American Politics

[selenak]

As feared, the schedule from hell (tm) this week postpones updates on Quark's Day. However, I could take a look at the papers. And the ljs. Which left me even more disturbed than usual by events in the US. Apparently, May 1st - Worker's Day - is now Loyalty Day. (By Public Law 85-529.) May 6th is National Day of Prayer. I'd suspect someone to have written a satire, with a debt to Margaret Atwood more than to George Orwell, but nostalgia_lj linked the White House releases in her entry.

You know, I've never felt more like establishing a holiday of my own. One honoring civil disobedience, independence of thought, and the acknowledgement that allegiance to a nation, no matter which nation, should never supersede the dictates of one's conscience. The not so funny thing is that the Founding Fathers would probably have agreed.

On a similar not, and not very surprising: Disney forbids the distribution of a Bush-critical film, Michael Moore's new documentary about the links between the Bush family and the Saudis. "Mr. Eisner expressed particular concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor." No kidding. Oh brave new world.

Comments

[hobsonphile.livejournal.com]

By the way, in case you missed it, I did a little checking and discovered that Loyalty Day and the National Day of Prayer are actually hold-overs from the Cold War and don't have anything to do with the Bush administration. In fact, if you run a quick search, you will be able to find Bill Clinton's proclamations regarding both.

You are an excellent writer and I deeply respect you. But here, you have allowed yourself to jump to conclusions without checking the facts.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing the facts out to me; though now the historian in me is itching to check out other Cold War leftovers (I don't mean just in the US - we're bound to have some, too).