Patriotism - We've been led to believe that patriotism is standing behind the government.  But is it?
By Joey Ernst

During the 2008 presidential primary campaigns, Democrat Barack Obama came under fire from various sources for not wearing – as is the current fashion for politicians – an American flag pin on his lapel.  His detractors, who obtained quite a bit of media coverage, claimed that he was unpatriotic, but offered no other proof than the fact that he does not wear a lapel pin.  Implicit, perhaps, was the notion that someone who has such an odd name (and who, oh my goodness, is black) must be suspect.  In any case, given that the “proof” at hand was so patently superficial, it was fairly outrageous that the so-called story received so much attention from the mainstream media.  However, the only thing we citizens were outraged about was Obama’s difference; we wondered, Is Barack Obama an unpatriotic American?  After all, he doesn’t wear a flag pin.  And his last name does rhyme with Osama…  The American mainstream media, of course, only gave this piece of superficial information so much coverage because the people making content decisions knew that it would interest the average American in a way that, say, the Iraq war or American corporate games would most definitely not.   

We The People…  there are few phrases so short that capture such immense meaning.  In the context of the Constitution, that phrase means that you and I and our fellow common citizens are more than just common citizens – it means that we are The People, the heart and soul, brain and spine of the United States of America.  We are the reason for the creation of our country, our forefathers and foremothers were the creators of our country, and we are the sustainers of our country.  We collectively control our country through democratic processes.  The leaders we choose answer to the collective us, and if we think they are poor leaders we can replace them at will with varying degrees of swiftness, depending on their level of incompetence.  Such a just system depends heavily upon each individual citizen to be knowledgeable about their little piece of the world as well as the larger world around them; they must know about current issues, political and cultural history, the potential ramifications of a given political action, and be well versed in original American ideals.  Beyond simple knowledge, individuals must also care about their country and its place in the world as a whole.  Only when citizens are individually knowledgeable and caring can they be qualified to choose leaders and to lead themselves.  This whole idea, being fairly revolutionary in 1776, began as somewhat of a grand idealistic experiment.  Now, in 2008, it would appear that the experiment is on the verge of failing.  For We The People have become we the (preoccupied) people, or perhaps just We The Sheep. 

No longer do we take the time to know what even our little piece of the world is about, not to mention how we fit into and affect the world as a whole.  In short, we have become complacent, blind followers, unpatriotic citizens of our so-called democracy.  It is oxymoronic that a culture so obsessed with flag-waving and yellow-ribbon-showing should be unpatriotic at heart, but like the pufferfish, we are all swollen and flashy on the outside yet nothing but hot air and few true guts on the inside.  Somehow we feel that by slapping a “Support Our Troops” ribbon on the SUV and hanging an American flag on the porch, we are truly patriots.  The reality is that the ribbon is a poor showing of actual support for troops who are giving their lives for naught but corporate enrichment and political bravado; the flag was likely made in China, and is nothing more than a weak symbol of a heritage we no longer deserve to inherit.  There are two simple reasons that these types of actions pass for patriotism in our culture today:  1. They are ever-so-easy.  2. There is a particularly rabid breed of spin-master PR experts alive and well in our culture today.   

We Americans are in love with easy.  Ours is the culture that gave to the world such dubious ideas such as fast food restaurants (with drive-through windows!), freezer dinners, electric knives, and automobile-centered infrastructure.  We haven’t always been lazy; many of our cultural ancestors in centuries past have been anything but, considering work and hardship sacred and pleasure sinful.  Perhaps it is against this largely Puritan-ethic background that we have rebelled, but like the swing of a clock’s pendulum, we have gone a good way past center.  Certainly our collective awareness and work ethic were alive and well during the Second World War, when our country knew where we stood, what we stood for, and what enemies we faced.  By the end of the war, however, we had become sick of hardship, sick of sacrifice, sick of knowledge of war and death and work.  The pendulum began a momentous swing away from that side of the spectrum, and we as a culture tried to bury our memories of tough times by indulging in a “bigger, better, faster, easier” consumer culture.  In our geographical isolation, we had little physical evidence of the war – unlike Europe and Asia – and our memories faded quickly.  Giant corporations, fairly new on the world scene (many resulting directly from the war effort), were more than happy to turn from the sole manufacture of war goods and began to produce products to sell to the American public.  Eisenhower, seeing this happening before his eyes, took care to warn us about the “military-industrial complex” – a warning that we would have done well to heed but, alas, have not.  The consumer culture, though experiencing a significant counter-culture revolt in the sixties and seventies, retained enough mainstream momentum to culminate in the eighties, a decade largely characterized by self-absorption, hedonism, and profiteering.  By the turn of the century, the “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that Eisenhower mentioned in his presidential farewell speech had become scarce indeed.  Instead, our citizenry had become increasingly interested in “progress”, personal ascent of the corporate ladder, and the accumulation of material goods.   

