Some thoughts as Memorial day recedes into memory.

Real Patriotism
by oakborn

On this Memorial Day 2012, I offer up something I wrote 4 days after raising my hand and taking the oath to become an officer in the United States Army.

I mainly joined to help soldiers.  I hope I am fulfilling that mission every day in at least some little way where I am currently stationed.

I originally wrote this on 21 July 2009...Something that has been bugging me for a long time is what I would term 'false patriotism.' I think we have seen far too much of it since 9-11. Right after that horrific event, the country was drawn together in an unprecendented way and it was, despite the tragedy that triggered it, wonderful to see. It seemed that partisanship was over and we could finally move forward as one nation under a unified purpose... alas, it wasn't to last.

Once the fervor died down, we were back to the same old sniping and left vs right crap. Unfortunately, that tendency has continued apace for the last 8 years. So, now, rather than arguing for the American people, our congresspersons and senators have spent time playing power games rather than enacting healthcare reform or doing so many things that are needful. They are more concerned with their positions of power than what is important, though the votes of 2004 & 2008 have made the will of the people clear.

And the American people as a whole, wow... well after 9-11, people stood up and were proud. They slapped magnetic ribbons on their cars and flew flags everywhere... but what did it all mean? Anyone can do these things and say they are patriotic. My mother-in-law and the folks at her Senior Center wear red on Fridays to show they 'support the troops'... but I posit that doing something truly patriotic goes beyond magnets, flags and red shirts... it takes a real commitment to change, it takes real effort, it takes some measure of sacrifice.

I saw a pick up truck on the highway the other day flying 2 large (at least for a truck) large American flags... and that is actually what spurred this rant... and the thought that went through my mind was, "Yay for you. You can fly a flag, but what are you really doing to show your patriotism." I guess I am in this mindset because of what I have done, which is join the Army Reserve as a nurse at the age 43. I will not lie and say that there isn't a financial incentive, but I also have a deep-seated desire to serve my country again. But the letter I received from the Army selection board said something that is sitting in my gut... that most people aren't willing to forgo their creature comforts in service to something larger... and I believe that most people are pampered, spoiled brats who just want things handed to them on a platter, the more gilded the better.

The real point of this is that being patriotic is more than wrapping yourself up in a flag and saying the pledge.  Real patriotism can be exhibited in myriad ways; volunteering at your kids' school, voting, writing to your congress members & senators, helping with a neighborhood clean-up, help a charity raise money, recycle what you can of your trash.... and you know there doesn't have to be a flag in sight. If everyone would do one or two things within their resources and capabilities, this would be a much stronger nation that isn't on the road to being owned by China.

I'm not saying everyone has to join the military, that is my choice. Just do something for someone else... look beyond your own nose every once in a while, you might be surprised the effects your one small act can spur others to & how great it can make you feel... pay it forward.

Update 2012: I am very proud to have to opportunity to be serving in the Army.  I am doing my level best every day to serve soldiers by letting them know what services are available to them as they are released from military service.  Unfortunately, that is where my role ends. I worry about our overburdened VA system and funding cuts that are surely coming down the pike in this political climate.

I am increasingly disheartened and disillusioned with the ever-emptier rhetoric and now bald-faced lies perpetrated by politicians, especially the party of NO.  I am sick of people talking and not DOING, except to line their own pockets.

I think our founding fathers would be disgusted.  I just hope we can pull back from the brink.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/28/1095315/-Real-Patriotism#

What’s the real meaning of patriotism?

The left and right present radically different visions of what patriotism means
ROBERT REICH,

In the last two weeks, the Supreme Court has allowed police in Arizona to demand proof of citizenship from people they stop on other grounds (while throwing out the rest of Arizona’s immigration law), and has allowed the federal government to require everyone buy health insurance — even younger and healthier people — or pay a penalty.

What do these decisions — and the national conversations they’ve engendered — have to do with patriotism? A great deal. Because underlying them are two different versions of American patriotism.

The Arizona law is aimed at securing the nation from outsiders. The purpose of the heatlhcare law is to join together to provide affordable health care for all.

The first version of patriotism is protecting America from people beyond our borders who might otherwise overrun us — whether immigrants coming here illegally or foreign powers threatening us with aggression.

