1) Patriotic Ritual
I am not a patriot. I keep running into patriots, but I have never been a patriot. In grade school I eventually realized what "pledge allegiance to the flag" meant: but of course we all had to recite it long before we could be expected to understand 10% of the implications. No, it's wasn't pledging the legions of the flag, it was "allegiance": a hard concept even for an adult. Still, I put up with the HSC's quorum of ritual, having been free of it since I got out of the army, because I wanted to get back on my dancing feet and wanted to continue to grow some of the erotic friendships I was fast making.
(I "loved" Ahn from the start, that love grew before it soured, but it was alwatys clear: Ahn was married, Ahn was married to Bob. I flirted with her, I danced with her, I was courtly to her ... Then I went away and left her alone.)
Still, it's a bit much to arrest a guy, me, for what he wrote, in violation of the Bill of Rights, and then to group recite secular boiler plate about "liberty and justice for all." It rankles a bit. And behind me, I'd hear people, who knew I was no patriot and had been jailed as a federal felon (freedom of speech = federal felony (in pk's case) (as in others')) would growl behind me during the rituals:
"America! Love it Or Leave it!"
2) Secular Versions of Sacred Ritual: Christmas, for example:
Ahn routinely scheduled more activities for HSC than could fit into a day. Then a special occasion would come up and and scheduled events would be forgotten. My dance lessons would be shoved aside: so some lawyer could explain wills, for a fashion show, for reason after reason. But then my dance lessons, though verbally approved by CEO Ahn had never gotten recorded into any official notes. (Ahn keeps records such as emails by throwing them away!)
I say above that I am not a patriot. I say additionally that because I am a disciple of Jesus (Christ was behind my offer of a cheap internet in 1970: steal from me, you're stealling from God), that I am Not A Christian! I want nothing to do with people who identify themselves as saved, and only to do with people I see evidence Jesus has marked as saved. Therefore, I follow Ivan Illich: because I see his halo! Others have followed me because they see mine. (While others persecute me the moment they suspect that they might see mine: people who have no idea that the society is damned until proved otherwise; not saved until proved damned!) Anyway, though I squirmed for presents when I was a kid, I soon came puritanically to disapprove of Christmas, and especially it's made for the managed marketplace atmosphere. I tell Christians: Cromwell had celebrators of Christmas put in the stocks: Christmas is Pagan ritual masquerading behind Jesus' name. No avail, no understanding.
Do we really believe God is going to back the damned against Jesus' disciples?! (Jail is not a sane place, but among the damned, it's the least insane!) (When Emerson asked Thoreau what he was doing in jail, Thoreau asked Emerson what he was doing out of jail!)
Anyway: Ahn initiated a fund raising drive to give Christmas presents to children of poor families. Some poor children, black of course, were rounded up and paraded before these octogenarian consumers. I don't trust churches to administer charities. I don't trust secular charities to take over. HSC is legally a charity (however conspicuously it is run by and for Bob and Ahn McQueen) (I'll go into details about that elsewhere, soon); but what I would like to see as a charitable act would be for the octogenarians to scout around in neighborhoods they've never been in before, find some poor people, then see what they most need, then decided if they want to give them any part of it.
Does the kid need a doll? or a bicycle? or a candy? Might not the kid need a doctor's appointment? a bowl of soup? new shoes? a bandage? I hate the prescription of presents to people we don't know!
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