Posted on 10/10/2008 1:54:32 PM PDT by mojito
...On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. Is not nationalism—that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder—one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
Patriotism is perhaps the single concept in greatest need of being subjected to intense scrutiny and questioning in our country today. We live, after all, in a time of empire resurrected and unapologetic, of war without borders and seemingly without end, of greed enthroned and of a rapidly widening gulf between rich and poor, of the elusive and seemingly intractable barriers to racial justice, and of patriotism rehearsed and paraded in every corner, and yet the basic questions of who we are and where we are eludes us.
....This enforced ignorance is part of the logic of patriotism, which is of a piece with the logic of nationalism: anyone who by chance was thrust onto this small specific patch of earth is to consider himself or herself superior to all those unfortunates who were thrust onto some other patch. This beatified place is imagined to be qualitatively unparalleled, so different from all other places that it’s as if a high wall shuts it off from the rest of the world. And walls as metaphors are reinforced with barbed wire erected in East Germany, Israel, and now the US on its southern border. Here, within the wall, a chosen people, so to speak, live blessed lives that are nobler, greater, deeper and wiser and more beneficent than the lives led by any other human beings anywhere else.
This is the constant conceit of patriotism, the narcissistic and arrogant stance. The result is that we are willing to fight, kill, and die—or as is almost always the case, to at least send the children of the laboring classes as proxies to do the killing and dying—in a patriotic fever for real estate before reason.
Samuel Johnson called patriotism “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” and Bertrand Russell, “the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons”—patriotism is justification for murder. And the great Malcolm X advised that no one become “so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality…Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” Howard Zinn describes the typically disingenuous justification for war: As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: “The American solider is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.” We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture. Yet they are victims, too, of our government’s lies.
The article is titled "KAPPAN Backtalk: A Response to Christine and Laughlin."
There's lots of other stuff here, FReepers. Let's find it.
Wow....he sounds like Michael Malone!
Nice try from a douche bag who said:
Characterizing Weatherman as “an American Red Army,” Ayers summed up the organization’s ideology as follows: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.”
BTT!
No...Sounds like Barry “two-pack-a-day” NObama.
And walls as metaphors are reinforced with barbed wire erected in East Germany, Israel, and now the US on its southern border.
The wall in East Germany was designed to keep people IN. That's in your commie utopia Ayers you scumbag. Wonder why if it's so bad here, we need a wall to keep people out?
As for Israel's wall, that's to keep your fellow terrorists out.
These words should be intersected with ad’s for Mccain.
“What is Barack Obabam’s frinds vision for America?”...”In their own words...”Insert quote”......
So high and mighty he can’t bow his head in thanks for the gifts that surround him.
AYERS’ book “Fugitive Days”. Some amazon customer should buy it asap for research purposes.
The only way Barack Obama will be elected President is for us to fail to tell enough voters.
The Post American World of Barack Obama
The Post American World, by Fareed Zakaria
Barack Obama & the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
Listen to this Interview of James Simpson, by Sandy Rios, Tuesday 9/30 - WYLL 1160AM, Chicago, IL
From http://www.culturecampaign.com/culturecorner.aspx
Simpson documents his research in his article, providing Web links. He provides a rough flow chart.
Further corroboration on Obama & The Cloward-Piven Strategy:
Obama, Voter Fraud & Mortgage Meltdown, by James H. Walsh, former federal prosecutor.
On Barack Obama's Marxist connections in Chicago
Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of [Marxist] Socialist 'New Party' In 1996
On Alice Palmer, the South Side's Marxist State Senator, Who Hand Picked Barack Obama to Succeed Her
More on Obama's Marxist alliance with Radical Islamists:
And then there are... Herbert and Marion Sandler, the Pritzkers, and the "loose lips" of Charles Schumer and Harry Reid (and Henry Paulson is not above suspicion, with his control-freak power play and Goldman Sachs cronyism).
Get these breakthrough items out to everyone you know (or anything even more informative that comes up) -- voters, media, officials and staff of both parties, everyone. We have time if we act now.
Well, the Obamessiah/Obiden definition for patriotism is “paying high taxes”. I’m sure “obey your rulers” is up there too.
such a sissy. (looks non-threatening, huh?) I wish...
And in response to the Ayers atrocity above, I post an article by Rich Carroll
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In Remembrance of America
By Rich Carroll
Eleven score and twelve years ago, 56 founders of this great nation signed a document freeing the United States from British tyranny and establishing national pride of independence and freedom that George Washington would reaffirm during his farewell address when he said: “The name of American which belongs to you, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism” and, “Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.”
A nation was born from the wilderness that would in the coming years feed the world, give charitably and abundantly to countries in need, and save Europe from the tyranny of a madman.