The second version of patriotism is joining together for the common good. That might mean contributing to a bake sale to raise money for a local school or volunteering in a homeless shelter. It also means paying our fair share of taxes so our community or nation has enough resources to meet all our needs, and preserving and protecting our system of government.

This second meaning of patriotism recognizes our responsibilities to one another as citizens of the same society. It requires collaboration, teamwork, tolerance, and selflessness.

The Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but in requiring younger and healthier people to buy insurance that will help pay for the healthcare needs of older and sicker people, it summons the second version of patriotism.

Too often these days we don’t recognize and don’t practice this second version. We’re shouting at each other rather than coming together — conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican, native-born versus foreign born, non-unionized versus unionized, religious versus secular.


Our politics has grown nastier and meaner. Negative advertising is filling the airwaves this election year. We’re learning more about why we shouldn’t vote for someone than why we should.

As I’ve said before, some elected officials have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America. Just after the 2010 election, the Senate minority leader was asked about his party’s highest priority for the next two years. You might have expected him to say it was to get the economy going and reduce unemployment, or control the budge deficit, or achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. But he said the highest priority would be to make sure the President did not get a second term of office.

Our system of government is America’s most precious and fragile possession, the means we have of joining together as a nation for the common good. It requires not only our loyalty but ongoing vigilance to keep it working well. Yet some of our elected representatives act as if they don’t care what happens to it as long as they achieve their partisan aims.

The filibuster used to be rarely used. But over the last decade the threat of a filibuster has become standard operating procedure, virtually shutting down the Senate for periods of time.

Meanwhile, some members of the House have been willing to shut down the entire government in order to get their way. Last summer they were even willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States in order to achieve their goals.

In 2010 the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our democracy, on the bizarre theory that corporations are people under the First Amendment. Congress won’t even pass legislation requiring their names be disclosed.

Some members of Congress have signed a pledge — not of allegiance to the United States but of allegiance to a man named Grover Norquist, who has never been elected by anyone. Norquist’s “no-tax” pledge is interpreted only by Norquist, who says closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes and therefore violates the pledge.

True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve and protect it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry then special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

But these days some Americans loathe the government, and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”

When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, some wealthy Americans claim “it’s my money.” They forget it’s their nation, too. And unless they pay their fair share of taxes, American can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America.

So when you hear people talk about patriotism, be warned. They may mean securing the nation’s borders, not securing our society. Within those borders, each of us is on our own. These people don’t want a government that actively works for all our citizens.

Yet true patriotism isn’t mainly about excluding outsiders seen as our common adversaries. It’s about coming together for the common good.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/whats_the_real_meaning_of_patriotism/

Black America Knows What Real Patriotism Looks Like
We have fought and died for this country, challenging America to live up to its dream and be for the prosperity of all.


BY: DANIELLE C. BELTON
Posted: March 9 2015 10:56 AM
 

It used to happen every Fourth of July.

Our homeowners association would place little, cheap American flags on each lawn, and every year ours ended up in the trash. Every. Year. My parents—born in America, raised in America, the only country they’ve ever known and will know, who had no desire to leave and will die here—were only outwardly patriotic about once every four years, when the Olympics were on. And even then, that was more of a benign nationalism.

My parents, like countless others who were part of America’s outsiders trapped on the inside, had a complicated relationship with their mother country, especially since their mother country was also an abusive neglector who constantly victim-blamed. “Why are you hitting yourself?” was her motto as she crafted an environment ripe for self-inflicted wounds.

You don’t get to choose your parents. Or your country. My parents, like millions of other black people, were just here, descendants of Africans brought here against their will, then told that they must love this country and their oppressors, no matter what horrors were inflicted upon them. Slavery. Segregation. Jim Crow. Lynchings. Bombings. Beatings. Discrimination.

For those unwilling to face what our country has done in the name of “liberty” for some, they charge black Americans a price for acceptance—for patriotism—and that price is to forget the pain inflicted.

Forget the anguish. Let it wash away with your patriotism. You can’t love America and hate her ways. You must eat the whole of our union, consume it, even if it renders you sick.

Why do you people hate America?

My parents were supposed to get over segregated water fountains and the abject poverty they were raised in. My sisters and I were supposed to forget how, even today, there are neighborhoods in our hometown of St. Louis where black people simply don’t go. From Rodney King to Michael Brown, we were supposed to get on board the “I Love America” train and leave our pain in the rearview.

