A word we will soon hear a lot of: Patriotism

[NoBushSpokenHere]

It will be the Patriotism candidate versus the candidate for Change regardless who wins the nomination. Maybe it is time we discuss this subject in depth so we can defend against it. Yes, that is what I said. We know what is coming: The trumpet of the soul of the military individuals. I expect them to try to make it a choice between Patriotism or against it. Our dilemma is how to keep the focus onto the real problems of today: The war and the economy.

I do not consider myself a patriotic person (through the definition of Republicans). I guess I would feel patriotic if our country really were attacked without reason. I guess I would be willing to defend her if I believed there was a true reason to defend. Patriotism to me is not sacrificing our military for the sake of oil and corporate greed. Patriotism is the resistance of our leaders to the will of the corporate giants. Patriotism is defending our country from corporate takeover. The Iraq War has obviously shaken many of our citizens. How can we best keep their attention? How do we remind people that being patriotic does not mean backing a militant candidate?

[GoldieAZ49]

1. A rousing rendition of God Damn America

should do the trick

[angie_love]

8. God Damn America!!!!!!!!!!

Mother fucking America! Fuck McCain and everyone who supports a war thats killed innocent lives for no reason!!!!

LOL Ppl are so sensitive its fun to fuck with you guys every once in awhile. How will you guys feel when Gays get the right to marry? will you kill yourselves? Oh and lastly, McCain and his supporters can go FUCK themselves.

[GoldieAZ49]

16. I knew you would have the first chorus!!!!

Bravo!!! A little off key, but I am sure you will continue to practice!

Winning the hearts and minds of middle America with that tune!

:hi:

[angie_love]

22. LOL I love it! Some of you are SOOO offended by a persons pastor

yet when thousands of innocent lives are killed/soldiers are maimed/and other lives are ruined b/c of a stupid war you guys don't even blink an eye. I love the irony!

[greguganus]

24. They need a new horse to beat. n/t

[2rth2pwr]

2. We could say that it was all our fault anyway.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Read the last few paragraphs of this Opinion piece from This Sundays' upcoming NYT....

It will give a bit of a hint that war will be more important than symbolistic patriotism.....if the frame is made adequately....which I think Obama can do quite well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30rich.html?ref=opinion

[GoldieAZ49]

15. "Iraq, racial gamesmanship and viral video can destroy a Democrat, too."

a quote from the article you site

indeed it can

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Democrats need to redefine what "patriotism" and being American means.

The RW have taken all sorts of words and phrases and distorted them to fit their twisted viewpoints. It's time for the Dems to reach back to the greatness of this country under Democratic rule and demonstrate what it really means to be "American"... from sea to shining sea!

[anonymous171]

19. That's what Obama can do. His "change" message will play handily into that.

Clinton...not so much. What I fear with her is her propensity to try and out-republican republicans. You only lose that way these days.

[Johnny__Motown]

5. Valor Theft... oh wait.. that is 2 words

[LakeSamish706]

6. The think is, there are a hell of allot of things that either candidate can use against...

McCain and they need to. He has no plan other than war, war, and more war. He has no plan to deal with the current economic crisis and no plan to deal with anything other than another 4 years of the Bush plan.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. One we should hear a lot more of: Sanity.

:daily: :weekly: :web:

[AllentownJake]

9. Patriotism

After 9/11 I refused to wear a ribbon or flag pin. It had nothing to do with my love for my country. My family had an American flag flying outside of our house for years. Both my parents were Vietnam Veterans. When the flag was worn out we took it to the American Legion for proper destruction. We helped our elderly neighbors because it was the right thing to do. I shoveled more driveways for free growing up than I ever did paid. I did it because my father made me. He was instilling a value in me and I thank him for it. You help people who can't do things for themselves. We helped the homeless. My father never passed a homeless man in Allentown without stopping and buying him a meal. He never gave money but he always would get someone a meal. My Father was a Patriot in both his formal service to his country and his kindness to his fellow citizens.

I did not like the fake patriotism that was erupting. Throw a bumper sticker on your car, wave a flag, etc...when a month before people gave a shit about this stuff. When people asked me why I wouldn't wear it I said my actions before people crashed planes into our buildings speak louder than a pin. I volunteer. My volunteer service to help a fellow citizen should speak louder than any pin on my chest.

When I saw Obama wouldn't wear one for similar reasons I respected him so much more for it.

How do we re-define.

Patriotism is bigger than Military Service. We need to talk about Chicago in the 1980s and people being laid off because the mills were closing. We need to talk about a man who decided that helping his fellow citizens was more important than making a fortune. We need to get the people out there who knew Obama in the 1980s on camera and talk about how he helped them and their familes. We need to talk about the jobs he could have had as the Editor for Harvard Law Review. We need to show his civil rights work and his public service.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Tolstoy: Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.

Let's put patriotism in perspective, shall we? No one wrote more powerfully against patriotism than Emma Goldman in her essay Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty:

The awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. Yet patriotism demands still more. The people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their "defenders," but even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.

<snip>

It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree--it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.

<snip>

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.

Such is the logic of patriotism.

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Anarchism/patriotism.html

[Forkboy]

11. It won't be as easy to manipulate people this time around with 4,000 dead

[AlinPA]

12. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" : Samuel Johnson, and

“I find it difficult to believe that I belong to such an idiotic, rotten species — the species that actually boasts of its freedom of will, heroism on command, senseless violence, and all of the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism.”

Albert Einstein

[Swamp Rat]

13. War = Profits

[Tribetime]

14. just put the war on my Gold China VIsa card please.

we can't afford to lose the lives of our soldiers trying to force our beliefs on others, yet alone pay for it while not being able to take care of our own. I've never heard a reason as to why are we there? will somebody give me a good reason as to why were still there, other than it would be a disaster if we leave...it's a disaster now.

[GoldieAZ49]

17. I thought the 'stimulus checks' were on that

damn, that card has no limit

[gear_head]

18. does Obama plan on speaking to veteran's organizations? n/t

[IndianaGreen]

20. American Legion is a fascist organization, and the VFW is a cesspool of rightwingers

Obama would do better by speaking to individual VFW chapters, and to other veterans' organizations such as IAVAW and Veterans for Peace.

[futureliveshere]

21. True Patriotism is when you love your country but are will to rebute it for its mistakes and sins.

It is not blind faith. That is called fundamentalism where there are no questions asked and everyone behaves like a mindless, brainwashed zombie.

[Vinca]

23. We need to redefine patriotism. Is patriotism merely wearing your

mandated flag pin or is it giving people healthcare? Is it mouthing your support of the troops while allowing them to go into an illegal war with insufficient equipment? John McCain is, of course, a patriot, but that fact alone does not put food on the table. He's for more trade agreements and outsourcing jobs. We have to make sure the veneer on this campaign is cracked. The real issues need to be front and center, not the smoke screen issues.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer

A statement I fully agree with.