| A Question to all of you war mongering Americans. What do you define as patriotism?. Here are some quotes :-
"Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others."
-Emma Goldman
Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as "the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman."
Gustave Hervé, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism "a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit."
The really strange thing about American patriotism, is that it goes against the very grain of what Americans like to bang on about constantly - Freedom. Just take a look at the patriot act, and you can see that patriotism is all about controling the masses. The masses then think they are free, when in fact they are nothing more than mind controlled zombies, something which has been particuarly shown within this forum, whereby a large number of Americans do not even know why they support the war, but just do because Bush and co say it is right. Freedom and civil liberties are being eroded right as we speak, and this is being supported by the mind controlled masses. Look at the case of Mike Hawash. Do you call this "freedom", or "justice"?. This is even without quoting the cases of the children held in Guantanemo bay.
I personally define patriotism as a methodology of mind control. Marx described religion as the "opiate of the masses", I would say a more updated definition would be patriotism is the "opiate of the masses". This is dangerous because this us and them attitude is what gives leaders a foothold to tyrany. Look at the methods employed by Hitler. Get everyone to rally behind you by placing all of the worlds ills on another group of people. Us versus them. We are righteous, they are evil. This is what causes violence and suffering. Even on a far smaller scale, you just need to look at the football hooligans to see this happening. Us versus them, we as manchester united, chelsea, etc etc, versus them as Arsenal, Liverpool etc etc. Violence as a result of groupings.
It is the us and them groupings that needs to be discouraged, rather than promoted by the government in order to create a civilised society. However, given this is the methodology employed to maintain mind control, sadly this will never happen. | |