Fifty two men who signed our Declaration of Independence were devout Christians, helping to establish God as the final authority of morality and spiritual guidance to any people of any race coming here to live free from tyranny within the laws of “We the people.”
The United States is always first to respond, and the first to produce products, food, medicines, and inventions to help mankind around the world. History will prove that America and her allies remained free not from appeasing our enemies to satisfy their grievances, not by dialogue or sensitivity training, but by young men carrying a rifle.
This week, as we celebrate our 232nd birthday, the citizens of this nation must take stock in how far we have fallen and examine how much longer we can sustain “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” when we face the greatest assault in our history.
We did not become the greatest nation on earth by liberal politicians telling the world on global television that our soldiers are torturers, or that most Germans and Japanese were “peaceful.” Our enemies would have received the distinct message that they could defeat us with this disloyal and surrender rhetoric. The Islamics must feel that if they keep doing what they are doing, they will have us.
We did not become the greatest nation on earth by evil tyrants endorsing our presidential candidates; we became great by these same evil tyrants being afraid of our presidential candidates. We became a great nation led by men of steadfast character and single purpose resolve. We did not become a great nation being lead by secular humanists or liberation theology ‘’victims’’ undermining the traditional roots of America and destroying the only belief worth defending.
We became a great nation by killing our enemies. We did not become a great nation by cajoling and partnering with our enemies. We once enjoyed being admired as the envy of the world. Now we enjoy merely being simply a part of the world, for in our present condition of anemia, we have lost our soul.
Fire and swords will not defeat us. We have allowed the silent and unseen wedge of corruption, sloth, pornography, drugs, atheism, and humanism to kill our aspirations and integrity—our souls. In our national prosperity we have strayed from those ideals upon which this nation was founded and we obey the gods of entertainment and escape, and in this quest we have become unhappy, disoriented, and disenfranchised from these United States and worship at the alter of ‘’duty is to yourself.’’
By establishing standards of achievement open to all—to the weak and to the inept—we stopped the impetus to effort in all men great or small, and stopped all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. We have enshrined mediocrity. Add to this the cultural scientific rationality that humans are a glob of matter and you underwrite the view that we are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of a zealous, willfully determined Islamic enemy.
This secular and personal challenge is the battle plan for our coming trials of the twenty-first century and we will either regain our patriotism and steadfast UNITED resolve, or we will be swallowed by the followers of Allah. Islam’s goal is very clear. We cannot win this battle hiding in front of a mindless television screen or blaming someone else. We cannot win by listening to the liberal mantra of ‘’the world hates us,’’ but by standing these globalists up and asking them “Who do you mean by ‘the world‘?” “Do you mean Europe who we bled and sacrificed to save and is easily surrendering to the sword of Allah?” “Do you mean the 57 member Organization of the Islamic Conference which is manipulating the United Nations so that they can install Sharia laws in place of our Constitution?” “Do you mean the evil tyrant dictators who endorse your candidate but hate America for our achievements?”, “or when you say ‘the world’ do you really mean your liberal party of atheists and communists who have other ideas for us under the banner of socialism?”
We cannot win by listening to a cowardly, yellow media and press who would rather surrender this nation than tell the absolute truth and be labeled “racist” or “Islamophobic” by a butchering cult who does not believe in free press.
We begin anew on this Independence Day by asking ourselves “Can we remain a free independent nation under a globalist with Muslim roots from another continent who says ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction’? What does this statement tell you and how does it apply to today’s America of encroaching and demanding Muslims who will eventually insist on your conversion or beheading?
Begin anew by asking yourself “How much longer can we hide from the truth?” Ask yourself if you want this nation to ensure that our founding principles are maintained and preserved for future generations, or if you want liberal judges who make laws rather than interpret them. Do we want to maintain the Christian values of America, or see our grandchildren go to Muslim schools wearing the required Arabic dress?
The decision about our future falls squarely on our individual shoulders. Together, we can have many more “Independence celebrations,” or we can eliminate this holiday when our new rulers find it ‘’offensive.’’
Ronald Reagan said: “If we ever forget we are one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.”
God bless you, Rich Carroll. You’re a great American.
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This slug is walking the streets and supporting the Obamanation only because he is a beneficiary of the Constitution of the land he so gleefully mocks. In any of his beloved Socialist paradises, he would have been executed decades ago.
If you don’t like it here Bill, why haven’t you left already?
Pray for America!
Bill Ayers revolted against his country, its government, its economy, its whole social order. He was willing to use violence to weaken and subvert the United States. His heroes were Communists.
Now he thinks he’s a hero. The man is an idiot.
But... but... but... I thought Barak told us that Ayers was “rehabilitated”.
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