Howie Zinn, Sociawist |
Scorn on the Fourth of July | FrontPage Magazine
The late leftist historian Howard Zinn’s work was given a platform by The Progressive magazine in 2010, when they trotted out his 2006 screed, “Put Away the Flags.” ”On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blesse[d],” Zinn wrote. “Is not nationalism–that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder–one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?”
Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild wrote an equally obnoxious “me too” piece that same year, “Why I Don’t Celebrate July 4.” “You can call me unpatriotic if you’d like, but really I’m anti-patriotic,” he whines. He continues:
I’ve been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. Patriotism is not something to play with. It’s highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. It gulls people into believing their leaders. It masks those who benefit most from state policy. And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation. Plus, it’s a war toy, wheeled out whenever a leader needs to improve his ratings by attacking some other country–often after invoking God’s name, too.Rothschild’s solution? “We’ve got to get over patriotism, and we’ve got to cure the American superiority complex.”
-go to link-
No comments:
Post a Comment