What Is Patriotism?
Excerpts (Mostly) From the 125th Anniversary Issue of The Nation
Compiled by Gary G. Kohls
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
What to the American slave, is your 4th of July? To him, your celebration is a sham; your national greatness is swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United states, at this very hour. Frederick Douglas July 4, 1852
They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings;
Steal a little and they throw you in jail; Steal a lot and they make you king. Bob Dylan (from Union Sundown)
Democracy don't rule the world; your better get that through your head.
This world is ruled by violence; but I guess that's better left unsaid. Bob Dylan
Every imperialist nation looks strong until the last five minutes. Eduard Benes
Patriotism means love of country or region in the sense of wanting to work for its improvement, as well as defend it against the attack of a foreign power that seeks to capture it or a domestic group that seeks to destroy its Constitution by illegal means. Benjamin Spock
Fascism will come to America because America has brought fascism to so many other countries. - Bertram Russell, comment made during the Vietnam War.
What masquerades as love of country is often a cover for mere hatred and fear of other people and alien governments. One does not prove that one loves one's wife by battering other women yet we are asked to think it a failure in patriotism if we show any lack of enthusiasm for adding the sixty-thousandth casualty to Iraqi troops of to the civilian dead. This is not love but perversion, and an insult to the nation in whose name such hatred is indulged. Garry Wills
Patriotism is a radical dedication to the ideals upon which one's country was founded: an ability to see through ephemeral issues to enduring ones; to hold course in the midst of political storms; to retain one's commitment to free speech in the midst of war hysteria. Erica Jong
The patriotic traditions I value are found in the cracks in the system, among them are the whistleblowers inside government agencies; the people working for corporations who sometimes come up after I give an anti-corporate speech, hand me their card, smile and say call me; or the idealistic students who still show up in graduate journalism school, believing that muckraking will make a difference. David Weir
If I had to proclaim a patriotic objective, I would define it as follows: to turn one's country into such a society of freedom, equality and social justice that it would influence others by its example. Daniel Singer
Nationalism appears as the uncritical, and hence manipulable, identification with power. Its ideal end is national unity or the subordination of contested social differences. Patriotism is commonly thought of as love of one's country and loyal obedience to its government. Since they know that they are likely to remain in power indefinitely, loyalty presents no problem. Theirs is a patriotism of winners. The left has trouble with patriotism not because it is the party of humanity but because it is, nationally and internationally, the party of losers. I would propose democracy: it is far less exclusionary, in principle and practice, that nationalism, patriotism or the ideology of capitalism. Democracy can be patriotic, but only on condition that the first loyalty is to it. Sheldon S. Wolin
My country stands tall, but I prefer is seated. Arthur Rimbaud
A patriot is someone who organizes his or her political and social values around a set of national ideals. Patriotism does not imply love of government and certainly does not require that one ignore the gap between a nation's ideals and its practices in actual social life. Citizens have an obligation to criticize government and other actors in society. I consider myself a devoted American patriot because the American Creed, which developed out of the epoch of the Enlightenment, is humanistic and liberal and has a universalist dimension. It expresses the essential dignity of human beings and confidence in the value of decisions arrived at by common counsel rather than be violence. - Neil Postman
The patriotism of Franklin Roosevelt was best expressed in his Economic Bill of Rights.
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;
And the right to a good education.
Try to imagine President Bush calling for such a bill.
Patriotism means that no citizen in denied these basic rights. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world. Katrina vanden Heuvel
Unprincipled or unthinking patriotism is difficult to resist in times of war or so-called national emergencies, whether manufactured or real.
Patriotism is not invariably a sin, but it should never be ranked with the virtues. The most dangerous manifestation of patriotism is the assertion of superiority, whether based on some fancied inherent traits of a particular national grouping or on a political system and historical role that are seen as better than those of other countries. The danger can become fatal when it leads to the delusion that the superior country has a moral obligation to punish offending ones and use its military might to establish a new world order: in its own image. Ring Lardner Jr.
