The Far Right and Perverting Patriotism

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Bill Hare - Writer


Check American History and you will find that patriotism was defined and consisted of far different practices than occurred following World War Two.

It was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an American leader the right maligned when he was in office and continued to malign after his death, who began the practice of singing the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games. This became a practice during the war to instill greater patriotism and love of country during a period of sacrifice.

During World War Two there was a spirit of patriotic unity based on inclusion. There was a task to be performed and by forming a common front and purpose the goal of victory became attainable.

Look what happened following World War Two. The two leaders, one deceased by then, who had been at the helm in the effort to thwart Nazi totalitarianism, Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman, began to be reviled as disloyal Americans by the same type of intolerable right wing extremists that form today's Tea Party.

Two demagogues joined forces to turn Americans against each other and conquer by division, using the fear of nuclear confrontation amidst a Cold War to insist that conspiracy was afoot in America.


http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Far-Right-and-Perverti-by-Bill-Hare-100329-92.html

[damntexdem]

1. Oh, but it's what they do so well.

And they want to stick to those few, despicable things that they do well.

[YOY]

2. But they're so good at waving the flag when nobody questions them!

THere should have been a "how fucking dare you" decades ago at their BS.

[Mopar151]

3. What a legacy

"So when you see Tea Baggers wrap themselves in the flag and malign those who disagree with them as traitors or spineless dupes who know no better, recall the legacy from which theirs and other movements of the far right developed." From the Op-ed news article

If I remember my half-buried history well, Nixon was a protoge of Prescott Bush - who acted as Germany's commercial agent in the US from the early 30's through 1942, when he was enjoined from trading with the enemy. Malicious smears against political opponents are SOP for this bunch - and generally, they accuse their opponents of exactly what they themselves are guilty of.
Roosevelt is a Bolshevik, Obama is Hitler, it's all the same drumbeat. Fr. Coughlin = Glenn Beck. Meet the new lie, same as the old lie.....

[classysassy]

4. McCarthy and Beck

never saw a bottle of booze they disliked.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked, but too late to recommend..

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.