War, huh, good God y'all

The other day, while running errands about town, I noticed there were even more flags flying than usual. I don’t suppose it’ll come as any surprise that I find all the promiscuous flag waving to be just so much jingoistic, rah rah rah go team, offensive horseshit.
Patriotism, the love and allegiance to the country in which I was born, has been grotesquely cheapened by the warmongering, flag pin wearing, winking corporatists.

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles
~Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991)

The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
~Mark Twain, from the essay The Czar's soliloquy (1905)

Patriotism ... for rulers is nothing else than a tool for achieving their power-hungry and money-hungry goals, and for the ruled it means renouncing their human dignity, reason, conscience, and slavish submission to those in power. ... Patriotism is slavery.
~Leo Tolstoy, Patriotism and Christianity (1894).

So, what up with all the extra red, white and blue around here lately? Flag Day, you say?

 Oh. Nevermind.

And then there’s all the recent chanting of USAUSAUSA. Are these folks cheering on a fresh bit of hell? More war?

A friend on Facebook wrote:

Dear Facebook,
The bar across Dorchester Ave. from my apartment has just erupted in cheers, and now they are chanting "USA!" Well, I guess something good has happened.

Soccer? Oh yeah — that's the other football. Right?

And another wrote this:

I keep seeing "USA USA" on my feed.

It's about soccer. Whew. Thought maybe we were re-invading Iraq again. Because, you know, it worked out so well the first couple of times.

Remember how our hearts swelled with pride when our Commander in Chief climbed into a jumpsuit and landed on board an aircraft carrier (that they had to move, lest folks realize it was sitting in San Francisco bay) and allowed that, yes, it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED time?

Except that it wasn't? He wasn't really a jet fighter pilot. The carrier wasn't in the straits of Hormuz. And the mission wasn't accomplished.

From Mark Karlin on the site Truth Out:

Mission accomplished, George W. Bush swaggeringly declared on the stage set of an aircraft carrier those many years ago.  It was supposed to be the shining moment of neocon triumph, the ultimate assertion of United States hegemony and military power as an empire.

Instead, it was the beginning of a bloody and unnecessary conflict that resulted in more than 100,000 Iraqis killed (and that is probably a conservative estimate), more than 5000 US service men and women killed (and countless wounded or returned to the states with PTSD).

Jim Wright, a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer who was in Iraq before it all began, was asking why Iraq way back then — he’s still asking.

And so here we are.

The same old motley cast of characters, the warhawks and the chickenhawks and the billionaires and the simple-minded saber-rattlers and the same old hate-filled pundits, they just can’t wait to jump back into Iraq.

Mitt Romney, John McCain, one who never served and one who damned well ought to know better, men who both wanted to be President of the United States and who both lost to Barack Obama, they just can’t wait to send other people’s kids back into the meat grinder.

Here’s my question.

Why?

Why, John McCain?

Why, Mitt Romney?

Why, conservatives?

This time you fuckers goddamned well tell me why.

What’s the goal? What’s the objective? Is it to end terrorism? Is it to enforce peace at the muzzle of a gun? Is it it to make defense contractors rich? Is it for jobs? Or is it for magic flying bunnies who shoot rainbows and cheap gasoline out of their little assholes to the sound of Yankee Doodle Dandy?

Or, or, is it just because you hate Barack Obama?

Go read the whole thing. Seriously. And then read the comments. Mister Wright has a strong No Trolls or Trolling Allowed policy so there’s actual discussion. No one’s throwing flaming gobs of poo. Yeah, I know, STUNNING!

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.
~Sydney Harris

War — Edwin Starr