What Americans Know

[ixion]

Granted, I'm not a big fan of patriotic sentiment in any context. But this got my goat in ways I just couldn't shake. First, there was the niggly matter of historical accuracy. (What are black, Asian or Native Americans supposed to make of that line about welcoming all the races?) One also had to question the dubious taste of singing about a "do or die land" in the wake of a controversial war in Iraq that many parents in our liberal corner of Santa Monica had passionately opposed. What really riled me, though, was that the song had absolutely nothing to do with education. The words were lousy, and the music wasn't a lot better. It bore no relation to the rest of the classwork on display. So what was it doing there? I might have understood better if my son's teacher were some raving flag-waving patriot, but she isn't. She, and the other parents, beamed proudly and generally acted as if the song were a normal part of the American school experience.

Which, as I quickly discovered, it is. Patriotic songs are sung up and down classrooms at Grant Elementary, just as they are at every other school in the land. Mostly, they go without challenge or critical examination. In third grade, for example, the daughter of a friend of mine merrily sang her way through "It's a Grand Old Flag", which includes the lines: "Every heart beats true/'neath the Red, White and Blue, /Where there's never a boast or brag ..." Her father, an old Sixties radical who doesn't like to keep quiet about these things, gently asked her when they got home whether the whole song wasn't in fact a boast and a brag. His daughter went very quiet as she thought through the implications of his question. Challenging received wisdom in this way is something she never encounters in the classroom.

Even after five years in the United States, I continue to be surprised by the omnipresence of patriotic conformism. This phenomenon long predates 11 September. When my son started playing baseball this year, he and his friends were made to recite the Little League pledge which begins: "I trust in God. I love my country and respect its laws." What has that got to do with sportsmanship? When, a few weeks later, he and I went to see our first ball game at Dodger Stadium, I was flabbergasted all over again when the crowd rose to sing the national anthem. This was just a routine game, not an international fixture. So what was with all the flag-waving?

With my son's education at stake, I can't help but ponder the link between what is fed to children as young as six and what American adults end up understanding about the wider world. There is much that is admirable in the unique brand of idealism that drives American society, with its unshakable belief in the constitutional principles of freedom and limitless opportunity. Too often, though, the idealism becomes a smokescreen concealing the uglier realities of the United States and the way it throws its economic, political and military weight around the globe. Children are recruited from the very start of their school careers to believe in Team America, whose oft-repeated mantra is: we're the good guys, we always strive to do the right thing, we live in the greatest country in the world. No other point of view, no other cultural mindset, is ever seriously contemplated. Schoolroom maps of North America detail city names, roads and rivers within the continental United States, but invariably leave the areas within Canada and Mexico blank, as though reality itself stopped at the national border.



http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0909-07.htm

I think Gumbel makes a fantastic point here. Every day, America moves towards a type of nationalism ironically equated with China and Russia, countries that we were brought up to believe were 'evil'. Seems that it's only 'evil' if it's not the US that's doing it. As well, I think he nails the typical American ignorance and denial that has entered the realm of the pathological since the WTC tragedy.

[tom_paine]

1. "Moves towards" ? I think we are there

We are becoming more and more like China/Soviet Union/Nazi Germany each day.

Luckily, our day to day lives are still ok, probably a tip of the hat to the 225 year tradition of Liberty and Free Speech technically ended during the Bloodless Coup of 2000.

But in many ways, we ae already there.

[Martin Eden]

2. This article has amazing insight !!!

It's fairly long, but well worth the read. The middle passages about education are powerful, and the last two paragraphs tie it all together with our current politics.

--snip--
The ignorance and self-delusion have been compounded by the deep-seated anti-intellectualism of the current President. Intellectuals have never exactly been popular in US politics, but George W Bush, a C student and proud of it, is in a category of his own when it comes to disregarding or even openly campaigning against objective reality. Manipulating intelligence reports on Iraq isn't much of a stretch for an administration that ignores scientific research on global warming, or insists on a link between abortion and breast cancer, even though no such link has been found. The Christian fundamentalist agenda is so strong that AIDS researchers at the National Institutes of Health are now afraid of using words like "homosexual", "gay" or "anal sex" in their work. As one scientist advised his colleagues in an e-mail quoted by The New York Times: "Assume you are living in Stalinist Russia when communicating with the United States government."

Ignorance, self-delusion, free-floating disregard for the facts and an unswerving belief in its own infallibility: such are the hallmarks of today's America. People don't understand what their government is up to because they don't understand how government works and because the media isn't giving them any clues. Those responsible for the country's education prefer to avoid giving offence than to impart any actual information. The disconnect between the people and the rulers they elect, and between the rulers and those most directly affected by the consequences of their actions, is little short of frightening. A glimpse into history suggests empires often build up these illusory images of themselves, images that through their deceptive power eventually conspire to bring them down. It happened to the Romans, and to the Japanese, and to the Soviet empire. Could the United States be so very different?

[UpInArms]

3. excellent post!

thanks!