Thanks for the recipe, Otto. What a great post. I'll let you know how it turns out.

As for the rest of you - do any of you EVER have anything good WHATSOEVER to say about America? I mean, you sure as hell can expend shitloads of energy condemning. I understand bitching and whining is the whole point of this thread, but I can't recall the last time I read a single post pointing out the good that exists within our country - anywhere on this board. I guess being bitter and cynical about every single thing in the world just comes easier, eh? Maybe if you all got your asses out from under the keyboard once in a while and actually DID something about it, you wouldn't have so damned much to complain about. But no, that might actually involve a little SACRIFICE.

Enjoy your ulcers and hardening arteries, and I'll think of you as I bake that terrific-sounding pie.

Darn those Chinese and their slave labor anyway! Let's show them, and bomb Iraq!

To just interject a serious note here, my husband, who doesn't share my no-TV-today mindset, watched the Ground Zero memorial service on the three local channels this morning and reported it was extremely moving, particularly the part where they read all the names individually. He says WCBS used the "bottom crawl" to good effect, highlighting each name as it was read with a little picture of the person and their age.

- Elayne

You have seen them work and said nothing?

Shame on you!

There are great things about America. There is the Bill of Rights that our current administration is trying to undermine. There is the real and true love in the hearts of Americans that Ashcroft and Rumsfeld are trying to deteriorate by issuing warnings like "there may be a terrorist attack sometime between now and July 2007." There are the wonderful civil liberties that we all enjoy. The ones that can't be taken away from us, despite the fact that there are Americans in opinion polls who say that journalists should be licensed by the government. Do you know what kind of countries issued licenses to journalists? The USSR, Afghanastan and Iraq, just to name a few.

You're right. We should be enjoying life. We should be LIVING today. And we should love our country, at least what our country is based on. But in times like this, when most Americans are so overly patriotic that they would ignore what's really going on; that's when people need to "complain" the most. So that people don't let tyrany win. So that we CAN be free.

Danny

You seem to enjoy writing sentence fragments, and placing punctuation incorrectly proves my point. Perhaps you should write drafts on paper before you post on Comicon.

Stop trying to write complicated sentences. I suggest you master the simple first. Your writing shows promise and I encourage you to keep at it.

Have a wonderful day!

Eel, you have a point there, but the reason I started this thread wasn't to provoke. I did it becauseI wanted to. I did it because people are going around saying "God Bless America" and "THE USA IS THE BEST" without questioning. It's like Terry Gilliam's "Brazil", where everyone (except Sam Lowry, his dream girl and Harry Tuttle) are enchanted by power and luxury while not giving two shits about the reality (ex: a terrorist bomb goes off and some waiter hide the sight of burnt and bloddy bodies with a folding wall.)

This country, like the average human being, is neither the best or the worst. We're just a mixed bag. Have you ever seen the film, which is a cool favorite of mine, "Alien Nation" (written by "Farscape" creator, Rockne S. O' Bannon)? Check out this quote:

"You humans are very curious to us. You invite us to live among you in an atmosphere of equality that we've never known before. You give us ownership of our own lives for the first time, and you ask no more of us than you do of yourselves. I hope you understand how special your world is. I hope you understand how unique a people you humans are. Which is why it is all the more painful and confusing to us that so few of you seem capable of living up to the ideals you set for yourselves."

— Sam Francisco, a.k.a. "George" (Mandy Patinkin)

The last part's why I'm (and a whole lot of others) are critical of the United States, and we live here all the same. We said this is a democracy yet a lot of us don't live up to the ideals that make up the democracy. It's easy to say we deserve what happened on September 11, 2001, but who wants to be Jerry "The Fat Fuck Ayatollah" Falwell? It's easy to wave the flag, yet in a recent survey, a lot of people said The First Amendment goes too far. You can say "America: love or leave it", yet ask a disabled Vietnam veteran how he felt when he lost an arm, a leg, the use of both legs or any horrific physicial limit while fighting a war we had no business in.

I don't hate the USA. I'm just vigilant against those who wish to take the ideals of the country do away with them and realized the nightmare George Orwell warned in "1984". We should get the bad guys. That shouldn't, God helps us, equate in becoming the bad guys.

"I keep track of these things, Clark. One of us has to." -Batman, from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #4.

Be all of that as it may (and it isn't):

Kim hasn't posted in this thread and isn't a registered member of Comicon any more -- there seems to be no point in dragging him into it.

I have said nothing in this thread or any other about Iraq. I don't understand why you are responding as if I had.

I think child labor is one of the world's great horror stories, perhaps second only to child sexual exploitation. I also believe that the situation with the slave labor in China (and other nations) should figure much more more prominently into American foreign policy than it does.

It's a central irony of the American people that we proudly proclaim our freedom by displaying patriotic gee-gaws churned out by people who will never be free in any meaningful sense of the word.

Wow, you mentioned '1984' and quoted The Dark Knight AND Alien Nation. NERD.

"Oooohhh, I'm posting this while we still live in a democracy."

That's what set me off. This handwringing "Oh 1984 Oh McCarthyism OH DISSENT IS BEING CRUSHED" hysterical crap that's been squealed since last year.
Dissent isn't being crushed, but you go on acting like you're a vanguard of liberty, you wild crazy munchy crunchy rebel you.

I would rather be a nerd and a rebel than a dumb, naive, illiterate punk like you. Stop sucking on your penis, commander. You look dumb in that position.