Column:
God bless America
Published Feb. 22, 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot about national pride lately. Maybe it’s because people have begun questioning Michelle Obama’s patriotism after her remarks about being proud of America for the first time. It could be because Fidel Castro left office. Hell, it might just be because I kicked off my week on Monday morning watching Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film “Triumph des Willens,” which lays out the virtues of Germany’s Nazi party.
In that spirit, let’s consider some American virtues.
The Present: Half a million U.S. soldiers and operatives patrol the globe on our behalf. Over 700 foreign bases, two direct foreign wars, one against Iraq, in which there were 654,965 civilian Iraqi deaths within the first 40 months of our occupation according to an October 2006 study in U.K. medical journal The Lancet. This happened as a result of 2,000 deaths in New York caused by an unrelated group. Oh, and what’s funny here — the punch line — is we supported Saddam Hussein and supplied him weapons throughout the ‘80s in a war we supported.
And then there’s Castro. He’s seen 10 U.S. presidents take office, and I still remember people in high school exclaiming, “He’ll never die!” His Rasputin-esque endurance has been remarkable. I suspect both American and Cuban policies will stay the same, but I hope we can mature and end an embargo founded on our own intolerant foolishness. Cuba’s far from perfect, but we did a nice job in the ‘40s and ‘50s of propping up the country’s dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who contributed to the murder of 20,000 people. We followed up that support with a half-assed invasion that, quite frankly, was an astounding embarrassment above and beyond moral levels.
There are a lot more patriotic deeds I could mention: enslaving a race for a century, manipulating political power and killing throughout Latin America, placing Japanese Americans in internment camps similar to the way Adolf Hitler imprisoned Jews, the virtual annihilation of a generation of Native Americans and more. Anyone could go on and on after removing lenses of red, white and blue; anyone could turn up corruption that would make even Howard Zinn shudder.
What I’m talking about reveals the greatest American virtue: our capacity for self-deception, at fostering a truly pure and good dream so powerful it blinds out any visions to the contrary.
It’s a dream founded on hopes and success, a dream that preaches democracy and a world where no one is left behind to face poverty, infant mortality and the barrel of a gun. The narrative is stunning, really. It emanates from more than 6,000 years of evolving Western political theory. In terms of rhetoric, we’re astronomically far ahead of the tired values of the past and genuinely live with the capacity to be the greatest generation.
It’s a dream sadly divorced from historical action. Patriotism doesn’t typically stir me, but I still believe that American rhetoric can be elevated to action. I love that we have a country that adores ideas of freedom and public education and now universal health care. We have a long way to go but as long as these ideas burn within us, we’ve got some hope yet.
That’s what I live for. I stood on the Capitol lawn during President Bush’s 2004 inauguration despite my political reservations because of this. I’ve seen Edwards, Giuliani and all the Clintons with the hope to see a glimmer of this dream actualized. We’re in a new year, and I’m personally a fan of change. I know we can do better and live up to the astounding lyricism and moral beauty in the words, dreams and hearts of every American.