Patriotism:
Religion and patriotism have been the toughest nuts for me to crack over the years. When I was young everything seemed so much simpler: there were the good guys and the bad guys and everyone knew the difference. The cowboys were the good guys and the Indians were the bad guys. The United States was the good guys, anyone our government declared the bad guys were the bad guys. Those who lived in Crotonville (the seedier part of town) were the bad guys and those in more affluent neighborhoods were the good guys. People who went to church, especially my church, were the good guys, those who didn't were the bad guys. The communists, the North Koreans, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Arabs, those who used illegal recreational drugs, those who marched angrily on the streets or disrupted political conventions were the bad guys---and so it went. The nice thing about those times for me was everything was so orderly and clearly labeled. Those dissidents living within the boundaries of the United States, if they didn't like it here they could leave---the sooner the better. Those who resisted our policies abroad, if they didn't like our policies, they could take one of our bombs up their ass and deserve it. The National Anthem, the Lord's prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, a parade of military equipment of any sort, etc, sent chill's down my spine every time. At those times I was really glad which side I was on, immensely proud to be aligned with the right country, the right religion, the right side of town, the right ethnic group, whatever---which ever side I was on were the good guys. Rah, rah, rah.
I suspect I might have stayed on the 'straight and narrow' road of good guys and bad guys if I had not been a bit of a loner, one who spent a good deal of time observing the interactions of others---one who, after graduating from high school, began to---just once in a while---began to sense the pain and injustice heaped upon some of these 'bad guys'. Once you find some of the 'bad guys' are not really so bad, it sort of unsettles the whole rosy simple picture. Slowly I began to realize not every one with a recreational drug problem was a bad guy (certainly not a candidate for jail), that some of these people angrily marching in the street had legitimate grievances, that many religious beliefs different from mine had no more logical legitimacy than my own inherited religious beliefs, that many people raised on the wrong side of the tracks were more honest, trustworthy, emotionally stronger, had better priorities, and were more self reliant than those on the right side of the tracks, that it was not really so clear why it is automatically ok to send troops around the globe, level countries, and kill the inhabitants by the thousands upon thousands.
Recently I heard a politician, I think it was Romney, emotionally defend our country by pointing out that we were the greatest nation on the earth because we sent our soldiers around the world, sacrificing their lives for other countries, and we never, despite our military superiority, take any land and claim it for our own. He nearly came to tears thinking about all the Americans who have died in foreign combat. For their efforts, he concluded---America must become even stronger militarily, that we must never let our adversaries win, that he worried about those who would fail to back up the sacrifices of all our dead soldiers and let their efforts be in vain. There I guess is patriotism in the rawest form. At a younger age I certainly would have been there cheering with tears in my eyes. Support our troops! Support our troops! Support our troops!
I think Romney got it right when he said 'Support our troops'. Of course the best way to have supported our troops would have been to never have sent them into harm's way for the wrong reasons. All 3500 or so of our dead troops would still be alive if the Iraq War had never been launched. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would be alive if we had never launched that war. Millions of Iraqis would not be homeless if we had not launched that war. Romney certainly had it right when he railed that no country has sacrificed more men dying on foreign soils. After that his logic and ethics seem faulty to me. First I am not aware, since World War II, that any country has been going around grabbing up the land of sovereign nations. To the extent this is true that certainly removes any bragging rights about the U.S. not doing so. Even our biggest adversaries haven't done that---Russia, China, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Iran, etc. Perhaps Romney needs to be reminded that countries are not suppose to do that kind of thing. Not doing what you are not supposed to do hardly earns you a medal.
I am well aware that for most of our history the foreign policy of the U.S. was to refrain from meddling in the affairs of other sovereign nations. We, for example, were like the last nation to get involved in World War I and World War II. And World War II may well indeed be the last of any wars with clearly demarcated good guys and bad guys. Since that time, in the context of this discourse---the 'good old days' have been replaced by some sort of arrogant U.S. foreign policy of 'manifest destiny' seeped in economic and military empire building. With this as the general gist of our foreign policy we have the unique distinction of being the country who has killed the most citizens of other sovereign countries. Whoever is in second place is nowhere remotely close to us. It must be in the millions by now. I will forever feel guilty about how 'patriotic' I was during most of the Vietnam War. No matter how many villages we leveled, how many hundreds of thousand Vietnamese we killed, no matter how many Vietnamese were left homeless and destitute, there I was waving the American flag, cursing the draft dodgers, and in short making a patriotic ass of myself. When I visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington years later I felt personally ashamed and an accessory for their senseless deaths. For the first time it dawned on me that when your own country behaves badly it deserves to lose, not win. Vietnam had been fighting for many decades to control their own destiny, not be occupied by foreign powers. They had a right to fight to reunite their own country after being divided by foreign powers. They had a right to settle for themselves the question of what kind of government they wanted and who their leaders should be. We deserved to lose that war while the slaughter of lives on both sides was a travesty of universal moral principles. And having lost that war, none of the dire consequences preached to the American people by our government leaders ever occurred. After the Vietnam War I had to go back to the drawing board to redefine patriotism. Patriotism can never be some sort of blind 'my country, right or wrong'. The real patriots in the Vietnamese War were those young men and women who refused to slaughter citizens of another country for no valid reasons. If the rest of us could have been so 'patriotic' all those senseless deaths would have never occurred.