But our family couldn’t. We would be good citizens and productive members of society, but we weren’t going to pretend the bad things didn’t happen. Patriots we were, but our loyalty could not be forged out of ignorance.

And yet, forgetting America’s transgressions against black Americans is what is asked of us by those who appoint themselves protectors of America’s history. These are the individuals who dislike the ugliness of America’s past but can’t reconcile that we live in an ambitious, prosperous and plentiful country founded on contradictions. Founded on “all men are created equal ... except for the slaves I presently own as I write this.” Founded on liberty, thievery and free labor.

These are the people who try to rewrite textbooks and silence critics, painting them as un-American for daring to remember things that “happened so long ago.” Or things that happened 50 years ago, like “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala. Or people who remember things that happened five minutes ago, like another young black man shot and killed by a police officer in Madison, Wis.

Case in point: an Oklahoma Republican who thinks American history has an anti-American slant: “In essence, we have a new emphasis on what is bad about America,” said state Rep. Dan Fisher, the measure’s chief sponsor. “[The new framework] trades an emphasis on America’s founding principles of constitutional government in favor of robust analyses of gender and racial oppression and class ethnicity and the lives of marginalized people, where the emphasis on instruction is of America as a nation of oppressors and exploiters,” Fisher lamented at a legislative committee hearing Tuesday.

And then there’s this, courtesy of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

President Barack Obama, who is half-white and was raised by his white grandparents, one of whom was a World War II veteran, could exist only because of America. But he doesn’t love you. He wasn’t brought up “through love of this country.”

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/03/black_america_knows_what_real_patriotism_looks_like.html

President Obama's Selma Speech
(Excerpt) 

There are places, and moments in America where this nation’s destiny has been decided. Many are sites of war – Concord and Lexington, Appomattox and Gettysburg. Others are sites that symbolize the daring of America’s character – Independence Hall and Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.

.Selma is such a place.In one afternoon fifty years ago, so much of our turbulent history – the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher – met on this bridge.It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America.And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. King, and so many more, the idea of a just America, a fair America, an inclusive America, a generous America – that idea ultimately triumphed.

As is true across the landscape of American history, we cannot examine this moment in isolation. The march on Selma was part of a broader campaign that spanned generations; the leaders that day part of a long line of heroes.We gather here to celebrate them. We gather here to honor the courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the chastening rod; tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their North Star and keep marching toward justice.

They did as Scripture instructed: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” And in the days to come, they went back again and again. When the trumpet call sounded for more to join, the people came – black and white, young and old, Christian and Jew, waving the American flag and singing the same anthems full of faith and hope. A white newsman, Bill Plante, who covered the marches then and who is with us here today, quipped that the growing number of white people lowered the quality of the singing. To those who marched, though, those old gospel songs must have never sounded so sweet.In time, their chorus would reach President Johnson. And he would send them protection, echoing their call for the nation and the world to hear:“We shall overcome.”What enormous faith these men and women had. Faith in God – but also faith in America.
http://time.com/3736357/barack-obama-selma-speech-transcript/

Reader's View: Real patriotism requires active citizens
By News Tribune on Jul 4, 2014 at 9:07 p.m.


Fourth of July celebrations get me thinking about patriotism and its role in our country. We are good for flag-waving and platitudes. But do we practice what we preach? Do we love country enough to live up to our ideals?

Why is patriotism considered the highest of virtues? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about people?

Shouldn’t we love morality, justice or tolerance more?

Why is patriotism always expressed in military terms? War is considered the ultimate sacrifice for country. But our “freedom” has been achieved by social and political activists. The struggles for justice and equality were fought by abolitionists, suffragettes, civil-rights workers, voting-rights activists, labor-union organizers, whistleblowers and peace marchers. Why aren’t they honored as patriots?

Why do we revile the dissidents who loved America enough to criticize it and work to make it better? Questioning our government is essential to democracy. It is the highest expression of patriotism. But too often these patriots are beaten, killed or jailed.

Is patriotism just another propaganda tactic to protect the ruling elites? Are our shallow, patriotic rituals a way to keep us from thinking about the real issues?

Real patriotism requires active citizens. Do we love our country enough to actually participate in the political process? Do we believe in democracy enough to join a group, advocate for an issue or work for a candidate? Or is politics something you don’t discuss in polite company?

Philip Anderson
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/readers-view-real-patriotism-requires-active-citizens