a narrative about freedom that has little relevance to reality these days.
renunciation day for me has been confirmed for March 1
I am a non-combat vietnam era veteran.
Many on who post on this site would disagree with.
At the time, right or wrong about Vietnam I believed that the US promoted liberty and the rule of law.
Not any more.
My personal sadness about renunciation is the sense of betrayal to the people I served with and those that I personnally knew who died in Vietnam
They are a reminder that once upon a time, America was a shining beacon of freedom for the rest of the world to look up to; to envy; and to emulate. Sadly, those days are long gone, and I fear they will never return.
I didn’t have any trouble with the film. That’s the America I grew up knowing, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Many made incredible sacrifices for the future of the country. That’s what the film said to me.
However, in my mind, there was another narrative playing simultaneously. I kept wondering how the pure, early concepts had become so bastardized. I’ll just be honest here. I see the GOP as the party of hate and I was thrilled to see Obama elected in 2008. Only recently have I come to see Obama as being a major force behind all this FBAR, OVDI and FATCA nonsense.
I don’t have the time or inclination to sort it all out. I just want out of all the hassle. I will relinquish my US citizenship.
It’s about 7m 50s too long.
My immediate thoughts without digging into all the baggage I carry around:
This is the US case for exceptional-ism;
The utter waste of so many young lives and that those young lives were generally not from the more well to do of America;
Deep sadness that the intelligence of man cannot be harnessed for peace and good rather than the continuation of wars, which includes maintaining the vast US Military Industrial Complex. Some wars may have been needed but wouldn’t it be more sensible to have learned from history. We do not.
Just my idealism talking to me about what I was looking at — just me.
It says propaganda to me. Having lived outside their borders for so long, it doesn’t mean anything to me.
@Rivka: I could be considered (to use Arrow’s term) a “spiritual draft dodger” because I wasn’t subject to the draft as a woman. I was opposed to Vietnam, but I never harbored any animosity to those who served, especially those who were drafted. My first love, friends, cousins and high school classmates were among them. Although they all survived the actual war, it took a devastating toll on them physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. A classmate committed suicide shortly after returning to our home town. We believe a cousin’s death later was caused by exposure to Agent Orange.
I don’t think you are betraying soldiers who died in Vietnam or elsewhere. Instead, it is US who is betraying the very foundation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I think those who were killed would be appalled to see what is happening. I know my grandfathers, father and uncles who served in two world wars would be outraged.
Even my niece’s husband who is in US Air Force (but loves Cuban cigars I take to him!) is incredulous.
When you renounce in a few weeks, you are actually standing up for freedom and justice. How very sad.
I have nothing but negative feelings for political statues and buildings. Especially the Capitol, the seat and symbol 535 congresscritters who repeatedly vote to destroy our liberties. In Hong Kong, our monuments to liberty are ugly, squat government buildings sitting in the shadow of 80-story residential and commercial skyscrapers. Our largest statue is a giant bronze icon of the founder of a religion more than half the population doesn’t believe, funded entirely by private donations.
My view on the gravestones is more complicated. The US got in a lot of wars last century, some good and some not so good. I have no quarrel over old wars and I respect those who went off to fight to protect their friends and hometowns. But the wars themselves were mostly not the “bringing freedom to the world” that they were made out to be. The reason I’m an American in the first place is because US soldiers invaded and annexed my grandparents’ homeland. So they emigrated to the US. Should I be grateful to the US for that? Lots of other imperial powers let their subjects or ex-subjects migrate too. That’s why there’s hundreds of thousands of Koreans in Tokyo, or Indonesians in the Netherlands, or Tajiks in Moscow.
So to the rows of gravestones and to the ones who look at them with pride, I can only say what Ataturk said to the Australians decades after Gallipoli: “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours… You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”
As far as the people who ended up in Vietnam are concerned, you are renouncing the state that betrayed them (on so many levels – the pointlessness of the war itself, the class-weighted draft, and on and on)
Sorry, as somebody who moved to Canada as an very small child in the mid 1950’s, this means very little to me. It reminds me of the overly dramatic scenes from an old war movie. My patriotic memories include the memorial services of the Canadian Legion in Newfoundland for the local guys who never came home from Europe and those still tug at my heart.
Whilst I was watching this I couldn’t help but think that such a montage would be absurd from Italy or Belgium. I feel like the only other country that could get away with an 8 minute montage of government monuments with stirring music would be France, which has a similar tradition of deep patriotism…This would be a laughing stock in Italy if an Italian version were to be produced.
For example, most Italians view the largest equivalent monument in Rome to the first king of a united Italy to be an overbearing monstrosity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altare_della_Patria
“An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.”
– Charles de Montesquieu
@Buce Newman Sometimes one must draw several threads together… and then unwrap them. What will history say about us? (us= in the larger sense)?