by guest blogger Alma Alexander
So I just read one too many stories about the histrionic American pseudo-evangelistic jingoism that passes for patriotism these days. In this instance, a story about a girl who attested her (constitutional) right to participate or not in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The story I read left a lot of the details out. It said the girl had been “mistreated” for “failing to stand”, or declining to stand, for the pledge of allegiance and apparently it was this mistreatment that led her to seek the attention of the school nurse.
Who mistreated her? Why? And how did this result in her needing medical attention?
The nurse then demanded to know why the victim of this mistreatment hadn’t stood for the pledge. The little girl said that she had a right not to participate, at which point the nurse flew into a high dudgeon… and refused to treat whatever the damage was that it had been considered necessary to send the child to her for in the first
place.
It gets worse. This:
“‘The student reports that she left the nurse’s office in tears and went to the administrative offices to call her mother … A secretary then led the student to an office, but at that time the same nurse appeared again, saying, ‘She isn’t calling a parent until I have a long conversation with her!'”
I beg your pardon? Even a felon arrested for murder is entitled to a phone call. An eighth-grader was refused – even potentially refused – the right to call her own mother before the nurse had a ‘long conversation’ with her?
Really?
Really?
American hypocrisy about patriotism and what it really means is becoming egregious. In America, patriotism is coming to mean frothing at the mouth about American exceptionalism at every turn, denouncing anyone who isn’t ‘measuring up’ to the zealots’ standards, flying flags the size of a king-sized bed above car dealerships which proudly peddle Toyotas or Subarus.
The things that are going on inside the country right now – the things that a true patriot would be appalled by – the senseless gun deaths, the militarization of our police, the endless useless foreign wars begun by lies and perpetuated by some an effort to make everyone else out there toe some kind of utopian American line (‘we bring democracy to the world’ is the excuse. But there are frequently underlying reasons which are never addressed in the open.
Here’s the thing, America. You didn’t invent democracy. The very word comes from ancient Greece which was a country before you were a gleam in your Founding Fathers’ eyes. It is not your job to impose a given political system on the rest of the world, no matter how much you yourself are enamored of it. And here’s another thing – take a look in your own back yard – (America hasn’t had a true democracy in years) – all that – all that a true patriot would be truly concerned about – all that doesn’t matter, truly, so long as you can wrap yourself in the flag and pretend you’re better than everyone else.
Germany had a national anthem which contained the words “Deutschland Uber Alles” – and when it acted on that phrase, the world went to war about it. When America imposes its will on other nations – at the business end of a gun if everything else fails – it is operating under a very similar principle.
It’s like this.
If you think it’s okay for a nurse to refuse to treat a child because she didn’t think that child measured up to her ridiculous sense of ‘patriotism”, it’s also okay for someone in the middle east to start screaming about holy war if somebody says a cross word about something they believe in. If one is okay, so is the other.
What is going on in America today is just blatantly hypocritical, this adulation of “USA! USA!” as though no other nation ever had a flag, or a love of country. Let me tell you something – Russians call their country Mother Russia, they love it fiercely, and yet somehow they manage to do so without a Russian flag above every used car dealer.
Patriotism isn’t empty phrases, or wrapping yourself in that flag. Patriotism is treating your country’s children when they need medical attention and you are the medical professional in charge. If you were a Christian nurse with strong religious and patriotic dogmas in place and your country was at war – would you really be justified in refusing treatment to a wounded child who happened to be Jewish or Buddhist or (god forbid) Muslim? What would Christ say about that, even if you take it upon yourself to unilaterally repudiate the Geneva Convention?
America diminishes itself – both in its own purview and in the eyes of the world – with every action like this nurse has taken. Patriotism isn’t the same as religious zeal and evangelical Christianist conservative cant. Patriotism isn’t histrionically screaming about the inviolate Second Amendment every time grieving mothers stand at the gravesides of children mowed down by bullets in the streets, in shopping malls, in cinemas, in schools. Patriotism isn’t building a wall between the USA and Mexico. Patriotism isn’t shutting down the Government of your country every time you don’t get your way in Congress.
