Tag Archives: patriotism

How to Polish Up America's Image Abroad

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When I was a child, living in Tokyo after the war as part of the American occupation army, we took every opportunity to visit Japanese shrines, gardens, and teahouses, to learn to play Japanese games, sing their songs, speak their language, to watch traditional kabuki plays and join in national celebrations such as Boys Day, cherry-blossom viewing, and fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

 

Despite the fact that we were no doubt perceived as representatives of a conquering nation by everyday Japanese folk, who must have seen us as responsible for their currently grave economic depression, the destruction of their cities, and the humbling of their leaders, nevertheless, our family’s irrepressible enthusiasm, respect for and interest in Japanese culture was gradually reciprocated by our neighbors’ gentle curiosity about our own “odd” customs—our funny Indian-and-Pilgrim Thanksgiving celebrations, our ghost-and-scarecrow Halloweens, our mysteriously compulsive habit of singing off-key Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs all over our neighborhood at Christmastime….

 

America’s best chance for gaining international respect and understanding will be to increase our own respect and understanding for all other cultures—for their histories, values, traditions, customs, styles, religions, concerns and problems, and their political and economic approaches and ways of life—through more extensive teaching of all forms of acceptance at all levels of schooling—and through more Americans (perhaps our most  influential cultural leaders, such as Limbaugh, Robertson, and Cheney?) traveling to other countries, living with ordinary folk, listening, learning, asking questions, opening their hearts, and marching in solidarity with them at their own sad national commemorations of tragic losses stemming from political violence of all kinds, whether terrorism, assassinations, espionage, or war.

 

Furthermore, since we already direct a lot of tax money toward other countries (but always for U.S. goals) why don't we find out from global citizens (not governments) what's uniquely most important to their countries (projects, problems, goals…) and give generously toward those projects?

 

Only when we’re willing to polish up both our image and our reality as a country that is respectful, appreciative and generously supportive of the unique cultures, values and concerns of other nations, then (and only then) will we have some hope for an image abroad as an informed, compassionate nation worthy of the interest, compassion and support of others.

 

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Treat others as you want them to treat you. This golden rule is the only basis for any relationship—whether personal or international—that ever works.

Hurricane Katrina – A Convenient Scapegoat Arrives Just in Time to Rescue President Bush

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I’m frustrated. And not just by the tragedy that past political indifference has exacerbated in New Orleans, or by the obvious fact that the U.S. is as ill-prepared for serious trouble at home as it is anywhere else in the world, or even by the fact that–well before Katrina–the U.S. economy was, if not on the verge of disaster from gross mismanagement, then at best, going to hell in a hand basket.

 

I’m frustrated because I thought all of President Bush’s chickens were finally coming home to roost.

 

All that money his Republican cronies made off of 9/11 fears, all the profligate sums paid into their friendly war machine’s gaping, indiscriminate maw—on technology and bodyguards and spying and weapons and occupations and war and all the other security approaches that shore up every engine of war profitability and make us all less secure, all that expensive marching off to all corners of the earth to push people around and tell them what to do—I thought all that bad business had finally caught up with them.

 

They’ve soaked the poor and given gobs to the rich. They’ve neglected the environment. They’ve failed to create good jobs. They’ve exacerbated the energy crisis. They’ve propped up favored industries and neglected others. They’ve endangered our economy by irritating people all over the world, who finally wearily resist buying American whenever they can, and take their vacations elsewhere.

 

For once, I thought, all their stupid policies were going to land squarely on their own doorstep.

 

Then along came Hurricane Katrina.

 

And now all of sudden, none of it is anybody’s fault. Our administration’s hands are tied—by Katrina.

 

Without a doubt, Katrina has added immeasurably to the many enormous problems that the U.S. already had before the storm turned her wrathful face upon our citizens.

 

But along with her destruction, Katrina has provided President Bush and his Republican pals the perfect blanket excuse for every failure that was about to be firmly laid to their door.

 

The budget deficit? Unimaginable government overspending? Blame it on Katrina.

 

Our ill-conceived war going badly? Sorry—must divert our efforts to Katrina

 

Dysfunctional international relationships? Too distracted by Katrina.

 

Health care collapsing? Gotta spend the money on Katrina.

 

Lack of energy reform and high heating oil and rising gas prices everywhere? Katrina.

 

Global environmental catastrophes and dangers at every hand? Katrina.

 

Crumbling national infrastructure? Katrina.

 

Underfunded education? Katrina.

 

Terrorism? WMDs and weapons proliferation? Katrina. (Say what?!)

 

Stock market tumbling, real estate buckling, economy faltering? Katrina.

 

For years, the Republican administration has neglected domestic problems and aggravated international ones. Now it’s too late to do anything about any of them.

