Author Topic: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?  (Read 2498 times)

roo_ster

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Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« on: July 03, 2007, 05:13:16 AM »
Folks want to know.

Put away the flags
By Howard Zinn


On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to
war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, is the author of the best-
selling "A People's History of the United States" (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project in 2006.

Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

doczinn

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2007, 06:56:08 AM »
Every time I meet someone, and tell them my name, they ask me "Are you related to Howard Zinn?"

I HATE that question.
D. R. ZINN

Paddy

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2007, 07:03:38 AM »
That diatribe is shot through with half-truths, flat out lies and spittle flying hate.  I don't feel like going through and debunking it line by line.

Fly320s

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2007, 07:14:01 AM »
My reply:

I proudly fly my flag on my front porch.  I'm an American.  I do think that we are the greatest nation on Earth.  I do think that we are better than other nations.  I am a nationalist, not a worldist.
Islamic sex dolls.  Do they blow themselves up?

Thor

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #4 on: July 03, 2007, 07:41:18 AM »
The way I look at it is........ those that THINK that nationalism is a BAD thing have probably never left this country. Or, at a minimum, never visited a third world country. I love America more and more every time I've left and returned.
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SomeKid

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #5 on: July 03, 2007, 10:44:37 AM »
Thor,

I never loved America as much as right after I got back from a mission trip to Honduras. The world sucks, but America rocks.

stevelyn

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #6 on: July 03, 2007, 11:21:34 AM »
Well, we did "civilize" and attempt to "christianize" a bunch of cultures at gunpoint.
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Paddy

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #7 on: July 03, 2007, 11:23:19 AM »
Quote
Well, we did "civilize" and attempt to "christianize" a bunch of cultures at gunpoint.
and we prevailed because our civilization was/is superior to theirs.

Strings

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2007, 11:59:16 AM »
Hey Doc... you related to the author? Tongue

>and we prevailed because our civilization was/is superior to theirs.<

Patently false. we prevailed because our technology (one small part o our "culture") was/is superior. BUt I don't think we can say our "culture" as a whole was superior (unless you'ld like to point out some examples)...

El Tejon

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2007, 12:14:59 PM »
Damn you, Americans! angry

World Sensitivity Police=> police
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roo_ster

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #10 on: July 03, 2007, 04:34:49 PM »
Technology and science depend, to a large extent, on the culture of the civilization. 
Regards,

roo_ster

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
----G.K. Chesterton

nico

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #11 on: July 03, 2007, 04:58:58 PM »
If he has no sense of nationalism, then by definition, he's unpatriotic.

Bigjake

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #12 on: July 03, 2007, 08:15:01 PM »
If ya don't like it here, move to france,  asshat.

Laurent du Var

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #13 on: July 04, 2007, 05:16:42 AM »

 No, thank you !
Vada a bordo, Cazzo!

doczinn

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #14 on: July 04, 2007, 06:01:31 AM »
Sad thing is, he's a little bit right - nationalism for its own sake can be a dangerous thing. A rational patriotism, based on the idea that our country is the best for a particular reason, is not. He's too much of a moron to even make the distinction, much less agree that we are.
D. R. ZINN

Dannyboy

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #15 on: July 04, 2007, 06:01:50 AM »
If ya don't like it here, move to france,  asshat.

Howzabout Venezuela instead?  I happen to like France and even though he would probably fit in fairly well, he would bring that place down immeasurably.
Oh, Lord, please let me be as sanctimonious and self-righteous as those around me, so that I may fit in.

Moondoggie

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #16 on: July 04, 2007, 06:10:02 AM »
This guy gets this sort of tripe published?

Back in the days of WWI, WWII, Spanish American War our culture wasn't much different from our adversaries in Europe.  Japan's culture was definitely different, which accounts for the horrendous atrocities they committed against civilians and POW's.  Mr. Zinn seems to overlook that facet of WWII.

Up until the first atomic bomb detonation, our technoligies were remarkably similar.  Ditto for Europe.  

In the early days of WWII the Axis Powers actually had better tanks, planes, torpedoes than the Allies.  In the Spanish-American War the Spaniards were armed with Mauser rifles while the US forces were toting single-shot blackpowder Trapdoor Springfields and Krag-Jorgensen Rifles (also black powder).  Hence the introduction of the model of 1903 rifle, which was a stolen design from Mauser.  The US Gov't paid royalties to Mauser on every '03 Springfield produced into the 1940's.

I love it when these ridiculous hacks use their First Amendment rights to spew their nonsense about what a screwed-up country/political system/culture we have.  Care to try that in Russia?  Or Iran?
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Bigjake

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #17 on: July 04, 2007, 06:42:46 AM »
I can live with sending him over to make friendly with hugo.

Sorry laurent, the French are still by default my goto, self loathing scapegoats.  nothing personal. cool

SteveS

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #18 on: July 04, 2007, 07:04:49 AM »
Sad thing is, he's a little bit right - nationalism for its own sake can be a dangerous thing. A rational patriotism, based on the idea that our country is the best for a particular reason, is not. He's too much of a moron to even make the distinction, much less agree that we are.

