I read two articles today that in contrast, really illuminate the cultural divide in America.
Author and advertising executive Debbie Daniel writes in Renew America about a recent trip she made to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. I visited the place almost twenty years ago when you could still see legendary country and bluegrass acts like the Monroe brothers and Johnny Cash. The Grand Ole Opry is still the Mecca of the country music scene but a lot has changed. Country music has become a lot more slick and commercialized and it reaches a much wider audience.
The highlight of the evening for Daniel was when singer Mel McDaniel sang “Stand Up!” as a huge American flag unfurled from the rafters and the crowd went wild. The lyrics, “Stand up for the U.S.A – Stand up for America” resonated with the audience in a very powerful way.
Not every one is a country music fan (I myself have no idea who Mel McDaniel is – sorry Mel), but there’s at least one half of America that has claimed the American flag for their own, by default I might add, and can strongly identify with the message.
The other half cringe at the thought of tonight’s State of the Union address and will be cheered by an article that appears in today’s Washington Times about tonight’s anti-war protest to coincide with the President’s speech. The organizing group is called “World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime” and they won a Federal lawsuit allowing them to stand outside the Capitol and make as much noise as they possibly can.
But that’s about all the cheerful news there is about tonight’s protest. Besides the usual washed up and washed out hippies that attend these things, there won’t be the star-power needed to attract the cameras. Instead, the featured speakers will be Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clark, which explains why there won’t be any star-power.
Both Sheehan and Clark have been very vocal supporters of a new Palestine and have been photographed extensively with the Palestinian flag. To be fair, Sheehan has also been photographed with an American flag, but it was usually desecrated in some way so that it really wasn’t the American flag, symbolically speaking, but rather, an anti-American flag.
Sheehan and Clark both have strong ties to Islamic terrorist organizations including Hamas and now that Hamas is calling the shots in Palestine, the world is getting a better look at who they really are. The smart celebrities, politicians and movie stars alike, are not likely to get too close the likes of Sheehan and Clark, for the moment at least.