“Land, Katie Scarlett. Land is the only thing worth living for, worth dying for.”
–Gerald O’Hara, “Gone With the Wind”
As a proud red-blooded Southern born American woman, I unabashedly proclaim my love of country. I believe in her, I believe in the ideals on which she was founded. I love her… or do I?
News organizations are riddled with images of different people literally fighting for the land they honestly believe is theirs. Is it theirs? Heck, I don’t know. They think it is just as much as I think the quarter acre plot on which my 1,800 square foot East Memphis home sits belongs to my husband and me. Would I fight for my home and my property? Invade our home at 2:00a.m. on any given day and see how much of a fight there is. Would I fight for my LAND? Looking at peoples of other nations, I think my answer is no. I don’t “have what they have” when it comes to unadulterated lust for the land and a generation upon generation capacity of foresight of a mission’s “lifetime” to get what “really belongs to ‘my people.’”
Stephen Speilberg’s “Munich” is one of the movies we got in our “DVDs through the mail” rental program this week. We watched it last night. It involves a terror strike that happened long before the world had ever heard of me. I wasn’t even a glimmer in my parent’s eyes when the Munich Olympic Park hostage crisis was taking place. The hostage situation is just a “blip” on the screen in the movie. “Munich” has a storyline consisting of the repercussions for the hostage crisis; Israel set out on a decades long secret assassination mission to “off” the Arabs who had planned the Munich Olympic Park hostage attack. The men who were part of the assassination team wanted blood for blood; revenge for the taking of innocent lives. The contract killers found the will to carry out their macabre mission deep within themselves; a love of country and loyalty not only to their ancestors their posterity drove them to murder. “Have I done murder?” one of them asked. A fellow Israeli assured him he had not “done murder.” A valid argument dependent entirely on a person’s point of view.
Do people of foreign lands dislike Americans because we don’t “get it” like they do? Does my disdain for violence and my unwillingness to embark on a mission that my children’s children’s children’s children may still be fighting but never see the end make me less of a patriot than another countryman who will suit up in his uniform and go out to battle or a “guerilla” warfare agent who will forgo the uniform and just do it?
After everything they went through to keep the land of their “homeland,” my Irish ancestors may be very disappointed in my lack of passion in this area. Heck, I’m not even a big fan of potatoes.
–Gerald O’Hara, “Gone With the Wind”
As a proud red-blooded Southern born American woman, I unabashedly proclaim my love of country. I believe in her, I believe in the ideals on which she was founded. I love her… or do I?
News organizations are riddled with images of different people literally fighting for the land they honestly believe is theirs. Is it theirs? Heck, I don’t know. They think it is just as much as I think the quarter acre plot on which my 1,800 square foot East Memphis home sits belongs to my husband and me. Would I fight for my home and my property? Invade our home at 2:00a.m. on any given day and see how much of a fight there is. Would I fight for my LAND? Looking at peoples of other nations, I think my answer is no. I don’t “have what they have” when it comes to unadulterated lust for the land and a generation upon generation capacity of foresight of a mission’s “lifetime” to get what “really belongs to ‘my people.’”
Stephen Speilberg’s “Munich” is one of the movies we got in our “DVDs through the mail” rental program this week. We watched it last night. It involves a terror strike that happened long before the world had ever heard of me. I wasn’t even a glimmer in my parent’s eyes when the Munich Olympic Park hostage crisis was taking place. The hostage situation is just a “blip” on the screen in the movie. “Munich” has a storyline consisting of the repercussions for the hostage crisis; Israel set out on a decades long secret assassination mission to “off” the Arabs who had planned the Munich Olympic Park hostage attack. The men who were part of the assassination team wanted blood for blood; revenge for the taking of innocent lives. The contract killers found the will to carry out their macabre mission deep within themselves; a love of country and loyalty not only to their ancestors their posterity drove them to murder. “Have I done murder?” one of them asked. A fellow Israeli assured him he had not “done murder.” A valid argument dependent entirely on a person’s point of view.
Do people of foreign lands dislike Americans because we don’t “get it” like they do? Does my disdain for violence and my unwillingness to embark on a mission that my children’s children’s children’s children may still be fighting but never see the end make me less of a patriot than another countryman who will suit up in his uniform and go out to battle or a “guerilla” warfare agent who will forgo the uniform and just do it?
After everything they went through to keep the land of their “homeland,” my Irish ancestors may be very disappointed in my lack of passion in this area. Heck, I’m not even a big fan of potatoes.
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