I think it would also depend on the policies behind the nationalism.  While there have been some bad decisions and atrocities, there have been some good decisions and positive actions.  It all depends on the leadership.

No matter how bad I think things are, I can't think of another country I'd like to live in.
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #19 on: July 04, 2007, 12:10:21 PM »
If you question someone's patriotism, then you are obviously not very patriotic, because questioning patriotism is unAmerican, you commie slime!!!!


we prevailed because our technology (one small part o our "culture") was/is superior. BUt I don't think we can say our "culture" as a whole was superior (unless you'ld like to point out some examples)...


Technological superiority was only part of it.  The natives were doomed to lose, because they had no concept of an organized military, of a sustained campaign, of settled farming or of medicine or the other non-technological factors that allowed Whites to outnumber them, and to keep hounding them until they were defeated.  Besides that, the Whites were organized into a few very large groups (English, French, American, Mexican, etc.), as opposed to the myriads of unorganized tribes, nations and bands that fought with each other, and with the White Man. 

Examples of what?  The evils of the native cultures?  There were many.  The advantages of Western culture?  Many of those, as well.  I'm not sure how to point out American cultural superiority in any succinct way, so I'll just say our culture is superior to any of the other cultures heretofore arrived at by humans.  We could spend several long threads discussing all of that. 

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Antibubba

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #20 on: July 04, 2007, 03:37:20 PM »
There is no need to read the entire piece; just reading

Quote
is the author of the best-
selling "A People's History of the United States"

and
Quote
This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project in 2006.

tells me everything I need to know.

Quote
                                                                         
I can live with sending him over to make friendly with hugo.

Sorry laurent, the French are still by default my goto, self loathing scapegoats.  nothing personal 


Bigjake,

   If this guy hates mindless nationalism then France is just about the last place this guy will want to go.
If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic.

De Selby

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #21 on: July 04, 2007, 10:12:14 PM »
The relative greatness of cultures depends entirely on the measuring stick used to do the comparison.  It's usually jury rigged by either side to come up with a foregone conclusion.

Comparisons of "our culture" (whatever that means) to "the natives" (whatever that means) are ultimately useless.  With the exception of some bizarro-world human sacrifice and cannibal cultures, if you try to investigate them, you will inevitably end up with "mine's the best because I decided it was", or something similarly arbitrary. 

It's much more useful to discuss freedoms and political organization, and how that amounts to concrete goods for you and me.  Claiming that "our culture" is so good it cannot fail is a good way to prime the country for some Clintonian type to fleece us all of our property and liberties in the name of "defending our culture".

"Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death."

Strings

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #22 on: July 05, 2007, 01:18:48 PM »
thanks Shootin... that was kinda what I was trying to say...

Antibubba

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #23 on: July 05, 2007, 09:06:12 PM »
There are worse things than Nationalism.

Tribalism, for one.

Look at most of Africa and the Middle East--the only countries that aren't in or near civil war are the ones dominated by one tribe or ethnicity.  The problems of Europe's increasing Islamic immigrants isn't just that they don't identify with the local culture, but that they are focused on their own "tribal" identity to the exclusion of all others.

If there is one quality of America (and Canada too, to a lesser extent) that has helped us to focus big instead of small, it is assimilation--assimilation into the larger American identity without being required to obliterate the home identity.  I'm Jewish, and I can fully participate in every facet of American culture (except for the need to add bacon to everything, of course) without having to hide or surrender any of my beliefs.  In fact, we can even invent rituals which harken back to our cultural roots and which strengthen our cultural identity, which the current-day citizens of those countries wouldn't recognize (I'm thinking Kwanzaa here).  Kim Dutoit has an excellent piece he wrote on July 4 about needing to emigrate here because he was born an American at heart, even if he had never been here.  Our biggest objection to the illegal immigration from Mexico is the refusal to learn the English language, to assimilate--you can't have the American Dream while refusing to join America.  It goes to the heart of the American ideal of a fair exchange: "You give up a little in order to get something better in return".  You invest in the nation: learn the language, send the kids to Little League, go to PTA meetings, and get infuriated when you realize your kids don't know how good they have it here--you were too poor to have shoes except for Church, and they want you to get them sneakers that cost HOW MUCH!??  grin

I'm well-versed in my people's history--the pogroms, the exiles, HaShoah--and I am so very glad that I know that only through history and encounters with those who Were There.  Having known all this helps me appreciate being an American even more.  Damn right I'm Patriotic!!

If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic.

Erinyes

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Re: Can We Call Him Unpatriotic Yet?
« Reply #24 on: July 05, 2007, 10:03:38 PM »
If ya don't like it here, move to france,  asshat.
Nah, the French are about the only place left that can match us for nationalistic zeal.  Heck, it's why we don't get along all that well.  If he wants some company with a bunch of self-loathing folks, he should try Germany.