Why I’m thankful to be an American
It’s too easy to lose sight of what makes this country great.
A friend shared with me the Counting Crows rendition of This Land Is Your Land. Give a listen. Woody Guthrie would approve, I think.
It’s a patriotic song. In my circles, patriotism has been out of favor for a long time–for half a century, really, since the days of Vietnam and Watergate. You don’t see many flags flying in the solid blue precincts of Bethesda, MD, not even on the 4th of July.
A despairing Michelle Goldberg writes in The Times: “American life is still comprehensively awful.”
No, it isn’t.
This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful to be an American. Not with a love-it-or-leave-it ugliness, to be sure, but in a way that enables us to take stock of our country’s progress while recognizing its problems.
No doubt the problems are serious. I’m troubled that in a nation as wealthy as ours, so many are poor; people live in tents not far from the White House. I’m embarrassed by the dismal quality of our K-12 public schools, especially those in low-income neighborhoods. I’m outraged that we lock up so many people. I’m concerned about threats to our democracy. The level of gun violence in the US is sick.
