The Ancient Swindle

 

 

I'm against patriotism, at least what passes for it in the USA.  People here do a lot of bullying, a lot of mindless flag-waving, mouth the talking points of Bill O'Riley and Carl Rove and call themselves patriots.  But you can't carry patriotism on a bumper sticker, you can't get it from mouthing the bird droppings of Ann Coulter and you can't even get it from voting for your favorite candidate every two years.  Real patriotism comes from people who spill their lifesblood on foreign soil:  granted.  But the patriots of 1776, who politicians parrot and claim to emulate, were largely statesmen, editors and intellectuals.  They published daily or weekly broadsides in which they voiced opinions about the nascent state and often scandalous reports of their political enemies. They spread the word that a new order was coming, something bright and new and quite separate from England.

 

Today's patriot seems to come by his stripes by beating up queers and swigging beer.  Mouthing Bush and Rush. Trashing their Muslim neighbors.  And so on. The patriotism of today, excluding the service of soldiers whom I honor though I suspect them of being taken into an ancient swindle --that pernicious scheme by which evil old men con young men to do their dying for them--  is ludicrous and cheap. I think we should discard "The Star Spangled Banner" as jingoistic 19th century bollywog and replace it with "This Land Is Your Land" as our national anthem.  Despite all this, I rather like our flag with its fifty stars.  If you tilt your consciousness just a little to the side, it can look like a prophecy of Earth's inclusion in a celestial democracy, just one world of suffering peoples in a universe of many.