October 14, 2006

Patriotism ... 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.

---Emma Goldman

9/20/06: Populist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez had the sheer audacity to stand before the United Nations and deliver an angry diatribe against the enemy of humanity. Dispensing with mealy-mouthed pleasantries, he verbally savaged Bush in his fiery oration. Chavez knows an abhorrent war criminal when he sees one and he isn’t one to mince words or use polite euphemisms.

George Bush had addressed the assembly the previous day with an incredibly disingenuous monologue loaded with platitudes and Orwellian Doublespeak Admittedly, with his credibility around the world and uncanny capacity to articulate in an intelligent manner, Bush was a tough act to follow at the UN. But somehow, Chavez managed.

He made a few choice observations:

"The devil came here yesterday. And it smells of sulfur still today."

Bush may not actually be the devil, but he certainly qualifies as one of his Earthly agents. And Chavez may very well have been smelled residual sulfur fumes which had emanated from Satan himself. It is a virtual certainty that Lucifer was present for Bush’s virtuoso performance on 9/19. How could he have resisted watching his favorite sociopath’s attempt to beguile listeners into believing he is pursuing noble causes?

Chavez went on to assert:

"As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: 'The Devil's Recipe.' "

Underscoring his blasphemy against the predatory capitalism inflicted on the world by the economic and military titan "affectionately" known as the American Empire, the champion of humane social democracy waved a copy of Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky, a vehement domestic critic of the United States political and economic systems.

Chavez also noted that Bush "stole the elections" and "is, therefore, a dictator."

Tough point to argue given that Bush came to power via two bloodless coups, one engineered by Katherine Harris and the other by Diebold.

In the aftermath of Chavez’s blistering verbal attacks on US imperialists and the miscreant conducting their symphony of the macabre, "patriots" emerged to defend "our president". Given the overt fascism and aggressive militarism emerging in the United States, it is almost inconceivable that such a regime would continue to enjoy popular support. Yet economic tyranny, consumerism, and relentless pressure to conform to the American Way are so powerful that many US Americans have sold their very souls by offering their voluntary complicity in the subjugation, exploitation, and (in some instances) extermination of billions of human beings around the globe.

And some of these "patriots" originate from some surprising segments of the United States’ population.

New York Democrat Charles Rangel, a member of the treasonous US Congress which has enabled the Bush administration in its steady march toward becoming a tyrannical regime, took serious umbrage to Chavez’s remarks:

"You don't come into my country; you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president…"

How telling that a member of the opposition party in a self-proclaimed "democratic nation" would publicly support a war criminal and characterize him as "my president".

He may be a ruthless potentate, but he is OUR ruthless potentate. And don’t you dare criticize George W. Bush!

Sadly, the reality in the United States is that there is little difference between Republicans and Democrats. While both parties give ample lip service to meeting the needs of the working class and the poor, most of the Duopoly’s "elected" officials zealously devote themselves to advancing the interests of their corporate and aristocratic patrons.

Some might defend Rangel’s remarks as evidence of his "patriotism" or allegiance to his nation. Yet the virulent nationalism that has swept the United States since 9/11 is not a healthy loyalty to fellow countrymen. "Patriotism" in the United States today is a symptom of the rapidly spreading malignancy of fascism. Sadly, being a "patriot" in the United States requires one to support egregious crimes against humanity, domestically and abroad.

Consider James Bryce’s thoughts on patriotism:

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.

Given its economic might and obsession with militarism, the United States is certainly strong. But righteous? While she may be 305 feet of towering nobility, Lady Liberty is up to her eyeballs in the fetid fecal matter ceaselessly flowing from the bowels of an empire built on economic oppression, genocide, bellicosity, racism, and the pernicious lie known as the American Dream.

Even some of the most oppressed people in history have succumbed to this infection of pathological "patriotism". A group of indigenous people in Alaska recently refused Chavez’s offer of free heating oil.(1) Facing 25% unemployment rates, winter temperatures as low as minus 15 Fahrenheit, and heating bills of $300.00 per month, these psychologically enslaved individuals rejected Venezuela’s assistance because Chavez insulted George Bush.

Bear in mind that these are people descended from victims of genocide waged by the predecessors of Bush and the members of his regime. Despite surviving the attempted extermination, these Native Americans face significant structural barriers to overcoming perpetual poverty, including years of under-education and marginalization.

