American Basics - a modest
collection of them for all my visitors, and a gallery of my patriotic art - just a few of them.

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HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY 2024
PATRIOT'S PRIMER  -  American Basics - helpful and enjoyable links follow - your comment welcome!

 


Love of Country    Patriotic Praise words - from key patriots


"...its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty laws, people, and manners.
My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessing they are
in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"
-Thomas Jefferson 

 

"All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man...
The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think...
that ,and the sanctity of the courts. 
Otherwise it's not America"
-Edward R. Morrow 

 

"...when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, 
And universal peace
Be like a shaft of light
Across the land"
-Alfred Lord Tennyson 

 

"God grant, that not only the love of liberty
but a thorough knowledge of the Rights of Man,
may pervade all the nations of Earth,
so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface,
and say, "this is my country."
-Benjamin Franklin 

 

"He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruning hooks; 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
-William Makepeace Thakeray, and the Bible 

 

"The Constitution was not perfect when it was framed.
It is not perfect today.
Our Constitution, even our Bill of Rights,
Provides no set formula that fits all peoples around the world. 
But they do offer an inspiring example
of ageless ideals realized and made to work,
with the eternal messsage that men and women everywhere
were intended to be free to shape their own destinies."...author unknown. 

 

PATRIOT DEFINED
    •    Main Entry: pa¬…tri¬…ot
    •    Pronunciation: 'pA-trE-&t, -"ˆ§t, chiefly British 'pa-trE-&t
    •    Function: noun
    •    Etymology: Middle French patriote compatriot, from Late Latin patriota,
    •    from Greek patriOtEs, from patria lineage, from patr-, patEr father
    •    Date: 1605
    •    one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests  
    •    one of a certain country
    •    one who supports his country
    •    one who acts in an heroic manner for his country, as leader or follower

 

For Those Who Serve - 

A Splendid Torch

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one;

the being a force of nature

instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no "brief candle" for me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment,

and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw
Contact link at page footer with comment  - what do you think?    

 


"The Deck Of Cards" 

The media in 2003 was  full of stories about the Most-wanted Iraqis card deck, 
and here a quote from CNN online: 

"U.S. Central Command announced April 11 it was distributing decks
of playing cards picturing what it called its "most-wanted" Iraqi leaders. 
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Central Command spokesman, said
the cards were given to troops in the field "to ease identification" 
when asking Iraqis about the fugitives. 
Each card lists an Iraqi leader's name and former title, 
and -- if available -- their picture." 

They say it helped focus at the time.  

But then memory jarred me :   The spirit in it is"totally G.I.Joe".   Am I the only one who  remembered the Tex Ritter performance of  "The Deck Of Cards", from WWII. ?

My Father counted the recording of the song/reading among the favorites in his collection.  Written by T.Texas Tyler the story of the Soldier's Deck of Cards is worth the listen/read.  As a child, in Catholic School, when I heard it, the message to me was "God is Everywhere" - look for Him everywhere you go and you will find HIm.

"Deck of Cards" was a hit with WWII Soldiers in every branch of service, and civilians worldwide!

One final "The Deck Of Cards" came to mind -  White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card and the Bush  team in the White House at the outset of the Gulf War.  
Nobody wants a war - but if we must fight- we must win and one day win the fight to end all wars, all ways.

 

 

From the Betsy Ross House Web Site Guest Book      A PATRIOTIC VALENTINE

OUR FLAG     

by Kathryn Granger Smith

 

colors of red white and blue
how my heart skips a beat
when my eye gazes at you
as i see men carrying you high
my mind dwells on thoughts of you in days gone by. 
my mind's eye sees you carried forth in foreign lands. 
and my brothers and sisters fighting for what you stand. 
i see the shores of france and germany and the countless souls who fought to keep
our country free. i see the shores of japan and the shores of the philippines in
world war ii and the shores of other countries that were touched upon too. i see
the conflict of korea and vietnam, too and i watched in mind's eye the men who
carried you through blood-torn fields and stars of glory too. i watched the men
who placed you on the moon, hoping they would return home soon. all those men who
carried you straight and tall and all who died and fought for the freedom of us
all. when i see others spit and burn, i realize they could never concern
themselves with love of god, country and flag. when in the dust they let you fade
and drag. but when they burn stars and stripes of red, white and blue, and stand
up before all and declare their right to do. my heart becomes inflamed and in my
heart and soul i feel the shame. how dare they do this to you, oh silent one of
glory, the grand old red, white and blue. but no matter how hard they try, they
can never destroy the ideals for which you stand. the love of god and country and
freedom for all of man! 

my poem my trhoughts my feelings about the flag of our great country.

always honor her: many fought and gave their lives for what she stands for.

kathryn granger smith, delphos ohio u.s.a. Amercia [07-04-2000] 


 

MY OWN PATRIOTISM - Personal notes:
It most certainly began with Front Porch Sundays at my Paternal Grandparents' home in Fairfield, Connecticut.   It is easy to describe - any grand Irish-American movie tells the story -  the little white house with long front porch - all it's chairs and rockers full of good souls, relaxing after a fine Sunday dinner- exultant over these times of peac and plenty, hard won!   Times of goodness, patriotism, passion for good work and great love!  So much so , that when my Father died, I wrote "The Saga of A Little Whitehouse"  to share some of it as well as possible in quicktime at our Father's funeral.     "Little Miss Memorial Day" one of my nicknames, blythe spirit, firstborn of idealists, gifted and talented, my life had been Arts and caregiving, but always an occasional rescue.  Teaching flag-folding to our son's cub scout troop was ME - college and study and professional achievement seemed to be there to add worth and power to the simple patriotism in flag-folding - the devotion - the caring to a thing just so for God and Country. .... there was a sense that life would get challenging, through some of it, before it was done. Years later, I realized that "halcyon days" and "special and good insights" were sometimes a delightful burden; the driive to share their gifts well. My siblings, younger brother and sister, are happy matches and friends I am proud to know.  Today I remind myself to SEE the BEAUTY - see the "Halcyon" days , here and now. They ARE...and easier to remember later if we mark them now, as we live them.

