patriotism

[low_delta]

I got two e-mails tonight, that had political themes.

One was a collection of quotes about patriotism. Like these:

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above
principles. ~George Jean Nathan

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it. ~George Bernard Shaw

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by
common hatred of its neighbours. ~William R. Inge

I consider myself a patriot, but only so far as to say that this is a great country. I will not hold it above other nations. I will do my to keep this nation as it was intended to be, because that is why it is great. It is not great because Americans live here, it is great because it made us who we are.

I dislike the sort of patriots that the speakers above complained about. Those "patriots" are just blind flag wavers. America: love it or leave it.

The other e-mail was a grouping of "support our troops" messages. The last part was a photo of a Marine unit standing in a formation spelling out "9-11 - WE REMEMBER." You know that in order to be effective, our troops must have an enemy that they feel is worth fighting, right? Given that the proud troops pictured were in Iraq, what does that say about them? What did Iraq have to do with the attacks of September eleventh? Remember after U.S. troops entered Bagdad, and one guy placed the flag over the face of a statue Saddam? What was the story of that flag? It had come from the Pentagon on 9-11-01.

The message sent by our troops is clear: you ragheads better not fuck with us, and if you don't we're going to eradicate you.

Comments

[aki-dreaming.livejournal.com]

Thank you.
Important to remember.
It's really all a matter of perspectives and unless I'm looking at a map I can't see the borders.