SIGNING UP FOR THE CRUSADES:

I Become an American (ALEXANDER COCKBURN, CounterPunch)

We’ll come momentarily to Obama’s discovery that it’s not all fun being president, but first a bulletin on regime-change for co-editor Cockburn. Though the U.S. Constitution seemingly blocks my path at this time, I have taken the first necessary step in my own quest for the White House by becoming a citizen of the United States at approximately 10 am, Pacific time, last Wednesday, June 17, in the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California.

To my immediate left in the vast and splendid deco theater was a Moroccan, to my right a Salvadoran and around us 956 other candidates for citizenship from 98 countries, each holding a small specimen of the flag that was about to become our standard. All of us had sworn early that day that since our final, successful interview with immigration officials we had not become prostitutes or members of the Communist Party. Inductees to U.S. nation-hood were downstairs; relatives and friends were up in the balcony, including CounterPuncher and friend Scott Handleman, attorney at law. I was determined to start out on the right path. What is more American than to have a lawyer nearby?

Master of ceremonies was US Citizenship and Immigration Service agent Randy Ricks. The amiable Ricks actually conducted my final interview in USCIS’s San Francisco hq. At the Paramount he pulled off the rather showy feat of making short welcoming speeches to the cheerful throng in French, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Russian and I think Hindi. After various preliminaries, including uplifting videos about Ellis Island that tactfully omitted the darker moments in the island’s past, Ricks issued instructions. Each time, starting with Afghanistan, he announced a country the cohort from that nation stood up and it was easy to see that China, India, the Philippines and Salvador were very strongly represented.

A handful of Zambians brought us to the end of the roster and we were all on our feet. We raised our right hands and collectively swore that we “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty” and that that we would “bear arms on behalf of the United States”, or perform “work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.” The phrase rang a bell. In the Second World War in Britain , so my mother Patricia would recall from time to time, cats patrolling warehouses where food was stored would get extra rations for performing work of national importance.

Minutes later I was outside on the sidewalk, registering to vote, albeit declining to state which party I would favor.

Many of you won't be old enough to recall Mr.Cockburn and Christopher Hitchens making their bones in the 80s raging against Ronald Reagan and his war on the USSR. For those of us who were subjected to it, the fact that both are now citizens of a significantly more conservative America than the Gipper led is simply hilarious.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 26, 2009 5:10 PM