 

Because, you know. Nature’s power and unpredictability and all that. Shrug shrug. Wink wink. Because…. You know.  

 

Katrina.

Fire and Rain and Answered Prayers

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The morning after our house burned down three years ago, we sat in stunned silence, taking in the wreckage and work that lay ahead. In a weak attempt to cheer everyone up, I joked, “I’d better watch out what I pray for, because my prayers are powerful, and I’m afraid I’ve been praying for more excitement, and more time with my family….”

 

As our losses faded with time and our lives returned to our various versions of normal, my feeble “night-before-the-fire-prayer” attempt at humor has become family lore, growing to include (retroactively) pleas for time off work, for new stuff, stronger muscles, weight loss, unique topics of conversation, time in nature, novel experiences, interesting stories to tell my future grandchildren, new learning, and more patience…. And yes, I received all that.

 

The chaos and tragedy on the Gulf Coast can be in no way compared with our relatively tiny little personal loss (no one was hurt, we were insured and financially secure, our neighborhood, jobs and support systems were intact.) Hurricane Katrina’s suffering victims have endured the irremediable and irreparable tragic losses of loved ones—family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers. Many have been injured, and most have lost all they ever worked for, and must begin rebuilding again from nothing. Many lost their jobs and their livelihoods, all their social support, the towns they grew up in, everything they might once have fallen back on. Everything, in fact, except God.

 

What prayers, the night before such a devastating storm, could possibly have been answered by Hurricane Katrina?

 

I’ll give it a try.

 

Dear God,

 

Help me to appreciate my family, friends, and neighbors, my faith, my character, my education, my memories, and my two strong hands. Help me appreciate all that I have—my home, my possessions, my comforts, my pleasures.

 

Help me to see with new eyes the good in people, and to remember that the highest value is the value of human life everywhere. Help me to focus on helping, not hurting, and to learn to give as freely as I have received. Help me see clearly that mankind is one family, that we are all neighbors, that we are all, in fact, one, completely dependent upon one another.

 

Help me to drop my childish barriers toward differences in education, social classes, races, colors, religions, and nationalities, and to see only the face of God in everyone, especially those in need. Help me to support a proud, reliable, world-class American disaster-relief system available anywhere in the world, at a moment’s notice. Help my country avoid adding to the sum of human misery by turning forever away from war and every other form of political violence. Help me to work to build a wiser global energy future, and international and domestic harmony.

 

Help me become part of creating an exemplary, environmentally-inspired American Gulf Coast, and a safe, modern, compassionate New Orleans retaining all her unique greatness, spirit and traditions.

 

Help me remember that it’s always darkest before the dawn, to look for silver linings in dark clouds, and to accept that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

 

Help me to remember that you are my strength, my hope, my ever-present help in times of trouble. You maketh me to lie down in green pastures, you leadeth me beside the still waters, you restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.

 

Amen

Complexity, Democracy and War: Are We Learning Yet?

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I’ve always admired President Bush’s best qualities. He courageously takes on huge responsibilities, works hard and does his best. Beneath his learned-from-Reagan pseudo-cockiness lies a real humility about his own abilities. George Bush cares deeply and perseveres courageously, despite setbacks.

 

Mr. Bush ran for office, not because he had a high impression of himself, but because he is a man of strong convictions and ideals (with gaping gaps, but that’s a different, also human, story.) One of his convictions is that God wants him to lead this country.

 

Another Bush conviction is that democracy is a good thing. Which is a hard one for him, since he’s not sure what democracy means, and his most trusted advisors, allies and supporters care far less about democracy than about power, money, and control.

 

President Bush also works really hard to learn. But it’s hard to learn when you’re convinced  you’re a dummy, and that it's in your country’s best interest for you to close your eyes and hold your ears (and nose) and trust “wiser” advisors—while those same advisors are doing their best to make sure you don’t ever figure out what’s going on.

 

Someone once said, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” The war in Iraq has also been God’s way of teaching George W. Bush complexity. He came into office a black-and-white kinda guy, and now finally “gets” that things aren’t always as simple and straightforward as he thought they were. He’s not unintelligent, but he does have a lot to unlearn.

 

He’s finally seeing the costly failures and mistakes of his administration’s policies, despite the heavy screen provided by Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice—the protective coterie whom Cheney long ago hand-picked to guard his prized boy-king.

 

Bush is finally noticing, if only in peripheral vision, the whole big tragic stinking wasteful mess that his cronies have created in the Middle East. And he’s finally asking hard questions of his inner circle, and even better, stepping outside of that circle for advice. He’s actually talking directly with—and even asking questions of—a wide range of players from all sides of the political spectrum who have lived in and/or studied the Middle East all their lives.