My anger toward my country for what it is doing is an expression of care and concern. Robert Jay Lifton, MD
The democratic idealism that this country was founded upon but has never quite lived up to. I am a patriot only in proportion to how much we are allowed to live up to that ideal, which, at its heart, is internationalist. Ruben Martinez
Patriotism cannot be good. What produces war is the desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation what is called patriotism. And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish patriotism, it is necessary first to become convinced that it is an evil. Leo Tolstoy (linking patriotism to military violence.)
I will match my love of country with that of any of those hearties in the Administration who are sending Americans to war having declined to serve in one themselves. I refer to the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President particularly. Mary McGrory (talking about the Bush I administration following Gulf War I.)
Patriotism is tied to the beliefs and rituals of the state religion, in which the state is a god and its top managers and senior military officers a priesthood. This state religion has patriotic rituals, such as parades, that mask the system of authoritarian control by proclaiming affection for the country as a whole. Seymour Melman
In my America the capture, torture and enslavement of a race is unforgivable. In my America there is a hope that democracy is not forever destined to be corrupted by wealth influencing power. In my America the basic rights of all its citizens must be respected, and this respect extends beyond borders. There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americans: The ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words. I disagree. We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. Natalie Merchant, lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs.
Is such a patriotism required to celebrate the slaughter of Desert Store? No. Jefferson Morley
As we saw during the Bush presidential campaign and again during Gulf War I, is to encourage feelings of false superiority and to discourage dissent from groupthink. After all, we don't have any power. We might as well have some principles. – Katha Pollitt
Nearly everything normally associated with patriotism wars, rituals of nationalistic loyalty, sentimentalized (or invented) traditions, parades, flags, etc. is quite dreadful and full of appalling claims of superiority and pre-eminence. Edward W. Said
If to be born a citizen of the US means that I am an American and the peoples of Central and South America are not (merely Costa Ricans and Peruvians and Incas then I renounce my citizenship. This land is the Lakota Nation. My duty is to overthrow the genocidal American Way of Life in order to try to save the sacred covenant with this land. David Seals
People get excited about patriotism partly because it's a cheap virtue and partly because it's one of the few ways many people have to join together with folks who are in some ways different and distant. It's tempting to throw up our hands and leave patriotism to the yahoos, but nationality remains a fact of political life, even for those who ache to transcend it. Jerrold Seigel
It is difficult to avoid thinking that what is being called patriotism today is, on the part of many people, a combination of group narcissism. Neurotic obedience, (leaving decisions in the hands of authority figures) relieves us of the anxiety of making our own decisions and of accepting the consequences of our own initiatives. To support and defend our country on any occasion where we are convinced its actions may be unjust is not patriotism at all. A patriotism that refuses ever to call one's country to account for the morality of its action is no true patriotism at all. It is a bogus patriotism. William H. Shannon
How can thinking people those who have broken free from the animal level devote themselves to patriotism when it is merely a trapping devoid of principled content? Propagandistic rhetoric and the waving of the flag alongside militaristic adventurism evoke proud emotional stirrings, and we convince ourselves that we are functioning on some higher plane. Why not call it manipulation? The real trick is promoting the principles associated with humanitarianism that is, concerning ourselves with the well-being of all peoples. Stanley K. Sheinbaum
My patriotism only wants our country back again. The patriotism rooted in social and political idealism continued to flicker during the antiwar movement of King, McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy and came to a climax when McGovern was nominated. Ted Solotaroff
When Ronald Reagan called the contra assassins in Central America freedom fighters, we could only wince. When Oliver North became a national hero, when the pledge of allegiance became a campaign issue, when Reagan ordered the invasion of defenseless Granada, we could only wince.
