Absolutely. I remember when President Bush visited Slovakia, and the people came out in droves to see him. They even swarmed his motorcade trying to meet him. Many of these folks are more patriotic than our own, especially the damn democrats.
Posted on 07/04/2010 8:34:40 PM PDT by Palter
German flags have sprouted like red, black and gold wildflowers across Berlin this summer. They're appearing on balconies, cars, bicycles, storefront windows, even painted on children's cheeks. Few can match Youssef Bassal's.
Eager to show his enthusiasm for Germany's soccer team during the World Cup, Mr. Bassal, a 38-year old Lebanese immigrant, unfurled a 60-by-15-foot German flag a few weeks ago, on the facade of the building that houses his cell-phone store.
Mr. Bassal knew his Fahne, as the Germans call it, would draw onlookers. What he didn't anticipate was the reaction—outrage.
During the flag's first night on exhibit, Mr. Bassal says, two youths tore it down and tried to set it on fire. Mr. Bassal ordered a new flag, and this time hung it so that it was harder to reach from the sidewalk. Shortly thereafter, a masked group of nighttime marauders showed up, and the second flag disappeared, he says.
Police suspect the culprits are members of Berlin's radical leftist scene. For them, the enormous flag is nothing less than a provocation, a repugnant display of German nationalism.
Across Germany, the story of Youssef Bassal's flag has become a sensation. Since the vandalism began, a steady stream of television crews and reporters have shown up at his little store, here on a street nicknamed "Arab Alley" in Berlin's Neukölln neighborhood, known for its large population of Arab and Turkish immigrants.
That a man from Lebanon named Youssef has gone to such lengths to display and defend Germany's flag—a symbol many Germans themselves are ambivalent about—has forced many here to question the stereotypes they harbor about the country's immigrant population. Immigrants are generally referred to in Germany collectively, often derisively, as Ausländer, foreigners.
None of that worries Mr. Bassal.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
That’s great that you live in an area where patriotism is on display year-round. Your neighborhood sounds as if there are not that many households per square mile.
In my neighborhood, non-rural but not downtown, almost suburban but not quite, there are many houses on each street. I think the display of flags in this neighborhood, per capita, was rather paltry compared to that in the town where I grew up, a few miles away.
There's a house up the street about a mile away that flies both the U.S. and State of California flag, and not just on holidays, either. This house also has a service star displayed in the window.
I spent a good deal of my youth growing up in Compton (in L.A. county), which was an all black city in those days. Even so, patriotism was always on full display, every Independence Day.
That was then - this is now. If you'd driven over to your old hometown neighborhood today, I'm sure you'd have seen fewer flags out than what you remember from your youth.
L.A. and the rest of SoCal has turned into some sort of foreign country. I'm not at all surprised at the lack of patriotic displays there anymore.
It's not on Lowell Avenue in La Crescenta, is it? I know of a house there that flies both flags year-round. I used to live not five houses away. A rare patriot for that area.
No, it’s quite a ways from there. :)
Suffice it to say this is a deep blue area, but now and then I’ll run into someone of like mind, and it is very refreshing, like water in the desert.
I know what you mean. I used to have the same experience ever so often when I lived there. Where I live now, the more conservative, patriotic view is the norm.
I can't tell you how hard that was to get used to when we first moved here. I was so accustomed to living undercover in L.A., that it was a bit hard for me to accept.
Imagine living in a place where love of country is the default mode, and liberals keep a low profile. Believe it or not, those places do exist in America.
Credit must go to Jurgen Klinsmann for totally changing the culture of Die Mannschaft. Nobody knew who Loew was before Klinsmann brought him on as an assistant.
This is precisely why the US has to do whatever it takes to bring Klinsi on to manage the US team.
Absolutely. I remember when President Bush visited Slovakia, and the people came out in droves to see him. They even swarmed his motorcade trying to meet him. Many of these folks are more patriotic than our own, especially the damn democrats.
Is that a real photo???? For me looks like Juan and Evita Peron.
I haven’t read anything about bozo’s inDependence day speech.
I can guess, though, that he probably turned the meaning of the Declaration inside out.
Obama: “Independence Day about civil rights, voting rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights..”
Declaration of Independence: “...unalienable rights from our Creator”
OBOZO hates America, rejects our Constitution and “pals around” with marxist & mooslum dictators & terrorists.
I figured as much - GROUP rights, not individual rights.
“civil rights” but not for whitey
“voter rights” ditto
“workers’ rights”, but only if you’re a ‘rat supporting union member
“women’s rights” - do men have rights, too?
President Bush certainly was a great representative for our country, and for the ideals of freedom and liberty. Many people around the world saw him as the very personification of the American Promise and responded to him with great affection and adulation. Especially those of the former Eastern Bloc countries.
Liberals in this country never understood that reaction, and most little noted it. They're so blinded by their poisonous ideology that they simply don't see that the full realization of their political goals brings about conditions that are the exact opposite of freedom and liberty.
I wonder if even one in a hundred liberals ever stops to wonder why the people of the former USSR so quickly embraced free market capitalism and democratic forms of government after the fall of Communism there.
Perhaps those people know just a bit more about real Socialism than our moonbat liberals do.
Understand that any outward show of German pride has been seen as a precursor to nationalism, which reminds everyone of the Hitler Period. It’s not that they aren’t inwardly proud, it’s the outward show that has been verboten.
I haven’t lived in Germany for decades,yet watching all the germans during world cup waving their flags did make me a bit squeamish. Not complaining, but even for people born decades after, it’s a strange burden to carry. Maybe we have all moved past the past now...still.
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