 

No doubt he’s amazed by what he’s learning. He probably thinks all the fascinating detail he’s finding out about is all new to everyone else, too. I mean, like, revelatory, man. I mean, like, who knew? If all this stuff was common knowledge, surely a president would have heard about it? He probably hasn’t the slightest clue that most of the nation’s intellectuals and scholars have been screaming all this “new” stuff at him for decades, but could never get through his filters.

 

None of that matters anymore. What matters now is that a very powerful president is finally “getting” some things he didn’t know before. It matters that he wants to understand, and that he wants to help. It matters, in short, that he’s grown up.

 

He’s reaching out now, finally, not in panic, not in guilt, but as calmly and courageously as he has taken all his other actions, no matter how misguided. I admire his caring and courage tremendously, because he has a lot to answer for. For now though, he has a hard job, and he’s trying to do it well. But to do it, he’ll have to overcome a lot of opposition from within his own ranks.

 

President Bush does have one small advantage over his nervous homeboys and girls. Surprise–he almost forgot–he's the president. He can do and say whatever he wants. (That is, unless some threatened, demoted or demented ex-lackey takes a notion to silence or blackmail him. We hope not.)

 

To Mr. Bush’s credit, Hussein is safely behind bars (though god knows what to do with him next.) And Mr. Bush finally seems to get that the U.S. will have to stand in line to buy oil like everyone else. And that throwing money and might at Iraqi ghosts won’t stop WMDs or decrease terrorism….

 

So now—how to pull his soldiers out of Iraq? (Yes, George Bush does cry at night for the soldiers and their families, and maybe even for Iraqis too.)

 

And before he can do that, how to fix Iraq? (Yes, Colin Powell did make it clear before he left who was about to break it.)

 

And then there’s that democracy thing. George W. Bush really really likes democracy.

 

So President Bush is very busy these days trying to figure out what real democracy might look like in Iraq, while his cronies are busy committing hari-kari over their formerly-malleable President’s newly uncontrollable idealism and apparent abandonment of their precious dreams of gold and empire.

 

Maybe someday President Bush will even notice that his own beloved U.S. isn’t a democracy anymore (although it’s a more reasonable facsimile thereof than some countries.) Maybe someday George Bush will even try to do something about fixing that problem.

 

But until then, first things first. It’s enough that our struggling president, looking squarely at Iraq’s anguish, is trying to figure out what democracy means, at all.

 

It’s a start.

 

 

 

Against Nationalism: A New Revised Standard Version of American Allegiance

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As I pull up the tiny plastic U.S. flag (tagged “Made in China”) which my well-intentioned neighbor leaves on our front lawn every July 4th, I ponder my deep affection for America–her ideals, traditions, and achievements. This land has been home, safety, and opportunity for me and mine. I acknowledge the good will and sacrifice of patriots of every nation. And I do want to be an accepting, supportive neighbor.

 

Which is why it's so very hard to explain why I can no longer countenance nationalism and patriotism in this shiny new century. We Americans could choose to salute the amazing human achievements which have arisen in our unique context of a vast, rich new land teeming with seemingly infinite natural resources. Instead, we too often associate all that is good and proud and fine and brave about our land and history and people with a divisive sort of me-first superiority thing that insists that the people on our side of an arbitrary border are us–the more-deserving good guys in the white hats, with all the best approaches to everything–while those sub-humans on the other side of the borderline, their side, are they, them, the other–fearsome, strange-looking beings, susceptible to all kinds of dangerous differences. It's just exactly this kind of automatic us/them competitive perspective that power-hungry demagogues tap so conveniently when they want to lead aggressions.

 

At least our growing understanding of ecology has finally helped us see that birds and insects and seeds and wind and rain and sun, in fact all of nature–sans humanity of course–have the common sense to be oblivious to imaginary, arbitrary borderlines. I guess that's some progress.

 

The more closely I look at nationalism, the more of our planet’s ills I blame on it. Wars. Terrorism. Unrepresentative politics. Social injustice and gross inequities. Coldness to the plights of non-“us” humans. Environmental disasters. Global epidemics. Unfair trade policies. Prejudice. Intolerance. I could go on. You name it, nationalism hurts it. Stirring emotional associations prettify the concept of nationalism, but ultimately fail to conceal the ugly truth that its most predictable fruits are separation, fear, and hatred, along with their natural corollaries, violence and suffering.

 

Perhaps not so incidental in this so-called Christian nation is the sad reality that there is not a single Christ-like or Christ-advocated thing about nationalism/patriotism. Equally tragic is the fact that nationalism doesn't accomplish anything which couldn't be achieved far less harmfully through unfettered, internet-linked local, regional, and global organizations supporting human endeavors of all kinds, whether social, political, economic, spiritual/religious, artistic…whatever. What positive thing could nationalism possibly accomplish which a consistent allegiance to and respect for human life on this earth could not do better?