My late husband's family were very wealthy and diplomats before the crash of'29, and his Father had been a Federal Agent for the Treasury Department,  a brother-in-law broke his promise to his Mother, and became a Federal Agent, too.  I mention this because of the passionate way we all have about our Country. We've been quieter since the time for the funerals came, but now they are passing and so these golden days to do a thing before it's our turn to say goodbye.

Just being a good citizen when things found me, I ended up with a list of things to share in  "Accidental Activist"  - and I am not alone.  Many in my family like helping to support Freedom and human rights issues that find them .

The famous  "No one is free till ALL are free".  And "Freedom is not free."  are most clearly understood.


And in America that means Civil Rights and any Patriotic page representative of my generation must include comment on the Civil Rights Movement:   from "almost a namesake", Eleanora Fagan, a.k.a. Billy Holiday's "Strange Fruit" to Colin Powell, Condolezza Rice, and Martha Stewart's followup, B.Smith......we've com along well , this generation in American Racial integration Moments...and recent commeration of    The "Little Rock Nine - Then and Now
September 1957-the story timeline, and what a different world for all involved, a generation later.

The Story of Ms.McCarty show it goes on and gets better because the loving spirit of the people involved goes on, and always will.
Afghanistan, per CIA

I always support our Presidents and do what I can at election times and later.
I usually cheer:

“Our President and his Team are making the grade! And we're not going to let them down! “
My last Presidential post: just before covid:
Presentation of the SPACE FORCE FLAG and INSIGNIA at the Oval Office, President Trump Presiding!
Our future depends on evolving extra-terrestrially and Space Force helps. I would love to be SpaceMaid- there is already mess to clean up from the little bit that’s up there and since we are into major cleanups of our land and waters, we might get a better path going for Cleaning up our space rubbish.


However  I am having a lot of trouble with my usual passionate support of our Presidents. this time - I

am forever PRO LIFE and daughter of science and technology and Caltholic Jesuit taught on the issues, I KNOW - there is not need for abortion if we will spend our legislative actions on Education and non-abortive options.
No one can make me support the babykillers! No one should need to kill a living human fetus - and we cannot do so without damning ourselves! It’s the automatic dynamic….whether you acknowledge it or not. Even in war, there are rules to minimize the murder to the self-defense level.

And the need for fetuses for scientific study can be satisfied by the natural deaths of fetuses - for scientific study a very tiny bit of tissue etc, satisfies the need - no need to do this latest horror visited on humans.
Whatever the details: we cannot possible justify murdering a viable fetus. As daughter and widow of preemies I know this in detail.

When Hitler and his gang of monster doctors did their baby-killing deeds they were stopped - but today “we have become our enemy” as the marial arts philosophers have said for centuries -

We have become the vile enemy that our Fathers gave their lives to stop!
We have elected baby-killers - two of them - to the highest office in our land! And many other countries have done the same.
To any decent person, it must feel like the invasion of monsters in “Independence Day” the movie - but in real life!

It’s been going on for a while and it speaks well of our goodness that we sank and feel deeply and horrifyingly silent at first, - it’s how we start generating the power to win, they say.
But recently we seem to have trained and armed ourselves with righteousness and commitment to the triumph of life!
PROMISE:
We will NOT live as a nation ourselves if we do not find a way to save them and get them to update their brains and hearts and souls !

I do not support ousting the current presidential team, but I work for educating them to become PRO LIFE and help the world regain its proud humanity.
ON this Memorial Day - when we honor the “last full measure of devotion” given by our military in uniform, I ask you to do your part to be WORHTY of their sacrifice.
DO THIS:
In under ONE Hour, for no cost of cash, you can get free petitions to your leaders done and sent to let them know you want LIFE LIFE LIFE restored as a human basic, before it is too late!

You can be sure that the pro-abortion folk are doing their best to beat out LIFE - but since MOST PEOPLE DO SUPPORT LIFE ABOVE ALL many states are winning the battle and the campaigns to restore LIFE as a basic are making headway in the White House and the Supreme Court!

Ruth Bader Ginzberg, mother of Roe v Wade herself yelled LIFE LIFE in her last days in the court - google it - she stated that she failed to provide protections against subsequent abuse of the decision - and she said it had all gone TOO FAR and she hoped that her successors could ACT well within the powers of our Constitution to fix it.

May we please?

I am not likely to do anything even slightly rebellious - two wrongs do not make a right - and I am lifelong redcross and sci-tech and arts - and a widowed mother of two, both successful and married. I know that it comes down to how it works in real life ! But no reality needs to accept Abortion of viable fetuses as the answer.