-America, an advanced citizenship, you’ve gotta want it bad. It doesn’t come without a fight. It states that you should recognize not only the flag but also the right of a person to burn that flag in protest. Embrace that, celebrate that in your classrooms.
Advanced citizenship… Are all Americans advanced citizens? Charlie Manson and Vincent Bugliosi, Martha Corey and Ann Colteur, Harriett Beecher Stowe and Laura Bush, Richard Nixon and Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Pat Robertson?
They do have something in common. That something is an opportunity they all took. America is a country of one and only one opportunity- to become who you really are- to exercise and promote your inner self and that is an American dream. You do not have to change. Manson was a killer and America gave him his chance. Lincoln was a subtle politician by nature and he got his. Laura Bush wanted to do nothing- there she got it. Vincent Bugliosi thrived on integrity- he got his Helter-Skelter hour and now he is after the bigger fish. Many my fellow-immigrants licked the boots in the Soviet Union while secretly spitting on them- they do the same now- licking and spitting.
America is a country of choice and it gives you one. Only one though. Here is Rhodes and here you jump.
For 20 years since I landed on these shores I have been in search of America with passion but without prejudice. It was a path of ups a downs, joys and griefs, happiness and disappointments, love and rage. Many times I burned the totems I worshipped and many times I worshipped the totems I burned. I read many books on the US history just to discover that I knew nothing about.. Russia. And then the spiral of life turned helically like that staircase in the Chambord Castle designed by Leonardo and I returned to my old Russian classics to reread them once again. I have to go back to the drawing board. But now I think, I see the light in the end of the tunnel. That light is in the American Statement, ’You can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.’ I want to be the latter. For my son I have to be the part of the solution. Help me, my fellow-Americans; I am one of you now. No more being a grumpy guest. It took me 20 years to resurrect and now I want to live forever.
Funny thing though; I succumbed to the part of that temptation and wrote a lot about myself. As for the criticism- the US healthcare is a crime. Here, I said it. For the good cause I hope this time.
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