Perhaps the only kind of patriotism worth a tinkers damn is moral patriotism. Moral patriotism is to support your country to the fullest on all ventures which have a clear cut ethical basis. I, for example, am never going to support ego centric attitudes of manifest destiny or empire building. I don't think my country has any right to establish 750 military bases in 130 different countries. No other country in the world claims such a right, and why do we? We have no right to use our military presence in other countries to protect governments from their own people. And yes, what goes around does come around. Every terrorist group across the globe, hell bent on killing Americans, exist in order to get our military bases out of their country. Al Quaida was formed to rid Saudi Arabia of American bases on it's soil. 9/11 was an attack by citizens of Saudi Arabia to express their displeasure of our military presence in their country. Since then it has become kind of a generic term applied to any group fighting to get an American military presence out of this or that country.
Most citizens of the world react with bewilderment to this 'new America'. Whatever happened to the 'old' America which led by example, a real friend of the people all across the globe---a beacon of hope for all the oppressed, the destitute, those seeking an opportunity for a better life. The priorities of our government today are substantially out of kilter with many of the accepted priorities of the past. A good portion of our policies today are abhorrent to the values and priorities of most American citizens. Without trying to be all inclusive here, how many Americans support our policies of empire building, our environmental policies, our attitude toward global warming, our indifference to the medical plight of millions of our people, the inability to provide equal funding of education for all our young people, minimum wage levels that fail to keep pace with inflation, loss of job security, loss of pensions, a distribution of wealth that creates the fastest growing differential between the Haves and the Have Nots of any modern industrialized country, an ever growing monster military/industrial complex that spends tens time more of our GNP than other countries spend of their own GNP. Because of this obsession with military bases and military solutions to conflict anywhere on the globe, all other needs get more and more neglected. The result is an increasing struggle to keep up economically with our major competitors, and inability to meet the needs of many of our own citizens, an indifference to the global concerns other nations want to address, and a vigorous growth of terrorism against Americans across the globe by all those foreign dissidents who want American military bases out of their countries.
Be all this as it may, what does all this translate to when it comes to patriotism? Are those who support our current policies patriots and those who don't support these policies unpatriotic? If the political power were to switch in this country does that mean a similar shift in who the patriots are? Given the nature of things today I kind of dislike the word patriotism more every day. I think I resent the attempt to sugar coat bad behavior and policies with all kinds of 'patriotic' symbols and displays. When an important sporting event is saturated with ostentatious displays of mammoth flags, military marching bands, modern jets flying overhead, military generals lined up for recognition, wounded soldiers on display, moments of silence for the dead in the current wars of the day, etc.----well, it reminds me of Hitlerian Germany, where this kind of thing was perfected and used all the time at sporting events. Personally, I am tuned in to watch a sport contest, not pay homage to militarism as a foreign policy. I used to love watching all kinds of military planes perform at the Chicago Air Show, held once a year. Now my appreciation of these shows is clouded by realizing just how many millions across the globe see these planes fly over their country and are fearful they are about to be bombed. So many things are relative.
I can't define patriotism with any degree of accuracy. I guess those who cheer Bush on are patriotic. I think those of us who find the policies of Bush despicable and view our current attitudes and priorities with sadness are patriotic too. Those who fought in the Vietnam War were patriotic; those who refused to fight in that war were patriotic too. So what good is patriotism? I am not sure I know anyone who is not patriotic. I do see people who differ widely in how they feel their country should behave and what kind of priorities should exist.
With all the above as the rationale I am personally no longer going to let patriotism be part of my personality. There are certain ethical principles and priorities which attract my allegiance. If I am for or against anything I want to try, as best I can, to base my support on these ethical principles and priorities. To the extent my own country is aligned with these same ethical principles and priorities I enthusiastically support my country. To the extent my own country abandons these ethical principles and priorities I am non supportive. When I read a poll which claims only 13% of Republicans think global warming is a major problem, I cringe in disbelief. When I see Americans reflexly cheer American soldiers who are fighting in Iraq I am very conflicted. What the hell is there to cheer about? What we have created over there is inexcusably abhorrent. There is only one cheer appropriate for American soldiers at this time: "Bring the troops home....Bring the troops home.......Bring the troops home." And for those who believe we should stay and participate in somebody else's Civil War I just think that should be permitted on a voluntary basis, and those who think this way but are unwilling to volunteer should be muzzled or force-ably dropped into Baghdad---their choice. I guess that constitutes some kind of patriotism.