All of these last three things, it should be noted, serve the same purpose – that is, to increase monetary profit for a precious few at the top of the corporate/political ladder.  This truth is as depressing as it is completely integrated into our modus operandi.  The consumer culture that began as a way to soothe open wounds and bury fresh memories quickly lost its original purpose as a means to an end and became an end in itself.  We thought the possession of material goods for possession’s sake to be a good thing, and the companies making such material goods had no problem telling us the same.  In order to purchase ever-increasingly “normal” amounts of goods, we needed more money; and the way to make more money was to climb the rungs of the newly-ubiquitous corporate ladder.  Corporations flourished, in part because of the ravenous appetite of Americans for their products, in part because of the never-ending stream of people willing to work hard for the promise of “advancement” and a bigger paycheck.  With this flourishing came increased profits, and the lion’s share of this went to the tip of the corporate pyramid.  In order to ensure that policies would serve their ends, the wealthy elite involved themselves in politics, with the end result that the people in the corporate sector and in politics were intimately connected if not the very same people.  This rings truer than ever today. 

Despite such an impressively effective system of social control being firmly in place, a generation’s worth of people managed to stage a fairly large counter-cultural revolt in the sixties and seventies.  This counter-culture purported to believe in living simpler lives, rebelling against the blatant materialism of their parents’ generation.  The movement had mostly died out by the eighties, with many of the “hippies” returning to a more normal American lifestyle or simply quieting down and keeping to themselves.  However, the counter-cultural revolution served to remind the corporate sphere that should the people begin thinking for themselves, the status quo could change rather quickly, and soon after we were ushered into an era of media control such as we had never before seen in America.  Control of the media and the specifics of its content have always been known as a source of power; but the degree to which media began to saturate everyday life, and the degree to which media content was controlled, was unprecedented before the late 1980’s.  How a story on any given subject was “spun”, or presented in such a way to promote a certain view, became as important as the story itself.  Major corporations began to buy up more and more media outlets, until the vast majority of news sources were controlled by only a few conglomerates, all with interests in seeing certain subjects portrayed in a certain way.  Given the proliferation of media outlets, the increasing number of nation-wide media outlets, and the consolidation of the owners, Americans are more likely than ever to see the same story, presented the same way, regardless of where they live. 

Which brings us back to patriotism.  The word “patriotism” conjures up noble images and feelings within us; in our post-9/11 nation, the mainstream media has pushed the concept of patriotism upon us more than ever.  However, the brand of patriotism they are pushing is nothing but a watered-down, soulless caricature of the real deal.  Their brand requires nothing of the American people but blind obedience, limited curiosity, a group-think intolerance of other cultures, and the thoughtless showing of empty symbols such as the “Support Our Troops” yellow ribbon and the flag.  (These symbols, it should be noted, are not inherently empty; they are empty because of the intent behind their display, or, to be more precise, the lack of intent behind their display.)  This hollow shell of patriotism serves one purpose only – to make the American people feel as if they are uniting for a common cause.  That it does very well, although the exact cause for which we are uniting remains determined not by us, but by those in charge.  In our post 9/11 nation, that cause happened to be war with Iraq – a war that had poor official reasons and thinly-veiled real reasons for beginning in the first place, a war which has cost the American (not to mention the Iraqi) people dearly in both blood and money, yet which has made immense amounts of money for a relative few at the top of the corporate and political ladders, which we have seen are often one and the same.  In other words, the war is making money for a few off the backs of the people, and all the few had to do was convince the people to be okay with it.  Which they did, with a well-orchestrated pull on American heartstrings, using “patriotism” as their ace in the hole.  Oppose the war?  You’re not a patriot.  Disagree with the president?  You’re a traitor.  Have doubts about our motives?  You are almost as bad as the terrorists, you unpatriotic source of shame. 

