Plastic Patriotism
This Memorial Day weekend, I will be spending time with friends and family in social settings. Aside from the ole red, white, and blue décor they will mostly be just like countless other gatherings complete with meat, alcohol and more alcohol. Inevitably, there will be someone who wants to honor our military dead with a prayer usually associated with the giving of the grace before the meal or as the evening progresses, an impromptu spewing of alcohol induced declaration of their patriotism. All present will standby, allowing the orator their few minutes of what in most cases one could consider grandstanding to fulfill their need to be in the spotlight no matter how dim it shines.
On such occasions in the past, I’ve found myself wishing that we really could be patriotic and mean it. I suppose I harbor some patriot feelings towards those colonists who rebelled against King George III in 1776 and those who rebelled against King Abraham almost a century later. My dilemma is that I cannot honestly say I feel any emotion aside from revolting disgust and even hatred for those that drug our people into all of the wars of the 20th century and all of the profiteers associated with those wars. My patriotism is reserved for my nation not an out of control empirical government.
Many Americans out of a shared ignorance woven into the design of this tumultuousness society confuse the two. The words made famous by Lincoln “of the people, by the people, for the people” were a lie when he said them after half of a million Americans died to, as they put it nowadays, “ensure the continuity of government”. In our modern society, continuity of government is the highest priority of government far outweighing the lives, liberties, and properties of “the people”.
When he refused to condemn the Saudi Crown Prince after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi Embassy in Turkey and murdered, former President Trump revealed a truth. In not so many words he explained that Saudi Arabia spends hundreds of billions of dollars on armaments manufactured by the American government’s partners/puppeteers who cannot afford to give those sales up to an arms manufacture in bed with a different fascist government. If we didn’t already know, it is now abundantly clear, America is an empire of profiteers, by profiteers, and for profiteers.