 

Nationalism is an empty rhetorical device crammed full with irrational, emotional connotations, a burning nonsense cipher comprising all our breast-swellings, gratefully blown to life by small alienated power-hungry groups capitalizing on it to quickly inflame frightened masses into exploiting, occupying, attacking, retaliating, and avenging. However painfully and slowly, we need to wean ourselves from our knee-jerk heartfelt faith in nationalism, and begin to reconsider its value and its harm to all human beings.

 

I know, I know. Some people still believe in the devil, and think that human sinfulness necessitates all the “us”-es marching furiously off into all corners of the world carrying big sticks, breaking into their houses and changing their ways of life. If someone tried to bust into my home, push around my family, hurt my neighbors and interfere with our ways, I too would fight back. Meanwhile, I’m left to wonder whether nationalism and its spawn are the evils we're so afraid of, the devil incarnate himself.

 

The very concept of “nation” is, historically speaking, a relatively new one, going back only a few centuries. Before our present age of nationalism, local and regional thugs used fear, religion, ideals, and money (as recruiters do today) to attract followers. However, in those days, the accumulation of power was blessedly limited by the mortality of such temporary leaders. Today's nationalism requires citizens to blindly and permanently transfer their loyalties, indeed their lives, over to whichever country they happen to be born into, regardless of incomprehensible and rapid changes to the integrity, responsiveness, principles, and even the intelligibility of leaders, policies, and processes.

 

On this past 4th of July, I sat out under the trees with my family, eating hot dogs and spitting watermelon seeds along with other lucky Americans. With them, I took time to express gratitude for past and present leaders and workers, and for our battered but hopefully still resilient legal, economic, social, and political traditions. And then I added thanks for the uniquely American gift from God–the richest swath of untouched land in the history of mankind–and asked for guidance and humility in using what’s left of that unimaginable wealth more wisely and generously in service to mankind.

 

I prayed that nationalism will soon be just a memory of a sad, crazy passing political phase, albeit one which, during its brief reign on earth, provided a multitude of rationalizations for aggression, greed, and barbarism, always characteristically cloaked in beautiful passionate colors–among them, our own beloved red, white, and blue.

 

This morning, I try to find a dignified way to dispose of this small flag, symbol of my ardent childhood pride, devotion, and innocence, symbol of the anguish endured under patriotic predations everywhere. Of course I want to pay my respects for yesterday’s sacrifices and values. But I am moved also these days to honor the emerging, competing value which more and more Americans and their fellow earthlings are finally recognizing as far higher and purer than nationalism/patriotism. And that is respect and support for–allegiance to–human life everywhere.

 

What Are We Getting For Our Pentagon Dollars?

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We have a huge Pentagon budget which pays for neither the costs of wars nor for protecting our homeland. So what do they do with all that money? To be sure, someone still needs to have the financial wherewithal necessary to protect and defend America’s economic and strategic interests abroad, as well as (on occasion) our heedless or haplessly wandering citizenry.

 

But America’s global economic and strategic interests could be far better attended to by a well-funded Commerce and State Department. Our citizens should stay out of countries where they’re not wanted, and behave as polite guests where they are invited. And if they find themselves innocently threatened? Well, that’s what the marines are for. Keep on paying them.

 

If America redirected just half the amount of funding we give to the Department of Defense to Commerce and State, we would all reap the rewards of wise, mutually advantageous longterm trade deals and proactive diplomatic dialogues. We’d be far less likely to feel any need to throw our unrecognizable, camouflaged firstborns into the maw of all those foreign hellholes we ourselves created by having a military budget so huge it dwarfs any other country’s tenfold. America’s primary diplomatic tool is a hammer. No wonder foreign countries all look like nails.

 

Which leaves us still with the necessity of defending our homeland. If our foreign policies precluded pushing smaller countries around to suit our pride and greed, if we refrained from occupying other lands with hundreds of farflung military outposts, not to mention callous and inequitable trade policies, then perhaps we’d have fewer terrorists angry at us because our governments underwrote their despots, our tycoons pillaged their resources, and our national interests left their families in danger, economic slavery, and without rights. I don’t see any terrorists threatening Canada, or Norway, or Sweden, and they top most lists of being the so-called envied lands of the rich and free. Now why is that?

 

It is our present policy to give great unaccountable gobs of money to a Department of Defense that cannot keep us safe from terrorists, cannot win unwinnable wars, and can only add terror and injustice to the terror and injustice already caused by others.

 

Our beloved America can do better, must do better if we are to live up to our wonderful traditions and ideals. I hope Americans soon decide to spend our taxes more wisely, for our own sake, and for the sakes of so many others.