Patriotism: Trash or Treasure?

Eisenhower.

Can anyone honestly tell me that the kind of patriotism espoused by the Bush administration is not evil?

http://www.vaiw.org/vet/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=161
A site for Veterans Against The Iraq War--the following excerpts were taken from the above site:

As General Douglas MacArthur noted:

• "The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear: Keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real…."
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The following letter was written by Stephen Coder, U.S, Army (Ret.)

George W. Bush
The White House
Washington D.C.

Sir,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen and military veteran. When my family first arrived in America in 1732, the United States did not yet exist and the eastern seaboard was ruled by a King who had no respect for the people who lived there. The sons of the first Coder's fought for liberty and freedom from that King. In fact, my family has fought in every conflict and war that this nation has ever engaged in, some paying for our freedom with their lives. My father fought at Bataan and survived the Death March and 3 1/2 years as a POW, he then fought again in Korea. I served as a Marine grunt in Viet Nam and also in the Army during Grenada, Panama, and Gulf War I (Desert Storm). My son is now serving in Iraq. He has been there from the very beginning.

I have watched the direction that you and your Administration are taking this nation and I have been recoiling in horror. You and your Attorney General are one by one eroding the freedoms that so many of us have fought and died for. You have turned most of the Free World
against us and destroyed the respect most of the people on this planet held for this country. You claim to be a Christian and a man of honor, if that were so then the only honorable thing that you could do is order the resignation of nearly all of your appointees and decline to run again for any public office. But we both know you are not a man of honor, and we both know that you are not a Christian either. Christ must retch every time he hears you refer to your self as one.

Please, for the good of this great nation, you must step aside and allow us to get on with the business of freedom, liberty, and justice.

Stephen Coder
U.S. Army (Ret)
Las Vegas, NV
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Eisenhower
Eisenhower's wisdom:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13816&highlight=

Come now perc, I hate seafood with a passion. Does that mean I want to kill all fish? Or those who eat fish?

Nowhere did anyone here say that patriots should be killed. You are taking great liberties with your arguments.

Ok - how do we love a country? Now - landscape I understand - but a country? Do people espouse to love a sort of Platonic ideal of their country, or their actual nuts and bolts neighbours, the fella who farts in the lift, the back alley where the cats piss, the local sewerage farm, the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Upon one's return to their native land or region after a long absence, there are many aspects of that place which will appeal to them--things which they will hear and smell and see, things which will resonate with them deeply, as Yeats expresses when he speaks of the lake isle at Innisfree . . .

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

What we "hear in the deep heart's core," and what is served up by political exploiters, such as Rove, are not the same things. There is nothing wrong with patriotism--rather, it is what is done with a concept of patriotrism, for the partisan, and often venal, ends of others.

Dlowan wrote:
Ok - how do we love a country?

I'll give an example based on my personal experience. 1984 Los Angeles Olympic, opening ceremony, they played the star spangled banner. I look around people around me and some of them are almost in tears, I included. For some strange reason I feel that I love this country very much at that exact moment and time. I was twenty two years old then. Now I do not know if I still feels the same way.

I love the founding of this country, the Declaration of Independance, the Constitution, the disrespect of class systems, the idea and practice of being born with nothing-but becoming what you aspire to with hard work and perhaps a little luck, Democracy, the sacrifices made to free us from tyranny and to keep us free, a free press, ...

Don't love our history with Native Americans, some CIA operations, slavery, ill-concieved wars, a free press :wink: ...

There's a lot to love, and a lot to improve, and/or learn from.

I see something good-to improve.
Some see something bad-to criticise.

To each, his own.


blatham's post--

Yes. This is what I'm talking about. The ones who put out the talking points, and the ones who follow obligingly--including editorial pages, certain individuals in positions of power, and some in the media. There are contingents on both sides.

Dys espouses that ALL patriotism is evil---my logic says that in order to get rid of the EVIL in patriotism you must kill all patriots. He also espouses anarchy which means that you first must destroy the gov't in power before he can advance on to his idea of a perfect gov't.

Don't worry I don't expect you to agree so let's just let it drop.

Hmm, dys is cryptic but his indictment might have been as much against the concept of evil as it was against patriotism.

dys, criptic? Never seen it happen.

sofia

My aim was to narrow down the term to a level of specificity that could be useful. General terms and phrases only muddy our noggins and our discourse.

dys said:
"
Perception understood:

Dys
I refer you to your original episal and my response----If you wish to retract this extremist view then do so in public

I retract nothing, I offered an opinion and stated it as such. you extrapolated from that that i wished to kill those who disagree (patriots) when reading in context

Dys

I offer this as an opinion also: Left wing extremist views(Dys) are just as dangerous as those of right wing extremists (the Oklahoma bomber and those who murder abortion doctors)

Perc,

It does seem that you're assuming Dyslexia's intentions about what he meant by what he said rather than asking him what he meant. If his meaning is unclear to you, I think it's better to ask first. Dependency on unfounded assumptions creates confusion. What is it that you feel is so disreputable in Dys' stated opinion that you would liken him to the Oklahoma bomber and murders? He hasn't mentioned murder.

Lola
Lola, I think Dys's statement has been distorted by Perception. I know Dys will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dys meant the abuse of others via patriotism is what is evil, not benign patriotism itself.

BBB

exactly

While in Austin Mrs. PD and I had the opportunity to discuss the matters stated about with two Army Officers from Ft. Bragg. And surprise, surprise - they do not support this war, they had already served in Kosovo, and both had order to spend a year in Iraq.

Question their patriotism, never, question their leaders. They did and indicated Rummy was out of his mind and there should be some changes in the chain of command.

Lola

It would seem from what you say that I have no right to derive a conclusion from what Dys says is an opinion to be his actual belief. If I offered an opinion that I thought Hitler and Stalin were just misunderstood schoolboys I can imagine the outrage. I would suggest that if he doesn't actually believe what he suggests then why should anyone take him seriously about anything.