Being eighteenth-century patriots rational, tolerant, liberal has stigmatized us in the eyes of the jingo-patriots. How can we tell them that patriotism is wanting the best for a country that has never lived up to its potential? Patriotism flourishes best in a community with common ideals, a common frame of reference. It seems that only an outbreak of wa generates a surge of patriotism, a feeling of unity. Harriet Van Horne
The so-called Indians are the original Americans whose homeland European invaders stole.
If the Vice President and Secretary of Defense chose not to fight for their country in Vietnam, why should anyone fight for their country? E Pluribus Unum means from the one, many. That could be our happy fate in a single, interdependent world with no flags to burn, no guns to be shot in anger, no dare I propose so dangerous a proposition? taxation without representation? - Gore Vidal
Patriotism has only one purpose, to make war. And I don't believe that killing people is ever a solution, any more than I believe that the death penalty will prevent murders. I like to think of myself as a future citizen of a world in which we will finally accept our share of the responsibility for reversing the global damage we've already done.
Patriotism is the cover word for keeping the war machine tuned. Of course, the war machine doesn't run on patriotic feeling alone. It runs on the mountain share of our federal budget that is devoted to the military. It runs on the will of the greedy corporations that sometimes need bombs bursting in air. As well as their usual economic bullying to insure that their profits continue to grow. Many aspects of our national culture, which would appear superficially to have nothing to do with war, help to feed an aggressive, killer-take-all perspective on global affairs, hence the Persian Gulf debacle. Michele Wallace
You can get rich, either through hard work, luck or at other people's expense. Every successful revolution has been made by movements that have successfully represented themselves as acting in the best interests of their country or as the true patriots. James Weinstein
World leaders would rather kill hundreds of thousands that risk the unmanly ignominy of backing down. But today's patriotism seems to me the patriarchal justification for legally sanctioned murder, and as a feminist, I cannot envision a lift-wing patriotism that overcomes this. Naomi Weisstein
==================
AMERICAN PATRIOT FRIENDS NETWORK
".... a network of net-worker's...."
http://www.apfn.org/
"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others. . .they send forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
- Robert F. Kennedy
Excerpts (Mostly) From the 125th Anniversary Issue of The Nation
Compiled by Gary G. Kohls
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
What to the American slave, is your 4th of July? To him, your celebration is a sham; your national greatness is swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United states, at this very hour. Frederick Douglas July 4, 1852
They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings;
Steal a little and they throw you in jail; Steal a lot and they make you king. Bob Dylan (from Union Sundown)
Democracy don't rule the world; your better get that through your head.
This world is ruled by violence; but I guess that's better left unsaid. Bob Dylan
Every imperialist nation looks strong until the last five minutes. Eduard Benes
Patriotism means love of country or region in the sense of wanting to work for its improvement, as well as defend it against the attack of a foreign power that seeks to capture it or a domestic group that seeks to destroy its Constitution by illegal means. Benjamin Spock
Fascism will come to America because America has brought fascism to so many other countries. - Bertram Russell, comment made during the Vietnam War.
