When I was a lad in 6th grade, scion of a left-wing family, avidly reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and listening to Buffy St. Marie, I was the only kid who refused to stan for the National Anthem. I grew up and smartened up considerably since then, but one thing I remember is my father, the leftist professor, explaining to me that really the Anthem raises a note of skepticism at the end. “Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave” according to my father, was a call to introspection, to see if America is still worthy of the ideals on which it was founded. He was right, but I was a pig-headed little left-wing feller, and kept “taking a knee” and getting yelled at by everyone.
One valuable thing I learned from the experience was how to make a stand all alone against a hostile majority, even though in retrospect I realize that the majority and my father were all right and I was wrong.
Vilanueva has already learned that lesson. He’s a lone voice of sanity in an industry which is killing itself, and taking heat for his stand. All power to him. And he’s right.
I’m glad you grew up.
Most of us have a lefist stage...its something that you go through, like the anal stage.