Those audience members were positively RUDE! What kind of lessons are they teaching the kids? To say nothing of what that poor kid who was merely holding the Afghanistan flag must have thought!
It is also unfortunate the the school didn’t have the brains to realize that including a flag of Afghanistan was such a great idea.
Marc
MGibson, don’t go there. That’s like calling sauerkraut “victory cabbage”.
Peace! Brotherhood! Unity! Tolerance! But not for the country where our enemies live (as Monty pointed out, we’re not at war with Afghanistan, but with an alliance composed mainly of Afghani). In fact, let’s get Germany out of there, and Japan, for obvious reasons. You scram, too, Italy. What else? Well, whatever of the former USSR is represented, and Korea, and Spain. Wait, is the United Kingdom here? They should have been first out!
So, about unity and peace…
Couldn’t post because the board shut down just as I was finishing. So I showed the thread, including my post, to Mr. Rilch.
This is a condensed version of our discussion.
Mr. Rilch: We are at war with Afghanistan.
Me: No, we’re at war with Al Quaeda/Taliban.
Mr. Rilch: We are at war—We have troops over there, we have men and women fighting and dying and choking on sand in Afghanistan. We are at war with Afghanistan.
Me: We were at war the Vietcong, but we fought in South Vietnam. They had a war in their country, but it was with another faction.
[discussion of Vietnam policies deleted]
Mr. Rilch: The point is, we are at war with Afghanistan.
Me: The Afghan government is working with us.
Mr. Rilch: Sure they are, after the fact! 9/11 would not have happened if the Afghan government had not harbored terrorists. Dubya said anyone who harbors terrorists is our enemy.
Me: I’ll concede that they did harbor terrorists, and that their cooperation is too late, as you say. But. What many people said, and I agree with, is that booing anything in a grade school production is crude and tacky.
Mr. Rilch: It was a knee-jerk reaction. Some people don’t know better ways to express themselves. Maybe that guy was right and they should have taken the flag out of the parade.
Me: But I said already, about the Victory Cabbage. It’s easy to change the name of something, or throw out everything in your house that was made in Japan, or wear a yellow ribbon. But calling sauerkraut something else didn’t make the Germans go away.
Mr. Rilch: Yeah, but seeing the Afghanistan flag can be very upsetting for some people right now!
Me: You know what I bet. I bet if those people who booed had a friend or relative who was deployed right now, they wouldn’t have any obvious reaction. They would be saddened and maybe apprehensive, thinking about that person, but their emotions would go too deep to be expressed in a crude and tacky manner.
Mr. Rilch: I guess you’re right…Yeah, you can post it. But don’t tell them all that stuff about 'Nam; stick to the point.