The story I heard is that major league baseball has "decreed" that God Bless America must be played during the seventh inning stretch at all games, as long as the US continues to invade Iraq. At the game in question, the crowd was told to stand up, remove their hats - and sing too - even though the game was in Toronto.

No, you can't force people to sing, but this is about as close to it as most people in "free" countries would want to get! Probably closer. At least NHL policy is that both anthems are played, when an American team plays in Canada and vice versa.

I don't think that people who express public discontent with current US actions abroad are necessarily racist or full of hate. Just extremely discontent, and justifiably so imo. Booing anthems and burning flags may not be 'polite', but neither is the bombing of Iraq or the Project for a New American Century.

At least no-one can get arrested for non-violently expressing discontent, however colourfully. Yet. Let's treasure what's left of democratic freedom in this country, close as we are to the apparent US descent into hell.

daylia