What masquerades as love of country is often a cover for mere hatred and fear of other people and alien governments. One does not prove that one loves one's wife by battering other women yet we are asked to think it a failure in patriotism if we show any lack of enthusiasm for adding the sixty-thousandth casualty to Iraqi troops of to the civilian dead. This is not love but perversion, and an insult to the nation in whose name such hatred is indulged. Garry Wills
Patriotism is a radical dedication to the ideals upon which one's country was founded: an ability to see through ephemeral issues to enduring ones; to hold course in the midst of political storms; to retain one's commitment to free speech in the midst of war hysteria. Erica Jong
The patriotic traditions I value are found in the cracks in the system, among them are the whistleblowers inside government agencies; the people working for corporations who sometimes come up after I give an anti-corporate speech, hand me their card, smile and say call me; or the idealistic students who still show up in graduate journalism school, believing that muckraking will make a difference. David Weir
If I had to proclaim a patriotic objective, I would define it as follows: to turn one's country into such a society of freedom, equality and social justice that it would influence others by its example. Daniel Singer
Nationalism appears as the uncritical, and hence manipulable, identification with power. Its ideal end is national unity or the subordination of contested social differences. Patriotism is commonly thought of as love of one's country and loyal obedience to its government. Since they know that they are likely to remain in power indefinitely, loyalty presents no problem. Theirs is a patriotism of winners. The left has trouble with patriotism not because it is the party of humanity but because it is, nationally and internationally, the party of losers. I would propose democracy: it is far less exclusionary, in principle and practice, that nationalism, patriotism or the ideology of capitalism. Democracy can be patriotic, but only on condition that the first loyalty is to it. Sheldon S. Wolin
My country stands tall, but I prefer is seated. Arthur Rimbaud
A patriot is someone who organizes his or her political and social values around a set of national ideals. Patriotism does not imply love of government and certainly does not require that one ignore the gap between a nation's ideals and its practices in actual social life. Citizens have an obligation to criticize government and other actors in society. I consider myself a devoted American patriot because the American Creed, which developed out of the epoch of the Enlightenment, is humanistic and liberal and has a universalist dimension. It expresses the essential dignity of human beings and confidence in the value of decisions arrived at by common counsel rather than be violence. - Neil Postman
The patriotism of Franklin Roosevelt was best expressed in his Economic Bill of Rights.
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;
And the right to a good education.
Try to imagine President Bush calling for such a bill.
Patriotism means that no citizen in denied these basic rights. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world. Katrina vanden Heuvel
Unprincipled or unthinking patriotism is difficult to resist in times of war or so-called national emergencies, whether manufactured or real.
Patriotism is not invariably a sin, but it should never be ranked with the virtues. The most dangerous manifestation of patriotism is the assertion of superiority, whether based on some fancied inherent traits of a particular national grouping or on a political system and historical role that are seen as better than those of other countries. The danger can become fatal when it leads to the delusion that the superior country has a moral obligation to punish offending ones and use its military might to establish a new world order: in its own image. Ring Lardner Jr.
My anger toward my country for what it is doing is an expression of care and concern. Robert Jay Lifton, MD
The democratic idealism that this country was founded upon but has never quite lived up to. I am a patriot only in proportion to how much we are allowed to live up to that ideal, which, at its heart, is internationalist. Ruben Martinez
Patriotism cannot be good. What produces war is the desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation what is called patriotism. And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish patriotism, it is necessary first to become convinced that it is an evil. Leo Tolstoy (linking patriotism to military violence.)
I will match my love of country with that of any of those hearties in the Administration who are sending Americans to war having declined to serve in one themselves. I refer to the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President particularly. Mary McGrory (talking about the Bush I administration following Gulf War I.)
Patriotism is tied to the beliefs and rituals of the state religion, in which the state is a god and its top managers and senior military officers a priesthood. This state religion has patriotic rituals, such as parades, that mask the system of authoritarian control by proclaiming affection for the country as a whole. Seymour Melman
In my America the capture, torture and enslavement of a race is unforgivable. In my America there is a hope that democracy is not forever destined to be corrupted by wealth influencing power. In my America the basic rights of all its citizens must be respected, and this respect extends beyond borders. There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americans: The ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words. I disagree. We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. Natalie Merchant, lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs.