Patriotism is much harder than this. Patriotism means doing hard things, it means knowing and loving your country and its history, yes, but not to the point of making that history an obstacle to its future – or, worse, retelling that past so that it is more palatable to you. History is what happened, and no amount of whitewashing so that you feel better about it is going to change a word of it.
Yes, the American South kept slaves. No, those human beings in chains were not “better off” in that era, nor were they happy about those chains, nor about the ability of those in charge of them to use them like cattle. But it happened. The repercussions of that are dragging their muddy tails through America’s today and its tomorrow, but we can’t clean up after it until we accept that we are seeing it there and stop pretending that the monster isn’t even in the room with us.
Patriotism is facing up to our mistakes, and trying to move forward from them in a direction that doesn’t leave everyone mired in that mud forever. But this is not easy. It’s much harder than screaming at little girls at how unpatriotic they are, or than getting into a froth about a “War on Christmas” and on white America, or than simply showing up to wave a tiny paper flag in a crowd while some politician-du-jour spouts platitudes that waft like pretty soap bubbles above your head. Patriotism involves a passionate love of your country, and your people.
This does not then translate into calling that love, as it manifests in other people and other nations, by other and more offensive names, or proclaiming that Americans who love their country are “patriots” while everyone else who has the gall to say they love their own country is a “dangerous nationalist” or a “terrorist” and therefore a fair target. How dare those ignorant savages not love America above their own land?
Patriotism is, at its best, a noble thing. But it’s being perverted into something shadowed and furtive; it’s being weaponised (if you aren’t with us you’re against us); it’s being poisoned by the fake evangelists for whom it’s just easier to spout the cliches than it is to act upon a true patriotic impulse.
If you want to know, one of those would have entailed that nurse’s keeping her mouth shut in the face of events during that fracas in a middle school somewhere in middle America. Her patriotic duty was to educate and to ‘doctor’ her nation’s children. Not to indoctrinate them.
Alma Alexander is an American novelist and short story writer
It seems the holiday war starts a little earlier every year, doesn’t it? That festive time of the season where we all do everything we can to destroy Christianity by saying “Happy holidays” or by holding red cups.
Nice coffee cups. I wonder who would like these. Could it be …. SATAN?
Yes, red cups. Starbucks always did cups before full of snowmen and ornaments and happy winter scenes, because nothing says “Birth of Jesus” like a cartoon reindeer. But this year, they’re going minimal. Just red.
And, of course, a bunch of Christians who have never read the Bible and don’t understand the concept of “turn the other cheek” are outraged. How dare Starbucks do this!*
The so-called “War on Christmas” really breaks down to the same old “War on Christians” nonsense, wherein a bunch of whiners are upset that they don’t get to force their religion on everyone else.
Every example Fox News gives for a “War on Christmas” always boils down to something like “They won’t let us force kids to sing our religious songs!” or “They say ‘Happy Holidays’ which acknowledges that not everyone is a Christian and therefore they are attacking us!” or “They are refusing to allow us to use taxpayer dollars for a religious display.” (And yes, I used Fox News specifically because absolutely no one spoke of a “War on Christmas” until Fox invented it and saw their ratings boost.)
I submit to you that every so-called attack on Christmas is, in reality, fought in defense and wouldn’t even exist if these particular Christians weren’t trying to require everyone to obey their beliefs.
Instead, there are some Christians who apparently are so insecure in their beliefs that if you say something like, “I respect your beliefs even though I do not share them and sincerely hope you have a happy holidays,” they are convinced that you are out to destroy everything they believe in.
So, for the third year in a row, I challenge anyone to find me one example of anyone trying to prevent people from celebrating Christmas. Just one.
I have a feeling I know what the result will once again be.
*The more cynical side of me wonders if this was all a big promotional plan from Starbucks in the first place.
They just won’t let it go, will they? Conservatives are still bitching about Obamacare, pointing out statistics about rising health care costs and other problems with the program.
Yes. We know. It’s not perfect. We didn’t like it much, either. But it’s the best we could get out of you bastards, who would have preferred no health care policy at all.
