Patriotism

[evilqueen]

Patriotism
by Aine MacDermot

"Patriotism denotes positive attitudes by a person to their own nation, to its national homeland, its culture, its 'true' members, and to its interests. It is often associated with ethnocentrism - the belief that the national or ethnic group is superior to others, and should be used as a standard to judge them. Patriotism often implies a relatively less positive attitude to other nations, and to internal minorities which are not considered part of the nation. The word is derived from the Latin patria, fatherland, which has a much broader meaning than a geographical territory." - Wikipedia

Patriotism : The word implies that one should put the interests of one's own nation above personal interests, and in extreme situations even above one's own survival. Those who boldly throw this word around today, however, seldom personally sacrifice anything, and instead use the word to imply that if one doesn't agree with the architects of the Iraq war, that that somehow makes a person unpatriotic and unsupportive of the troops and their families who are making the ultimate sacrifice. Clearly, those who oppose the architects of the Iraq war do not blame the brave Americans in Iraq for the failure to turn this war into the "cakewalk" predicted by certain wildly optimistic armchair warriors in Washington.

Cindy Sheehan of Gold Star Families for Peace whose son, Casey, was killed in Iraq considers our government’s dubious (at best) objectives in Iraq to be not worth the life of her son and other Americans and Iraqis who have died and will die there, but she does consider the architects of the Iraq war responsible for his death, and by virtue of the sacrifice her son and her family have made, she is entitled to know the real reason, the "noble cause" for which he died.

Yet how dare anyone question Cindy Sheehan's patriotism, especially those who sacrifice nothing. Ironically, those who make such statements say that soldiers die defending our freedom, but not once do they ever question how our freedom might have suffered if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq. Personally, I think that since the invasion of Iraq, we have lost more freedom than we might have had if we had never invaded Iraq at all.

Such freedoms as the ability to question authority, to demand to know where our tax dollars are being spent and to have the government accountable for every penny, to know what our government's plans are for dealing with a wide range of problems -- and I should add that if our government was as noble and as honest as it supposedly claims, there is no need to hide information from the American people especially in regards to rendition, torture, or even the background documents of Supreme Court nominees -- and to know as much about our government and the financial and legal affairs of our public servants as they apparently know about us. In a country which claims to love freedom, it should not be considered unpatriotic even to ask for those things that define us as free. We shouldn't even have to ask, those things should be a given. But since they're not, the act of questioning authority should not be used as a litmus test for patriotism.

Those who unfailingly support anything the leaders of our government do are not patriots, and they have not earned that freedom which they say they so love. For many, it's some form of misguided national pride in a nation that does not act honorably towards even it's smallest minority, and let's not forget this nation's veterans. In terms of "supporting our troops" this nation's record of supporting our veterans and their needs, or keeping the promises this nation made to service members and their families is certainly nothing to be proud of. Most Americans would be appalled if they knew how many times those promises were broken, and how many veterans suffer because of those broken promises.

Sticking a yellow ribbon magnet on an SUV which gulps large quantities of gasoline, in turn forcing our troops to stay in the Middle East fighting for the domination of oil fields of which they will not share in the profits, risking their lives for the sake of "big oil" interests and the military-industrial profiteers, amounts to a slap in the face, and at the very least, little more than lip service as far as "supporting our troops" is concerned. Those who buy and display such magnets, their money might be better spent taking up a collection for body armor, or prosthetics, or healthcare for reservists, or donating to the Paralyzed Veterans of America and other veteran's groups.

Their time might be better spent putting pressure on their Senators and Congress members to keep the promises made to service members at the very least, and at best, to increase the amount of funds for disability compensation for disabled vets, or to increase the pay and benefits for active duty and reservists so that their families aren't forced to apply for food stamps (which many, to our national shame, are forced to do). Instead, what we have is a government who cannot account for $9 billion spent in Iraq, who will not stop giving government contracts to those corporations that have proven records of overcharging for services rendered, a government who won't submit to an audit and is willing to privatize security forces in the Middle East to private contractors. These contractors are earning pay that is many times that of our troops who are subject to the same risks as those privately contracted security squads in Iraq. One might risk being labeled "unpatriotic" by asking why are those who don't wear the uniform paid so much better than those who do? Are they more valued than our troops? But no one seems to be supporting our troops by asking such questions, least of all the self-proclaimed patriotic troop supporters on the Right.

I'd like to ask those people how smearing the good name of the mother of a dead American soldier, or of any combat veteran of the United States military (including those running for political office) could possibly be mistaken for "supporting our troops"? I'd like to ask how those purple bandaids that Republican members of the Legislature were wearing which denigrated the sacrifices of our Purple Heart veterans could possibly be mistaken for "supporting our troops"?

Do tell, a disabled veteran wants to know.

[ArthurRuger]

1. Patriotic Duty - The relationship between the Citizen, the Soldier and the

I agree with you.