Is such a patriotism required to celebrate the slaughter of Desert Store? No. Jefferson Morley
As we saw during the Bush presidential campaign and again during Gulf War I, is to encourage feelings of false superiority and to discourage dissent from groupthink. After all, we don't have any power. We might as well have some principles. – Katha Pollitt
Nearly everything normally associated with patriotism wars, rituals of nationalistic loyalty, sentimentalized (or invented) traditions, parades, flags, etc. is quite dreadful and full of appalling claims of superiority and pre-eminence. Edward W. Said
If to be born a citizen of the US means that I am an American and the peoples of Central and South America are not (merely Costa Ricans and Peruvians and Incas then I renounce my citizenship. This land is the Lakota Nation. My duty is to overthrow the genocidal American Way of Life in order to try to save the sacred covenant with this land. David Seals
People get excited about patriotism partly because it's a cheap virtue and partly because it's one of the few ways many people have to join together with folks who are in some ways different and distant. It's tempting to throw up our hands and leave patriotism to the yahoos, but nationality remains a fact of political life, even for those who ache to transcend it. Jerrold Seigel
It is difficult to avoid thinking that what is being called patriotism today is, on the part of many people, a combination of group narcissism. Neurotic obedience, (leaving decisions in the hands of authority figures) relieves us of the anxiety of making our own decisions and of accepting the consequences of our own initiatives. To support and defend our country on any occasion where we are convinced its actions may be unjust is not patriotism at all. A patriotism that refuses ever to call one's country to account for the morality of its action is no true patriotism at all. It is a bogus patriotism. William H. Shannon
How can thinking people those who have broken free from the animal level devote themselves to patriotism when it is merely a trapping devoid of principled content? Propagandistic rhetoric and the waving of the flag alongside militaristic adventurism evoke proud emotional stirrings, and we convince ourselves that we are functioning on some higher plane. Why not call it manipulation? The real trick is promoting the principles associated with humanitarianism that is, concerning ourselves with the well-being of all peoples. Stanley K. Sheinbaum
My patriotism only wants our country back again. The patriotism rooted in social and political idealism continued to flicker during the antiwar movement of King, McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy and came to a climax when McGovern was nominated. Ted Solotaroff
When Ronald Reagan called the contra assassins in Central America freedom fighters, we could only wince. When Oliver North became a national hero, when the pledge of allegiance became a campaign issue, when Reagan ordered the invasion of defenseless Granada, we could only wince.
Being eighteenth-century patriots rational, tolerant, liberal has stigmatized us in the eyes of the jingo-patriots. How can we tell them that patriotism is wanting the best for a country that has never lived up to its potential? Patriotism flourishes best in a community with common ideals, a common frame of reference. It seems that only an outbreak of wa generates a surge of patriotism, a feeling of unity. Harriet Van Horne
The so-called Indians are the original Americans whose homeland European invaders stole.
If the Vice President and Secretary of Defense chose not to fight for their country in Vietnam, why should anyone fight for their country? E Pluribus Unum means from the one, many. That could be our happy fate in a single, interdependent world with no flags to burn, no guns to be shot in anger, no dare I propose so dangerous a proposition? taxation without representation? - Gore Vidal
Patriotism has only one purpose, to make war. And I don't believe that killing people is ever a solution, any more than I believe that the death penalty will prevent murders. I like to think of myself as a future citizen of a world in which we will finally accept our share of the responsibility for reversing the global damage we've already done.
Patriotism is the cover word for keeping the war machine tuned. Of course, the war machine doesn't run on patriotic feeling alone. It runs on the mountain share of our federal budget that is devoted to the military. It runs on the will of the greedy corporations that sometimes need bombs bursting in air. As well as their usual economic bullying to insure that their profits continue to grow. Many aspects of our national culture, which would appear superficially to have nothing to do with war, help to feed an aggressive, killer-take-all perspective on global affairs, hence the Persian Gulf debacle. Michele Wallace
You can get rich, either through hard work, luck or at other people's expense. Every successful revolution has been made by movements that have successfully represented themselves as acting in the best interests of their country or as the true patriots. James Weinstein
World leaders would rather kill hundreds of thousands that risk the unmanly ignominy of backing down. But today's patriotism seems to me the patriarchal justification for legally sanctioned murder, and as a feminist, I cannot envision a lift-wing patriotism that overcomes this. Naomi Weisstein
==================
AMERICAN PATRIOT FRIENDS NETWORK
".... a network of net-worker's...."
http://www.apfn.org/
"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others. . .they send forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
- Robert F. Kennedy
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]
