July 4th Reality Check

America doesn't really believe in democracy any more. It's just a slogan used to sell unpopular wars, or justify the greasy manuevers of a corrupt political machine. America doesn't want social justice, either -- just a few extra crumbs from the tables of the wealthy. It worships power and material success and expects those who don't to hold their tongues. It hears what it wants to hear and sees what it wants to see, and it has a corporate media establishment increasingly dedicated to ensuring that it always does...

Without that ideal, patriotism is just tribalism: the mindless glorification of "us" and the demonization of "them." And in the case of America, "us" includes a long list of right-wing idiots who I feel absolutely no affinity with or loyalty to -- beginning with Rush Limbaugh and continuing through the loudmouth Bush supporter who sits just outside my office. I don't want to be in their tribe. And I sure the hell don't want them in mine.

As for the rest of my fellow Americans? Their lives are no more -- and no less -- precious than any other group of human beings with a flag and a national anthem. I don't wish them ill, but the moments when I feel any emotionally solidarity with them (like on the morning of 9/11, or, briefly, in Jimmy John's the other day) are becoming quite rare. I don't really feel like I even know them any more.

Which means that if I still support the war on terrorism, or hope that America finds a way out of the Iraq quagmire, or wish for a more successful U.S. foreign policy, it's not out of patriotism. I live in the United States, my family lives here, and we're not moving, at least not any time soon. That being the case, I'd rather not see it nuked, or hit with a dirty bomb, or anthrax or smallpox. I'd also rather not live in a complete police state, which is what we may get if any of those things happen. That's not patriotism -- just the instinct for self preservation.

But not loving America -- or rather, what America is fast becoming -- isn't the same as believing there are no worse things than America. Bin Ladin and the fanatics who follow him aren't evil because they're the enemies of America, they're evil because they're evil -- because they slaughter innocent people, promote religious hatred and would rather see the Islamic world impoverished and ignorant than freed from their medieval fantasies.

Opposing that also isn't patriotism -- just common human decency, and a (probably vain) hope for a better world than this shit pile we live in...

If that be treason, I suppose I'll just have to learn how to make the most of it.

My thanks to Whiskey Bar, experted from Goodbye Columbus posted by Billmon.