God Bless the USA

So I heard that Lee Greenwood country classic blaring at the Fourth of July parade in Cave Springs, GA. I believe I wrote that parade up last year, so I won’t do it again—except to say it combines genuine patriotism, high technology, solid prosperity, quirky localism, and evangelical religion.

I also heard a surprisingly good Springsteen cover band at the huge and very classy celebration in Kennesaw, GA. The band had honed its skills by years of performing at legends venues in Vegas. The fake Clarence was too thin but otherwise nailed his role. The people of Kennesaw erred by reacting to BORN IN THE USA as a patriotic tune. The band had enough self-knowledge to not even attempt JUNGLELAND, which is clearly above its pay grade. Overall, the Cobb Country suburb seemed even more genuinely patriotic, high-tech, prosperous, family oriented, and evangelical than Cave Springs. Porchers should follow my social scientific lead and actually visit these places, which, of course, are neither RED nor TORY nor BOHEMIAN but only partly and ambiguously BOURGEOIS.

The Fourth is the day that unites us all—South and North, Federalist and Anti-Federalist, Populist and Progressive, black and white, pomocon and porcher, Obamaist humanitarian and Tea Party libertarian, and Bible thumper and wholehog Darwinian. I’m not going to spoil that with any counterfactual or theoretical speculation.