Tag: Patriotism

Informed Comment – Robert Reich, Patriotism,

True Patriotism Is the Opposite of Trump’s White Christian Nationalism | The Smirking Chimp

Peter Dutton’s “We know what to do for Indigenous Australians just because they don’t, isn’t our fault” is very Trumpist

America’s problem is not as described by Trump and his White Christian Nationalism — that the nation is losing its whiteness or dominant religion, that too many foreigners are crossing its borders, that men are competing in women’s sports or teachers are not celebrating the nation’s history.

America’s problem is that too many Americans — including its lawmakers — are failing to understand what patriotism requires.

Source: True Patriotism Is the Opposite of Trump’s White Christian Nationalism | The Smirking Chimp

On This July 4: The True Meaning of Patriotism | The Smirking Chimp

America is in trouble. But that’s not because too many foreigners are crossing our borders, or we’re losing our whiteness or our dominant religion, or we’re not standing for the national anthem or celebrating our history. We’re not in trouble because of voter fraud. We’re in trouble because we are losing the true understanding of what patriotism requires from all of us.

Source: On This July 4: The True Meaning of Patriotism | The Smirking Chimp

‘Top Gun’: The thinly disguised Pentagon recruitment drive

The link between film and the military-industrial complex has never been more evident than in the ‘Top Gun’ movies— a relentless advertisement for the U.S. defence sector, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

Source: ‘Top Gun’: The thinly disguised Pentagon recruitment drive

Real Patriotism on this July 4th | The Smirking Chimp

Finally, real patriotism means using your position of power in the media to inform and educate the public rather than weaponize lies and promote extremism to get more clicks. I’m talking to you, Mark Zuckerberg, and you, Rupert Murdoch. On this 4th of July, let’s commit to real patriotism. It’s not easy, but it’s the necessary hard work we must undertake to make this country better for everyone.

Source: Real Patriotism on this July 4th | The Smirking Chimp

Terrorized Yet? If You Speak Out, You Probably Have Been. Or Will Be. | The Smirking Chimp

Which is why we’d better root out this homegrown terror with at least as much urgency and a lot more sanity than we did when we spent billions attacking the wrong enemy, getting ourselves mired after destabilizing the Middle East, all while enriching war profiteers and giving the American troglodytes of the right a big boost in their power to do us all harm.

Terrorized Yet? If You Speak Out, You Probably Have Been. Or Will Be. | The Smirking Chimp

Why is the nationalist right hallucinating a ‘communist enemy’? | Richard Seymour | Opinion | The Guardian

Donald Trump and his family at the White House on the final day of the Republican national convention, 27 August 2020.
Trump’s friends Putin, Kim Jong Un but not Communism?

 

The hallucinatory world of anticommunism-without-communism is dangerous and violent. Its partisans believe they face an existential threat, which in principle licenses almost any level of violence. The state, as historian Ellen Schrecker points out, has been the teeth of most anti-communist networks. But it has often been bolstered by private militias, whether they be Minutemen, Klans, squadristi, the Sturmabteilung or Brazil’s Green Shirts. That is the significance of the eruptions of militia violence in the US, the hate mobs in India, and the Green Shirt revivalists in Brazil. When these people start to see red, blood flows in the streets.

Why is the nationalist right hallucinating a ‘communist enemy’? | Richard Seymour | Opinion | The Guardian

As World warns of WW I-Style Nationalisms, Top 5 Nations Trump Demonizes

In the world according to Trump, patriotism is no longer enough and must be replaced by nationalism (Mussolini’s party was the Nationalist Fascist Party). Charles DeGaulle observed that patriotism is loving your country an nationalism is hating other peoples’ countries.

And here are the top five ‘nations’ Trump hates:

1. Muslim-majority countries. “Islam hates us,” he pronounced. (Except for Muslim countries willing to suck up to the United States, which is most of them). Thus, Trump imposed his Muslim visa ban.

2. Iran: Trump violated the treaty with Iran; and now he is waging economic war on Iran— which is sure to result in new trouble.

3. Trump castigated Mexicans as rapists and criminals, and wants to wall them out.

4. Trump has now extended these insults to Guatemalans and other Central Americans, using them to insult our intelligence by presenting a small group of women, children and noncombatants seeking asylum at a port of entry), as a major threat.  So it is only the non-fascist Latinos that Trump hates.

5. China, Trump yells, is taking advantage of us. He is pursuing a wideranging trade war with that country that will almost certainly at some point seize up the world economy and plunge it into a deep recession.

via As World warns of WW I-Style Nationalisms, Top 5 Nations Trump Demonizes