What, then, is real patriotism?  What does true patriotism require of the patriot?  It is fairly simple – not easy, but simple.  First and foremost, true patriotism requires critical thought.  While critical thought has seemingly fallen out of fashion in recent years – at least in the social and political spheres – it was instrumental in our beginnings as a country and is just as important for the continuation of the American way.  True patriotism requires pointed dissent, when needed, against leaders, policies, and ideas that are unfaithful to the Constitution and the ideals set up by our nation’s founders.  True patriotism requires courage; not the in-name-only kind that allows soft men to direct boastful threats at far-away terrorists, but the kind that allows a person to stand up for what they truly think is right, regardless of what their next door neighbor, fellow church member, family member, or best friend is doing.  And true patriotism requires knowledge, for the patriot should be able to not only stand up for what they think is right, but be able also to explain the reasons why, in agreement with the context of reality. 

We The People are supposed to be self-governed through a system of equal representation.  The leaders that we choose are supposed to answer to us; to keep them accountable, we must keep a watchful eye on what they are doing in our name.  This, however, is no longer the way it works.  The government operates largely outside of our consciousness, and we have come to live in either ignorance or fear of its whims.  Think for yourself:  When was the last time you felt that you were accountable to the government?  And when was the last time you felt the government was accountable to you?  It is our duty to hold the government in check, if that is needed; unfortunately, this has been often needed over the past several decades, and not once have we succeeded at the national level in keeping anything in check.  Our leaders have left the idea of public service behind and, in its place, brought in the ideas of personal political careers and profit.  Our best interests are no longer a major factor in their minds – their personal interests and the special interests of their friends and political allies are what make them tick. 

Who is responsible for this?  Certainly the leaders themselves, for their lack of ethical standards that take the people and American ideals into account.  They have corrupted the system and profited handsomely from the corruption, and for this they are despicable.  But the lion’s share of responsibility for our current predicament lies on our shoulders.  The American people, once a powerful, fiercely independent people, now passively sit and watch our cultural inheritance erode from beneath us.  If our civil liberties are being taken away at an alarming rate, it is our fault more than anyone else’s.  If our stature in the world is being diminished day-by-day through the actions of our corrupt government, we have only ourselves to blame.  And if a million people have died in Iraq because of our government’s war there, their blood is on our hands. 

What we need to do now is take the first steps down the road towards being that “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that Eisenhower knew our country needed.  We need to turn off the mainstream media – which only serves to fill our heads with biased fluff – and seek out media sources we can trust.  We need to pay closer attention to what is really going on in our capital.  We need to demand transparency in politics, educate ourselves on how policies affect us and our standing in the world, and think critically about what official party lines mean.  We need to bring politicians back into their intended roles as public servants.  We need to take back our roles as the holders of power in this country, and let the currently powerful know loud and clear that We The People are back in force.  We need to stand up within our own communities, stand up for reality and truth and help educate our fellow citizens, so that they may stand up beside us. 

When these things become a reality, perhaps we can realize that the person who causes a stir may be the patriot, and the person who sits by and mindlessly repeats what he's been told is unpatriotic.  Perhaps we can realize that Barack Obama's choice to not wear a flag pin is not unpatriotic, and indeed may be a patriotic statement.  Perhaps we can look past petty characterizations and try to learn about people and issues on our own, without the purposeful biases of those with special interests.  Perhaps we can uphold the ideals upon which the United States of America was founded. Perhaps we can take our country back.

Perhaps we can be patriots.