You remember what it was like back then, right? When prices were increasing by huge amounts and people could be denied coverage or kicked off for whatever stupid reason the insurance companies wanted?
Obamacare didn’t fix everything, but instead of comparing it to a perfect world, how about comparing it to what it was like before?
It also doesn’t help that you have been wrong about every single prediction you made about the plan. More people signed up for Obamacare than even Obama predicted (and certainly more than the “close to zero” the Republicans had predicted). More people are insured than ever before. The vast majority of those previously insured (80%) did not have to change their insurance companies or doctors. It hasn’t killed jobs and in fact has created many new jobs. 85% of all employers stated that it hadn’t affected their hiring practices in the slightest. And studies show that people are satisfied with it, including 74% of all Republicans. Even the Rand Corporation, a respected independent research group not known for its liberal political views, released its study on Obamacare and determined that it has indeed accomplished what it set out to do.
Maybe if you conservatives had actually proposed a plan — any plan — you’d have the right to complain about it, but otherwise, please just shut the hell up.
Let’s face it, you guys liked Obamacare just fine when it was called “Romneycare” and when it had been proposed by your own Presidential candidates years earlier. You just have this knee-jerk reaction to oppose anything Obama does, don’t you?
We can fix all of this with a single-payer plan like every other industrialized country, but no, you’d rather have no plan whatsoever. And, of course, even with no plan whatsoever, you’d still bitch about how the President isn’t doing anything, would you?
No one with intelligence takes you guys seriously — you know that, right?
It seems strange to me that I have to defend voting against people who argue with a straight face that you shouldn’t — either because “your vote doesn’t matter” or “no one represents me”.
Trust me — your vote matters. That’s why they spend so much money trying to get it. That’s why Republicans try so hard to keep Democrats from voting.
And there are good candidates out there. Quite often they don’t make it past the primaries because people don’t vote. People don’t pay attention. They don’t get involved; they don’t read about the elections, and then when the election rolls around, they say “Hey, no one represents me” — which might not have happened had they done something about it.
I am involved in my local party. I go to meetings, I encourage candidates to run, and I’ve even run for a minor office myself (and won). I read about politics, I write about politics, and I contribute to politicians I like. And I vote. And because of this, I have a say in who these candidates are. I can affect the results.
Complaining that no one represents you in an election when you are doing absolutely nothing to change that seems like whining to me. And you know you’re going to end up with one of them, so at least vote for the lesser of the two. Surely one represents your views better than the other one.
Democracy means we are the government. We, the people. We have a say in what our government does. The candidates answer to us, not the other way around. They represent us. They are not the government, we are.
If you don’t participate, then they ignore you. And then you get what you deserve.
The people who do vote (which are pretty much always Republicans) win elections, and then the stupid Democrats think “Guess we should be more like Republicans” and move to the right. Whereas if we voted in the same number as Republicans, we would win many of the elections and no one would be saying that. But because we stay at home, our candidates lose. So what do their campaign managers say then? “We need to appeal to those people who do vote, not those who sit at home and complain without doing anything.”
It’s not going to change from the top. It has to change from us at the bottom. And complaining without action changes nothing.
Ohio is a lot like Pennsylvania in that the Republicans have gerrymandered the state so much that even though more Democrats vote in the state than Republicans, the GOP wins the vast majority of seats.
This isn’t democracy. This isn’t “one man, one vote.” They’re not winning by having a majority agree with them or want them in there. This is winning by rewriting the rules in your favor.
Fortunately, Ohio has a ballot measure that would require a bipartisan council to fix the districts (like California has done). Let’s hope it passes.
It’s time the Supreme Court held that gerrymandering violates the Constitution by preventing proper representation. We need impartial committees using computer-generated models. Seriously, we have the programs to do it now. A computer just looks at population and natural barriers and makes districts compact and reasonable. (Here, look at these examples).
But this is the Republican way of winning elections these days. You create districts that disenfranchise Democrats; you pass “voter protection” laws that keep them from voting; and you get the courts to declare that secret unlimited money is “free speech”.
“Republicans will do everything they can to win elections except get the most votes.” – Bill Maher
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