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Why I Don't Celebrate July 4
By Matthew Rothschild, July 3, 2010It's July 4th, my least favorite holiday. "That's because those around me are enjoying themselves." And I'm not referring to the bugs, or the crowds, or the traffic on the highways. "I don't like those, either, because I'm so sensitive..." I'm talking about the mindless patriotic bubble bath we're all supposed to soak in all weekend long. Well, not me. "Love of country's got nuttin' to do with me." My heart does not beat faster at the strains of the Star Spangled Banner, much less at the sight of F-16s flying overhead to kick off the show. "Nope. Leaves me cold." You see, I don't believe in patriotism. "I am without love of country, without love of my countrymen. American accomplishment leave me cold, since I am unaccomplished myself. I stand alone, an unrepentant unwiped anus." You can call me unpatriotic if you'd like, but really I'm anti-patriotic. That's kind of a quibble, isn't it? You are or you're not. If you are you can be kinda patriotic or you can be a super-patriot, or you can be quietly patriotic or even just a little bit patriotic. If you're not patriotic you're unpatriotic by definition. I've been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. "Studying fascism, I'm familiar with all the works of Gabriele d'Annunzio, to include his poetry and his plays. I have perused the works of il Duce in the original Italiano, and I have read the Spanish theorists of fascism. Having studied European history, I'm aware that fascist dictatorships such as Italy and Germany were quite happy to overthrow or overshadow nationalist regimes in Austria or Romania or Bulgaria or Hungary. I'm quite familiar with the differences between your common garden variety dictatorship and a fascist regime." And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. "Such as for instance in Britain in the late 1700s." Patriotism is not something to play with. It's highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. Yet without it the body politic becomes anemic and is easily knocked over by some other, more robust entity, like maybe a gang of brownshirts. It gulls people into believing their leaders. Occasionally people have leaders who speak to them truthfully. It masks those who benefit most from state policy. I'm not too sure how patriotism does that... And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation. Like Glaxo Welcome, Panasonic, people like that... Plus, it's a war toy, wheeled out whenever a leader needs to improve his ratings by attacking some other country--often after invoking God's name, too. It's been so since the Spanish-American War and World War I and right up through the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. Forget about the Maine. What was our beef with Kaiser Bill? Hawaii wasn't even a state when Pearl Harbor got bombed -- we shoulda ignored it. Korea? Why not let the industrial north reclaim the agrarian south? Vietnam? Guess Jane Fonda and Wally Cronkeit settled that question, didn't they?Iraq?... Ummm... What were you saying about fascism? Afghanistan? 9-11? What's 3000 dead out of a population of 330 million? American patriotism has also gotten in the way of solving global warming. Many in the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world's resources but has just 4 percent of the world's population, believe we have the God-given right to use up all the resources we can. And there is an all-too-common attitude that we don't need to listen to any other countries, or the U.N., or obey any international agreements because we're Americans, and we're better than everybody else. Until we got the current president we used to have 25 percent of the world's productivity, which is a more accurate guage of our resource requirements. We've got to get over patriotism, and we've got to cure the American superiority complex. The current administration's doing its best to do that. We the people are waiting for the next election because we kinda liked being exceptional. So celebrate the 4th if you like. I have and I will. But as for me, between God, country, and apple pie, I'll take the apple pie. Sounds more like the posings and posturings of a stunted, childish personality. Posted by: Fred 2010-07-05 |
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