Despite claims by supporters of the Bush administration to a monopoly on American patriotism and their right to define that patriotism, organizations such as MFSO are exercising one of the highest duties with which any American citizen is charged. If our family members serving in the military are duty bound to follow their Commander-in-Chief they then have a right to expect fidelity from that commander. The commander must have no higher priority than the greatest possible support of the troops, must focus on keeping them as safe and least exposed to harms way as possible in pursuit of national security objectives.

Likewise, citizens are duty-bound to our military in a way no less important than the troops' obligation to obey and trust their commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief is neither an emperor nor a dictator and at all times remains accountable to all citizens - not just those who voted for him. American civilians have - as their highest duty in support of our family members in the military - an insistence on accountability for decisions placing our troops in harms way. We in fact are a vital part of a system of checks and balances that must function in order to protect the integrity of what constitutes democracy in America.

On the one hand, military devotion to duty, courage in the line of fire, and obedience regardless of agreement or disagreement with command decisions ought to be the highest measure of soldierly patriotism.

On the other hand, civilian devotion to the fact of American democratic process is equally vital in making sure ulterior motives and secret special interest agendas are not placed ahead of the safety and well-being of our troops.

When either of the dominant political parties in this country makes an assertion that patriotism and loyalty are defined within that particular party, we disenfranchise ourselves if we blindly buy into that notion. Particularly dangerous is the circumstance where we as citizens find politicians attempting to exploit what they believe to be our own personal politics, philosophy or economic outlook with highly emotional rhetoric in an attempt to stampede us into acting without thinking.

We see the Democratic Party expend a lot of energy trying to appeal to the electorate as an alternative to the Republican administration that - in response primarily to 9/11 - launched this country into a military enterprise. We see the Republican Party expend a lot of energy trying to appeal to the electorate based entirely on a war on terrorism launched after the 9/11 event - essentially appealing to our patriotism.

What has devolved is a conflict around who is patriotic and who is not.

The fundamental truth of the matter is this: Neither party has the monopoly on patriotism. Neither party is empowered to define for you and for me what it means to love your country and what a patriotic act looks like.

The politician who says that those who do not support the President are then in support of terrorists is deliberately denying that which is at the heart of democracy.

The politician who declares that dissent and disagreement with national leadership is not patriotic and in fact is a betrayal of the country is deliberately denying that which is at the heart of democracy.

The politician who declares that families with relatives on active duty betray those relatives when they openly disagree with the administration is deliberately attempting to harm a vital component of our political system in pursuit of a personal agenda.

If we who remain at home do not do our part to make a powerful lobby on behalf of our military troops we may be able to lay the blame for disaster at the feet of those whose politics got us into a disaster. However, the blame will lay more fully in our corner for believing someone else's deliberate denial of what is at the heart of our America.

It is, after all, Our America.

There are more of us owners out of office than in office but We the People remain in charge.

[evilqueen]

2. Thank you for a well-written response

I don't think the majority of the American people actually stop to think about these matters as deeply as you seem to have, and that's a shame because they are not aware of what sacrifices they are asking our service members and their families to make on their behalf, nor do they seem to appreciate the irony of their support of those who needlessly placed our troops in harm's way while ignoring the real needs of our nation's military and their families. I can't comment on everything you've written here, but...

You wrote:

"On the one hand, military devotion to duty, courage in the line of fire, and obedience regardless of agreement or disagreement with command decisions ought to be the highest measure of soldierly patriotism.

On the other hand, civilian devotion to the fact of American democratic process is equally vital in making sure ulterior motives and secret special interest agendas are not placed ahead of the safety and well-being of our troops."

Devotion to duty, courage in the line of fire, and obedience to command decisions are honorable virtues of soldiers, but that honor is tarnished when they've been deliberately misled, deliberately under-equipped to "complete their mission", and deliberately under-compensated for the sacrifices they have made.

Civilians who are blindly supporting leadership which does not have the best interests of our military members and their families at heart, which hides the extent and severity of the casualties sustained in military action, and which serially changes the justifications for putting our military in harm's way, however, are not doing their duty in protecting our nation's military from being grieviously misused by the profiteers of war. They mistake blind loyalty for patriotism.


"Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else, and that's the idea that when the troops are in combat everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can't think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what's the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed?" ~ Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former CENTCOM Commander-in-Chief, 21 May 2004, CBS "60 Minutes"

[ArthurRuger]

3. Thanks back to you.

I've been registered at D.U. for more than a year but had hardly posted until this weekend.

Otherwise I'd have enough posts to nom your original post.

[riverrunner]

4. because they have a noise machine backing them up

[evilqueen]

5. it's not just the noise machine that's the problem

If I've been shown anything in the past year about the power of an informed electorate, it is this:

The blogosphere, as often as it's been viewed as inconsequential, amateur, self-serving, and gossip-laden, has been the only entity in this country that has attempted to and succeeded in bringing important issues into the mainstream media, holding their feet to the fire, opening the eyes of our legislators, etc.

Without our freedom of speech here, I might well consider the entire notion of a free and open society just an empty dream.

A small group of people, or even an individual like Cindy Sheehan, CAN and DO make a difference. Never doubt that you, too, have the power to change things, because you do.

[riverrunner]

6. yep one person can make a difference

but you gotta be smart about it.