Yet Justine Gunderson of the tribal council for the Aleuts in Nelson Lagoon is convinced that they "did the right thing" by choosing to suffer to defend a war criminal’s "honor":

"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us. Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

Dimitri Philemonof, another leader in the Aleutian community, further exhibited the efficacy of the US corporate propaganda mill when he opined:

"I think we have some duty to our country, and I think it's loyalty."

Many of those Justine and Dimitri represent have been doomed to the misery of chronic poverty by years of institutionalized racism. Yet they live in a state inundated with the oil for which they pay such an outrageous price. And they have chosen to forsake their own well-being out of loyalty to the guardians of a rapacious economic system principally dominated by wealthy White elites. The same elites who tenaciously strive to ensure that the poor and minorities continue to wallow in wretchedness. At least they can still wave the Stars and Stripes with pride.

Hugo Chavez embodies nearly everything the working class and poor in the United States have been indoctrinated to fear, hate and ridicule. Like Evo Morales in Bolivia, he champions indigenous poverty-stricken people and their long unfulfilled needs. Both men are on the cutting edge of a South American political revolution in which the people are wresting power and resources away from corporations and the minority wealthy elite. Morales’ administration is in its infancy, but Chavez has had time to deliver free health care, free education, and food at subsidized prices to many of the staggering numbers of Venezuelans who had been living in abject poverty in a nation flush with huge reserves of precious petroleum (2).

Meanwhile, in the United States, Bush and his accomplices have persistently striven to replace a constitutional republic with a fascist regime. Invading and occupying a nation that posed no viable threat the United States and had no connection with 9/11, exterminating an estimated 655,000 innocent Iraqis (3), legalizing torture, staging fraudulent elections, jettisoning the Constitution and legal principles from the Magna Carta, and consistently advancing the interests of the super rich at the expense of the working class and vulnerable members of society (4,5,6,7) qualify the US government as a fascist regime.

In Bush’s "ownership society", a relatively tiny slice of the population does most of the owning (8). Lulled into a dogmatic slumber, many US Americans are content to fulfill the roles of obedient workers and consumers. Bread and circuses, the idealization of "go it alone, rugged individualism" personified by cultural icons like the Marlboro Man, and the perpetuation of the delusion that their nation is a meritocracy serve to cripple the minds and consciences of many citizens of the United States.

Thus those leaders (like Chavez) who fight for the poor and oppressed are treated as threats and pariahs, champions of the privileged elite like Reagan are enshrined in the pantheon of American politics, and malefactors in the Bush Regime garner enough support to continue perpetrating their heinous crimes.

Thomas Paine penned these words in The American Crisis:

These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country…Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered…"

Today’s American Crisis? These are the times that enslave men’s souls. And the hell of the Bush Regime will not be easily conquered.

Tragically, many spiritually shackled US Americans remain blissfully ignorant of their bondage. And a myriad of myths and distractions shield them from awareness of (or concern for) their complicity in the United States’ over-consumption that threatens the perpetuation of life on Earth (9), genocide (10,11), and campaigns of mass murder like the one in Vietnam.

Relentless psychological manipulation has armed the US ruling elite with a vast army of "patriots" eagerly submitting to the yoke of economic subjugation and enabling governments like the Bush Regime to inflict abject misery upon hundreds of millions of human beings.

The staggering 43% of US Americans who still embrace a tyrant who has unleashed hell upon the world with impunity (12) are a testament to the power of the siren call to be a "patriot" in the United States.

If the melodious strains of Orpheus’ lyre don’t captivate more listeners soon, the ship of humanity may be doomed to share a watery grave with mythological mariners.

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he volunteers at a homeless shelter. He welcomes constructive correspondence at willpowerful@hotmail.com or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.

(1) Shivering Alaskans to Hugo Chavez: Keep your oil

(2) Hugo Chavez and His Bolivarian Revolution

(3) 655,000 Iraqis Die Because of War

(4) Income Inequality Has Intensified Under Bush

(5) How Bush Widened The Wealth Gap

(6) Wealth Gap Grows on Republican Policies

(7) White House budget proposal for 2007 includes cuts in social programs, taxes

(8) The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them

(9) US population hits 300 million, but is it sustainable?

(10) Genocide In Gaza

(11) Imperial Conquest, Torture, And A Little Matter Of Genocide

(12) President Bush Job Approval 10/14/06