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From: Denver Post
Date: 07 Oct 2001
Time: 16:47:34
Remote Name: mfd1-18.dmv.com
PATRIOTISM Published on Thursday, October 4, 2001 in the Denver Post Waving a Flag is the Easy Part by Reggie Rivers At times like these, it's difficult for most people to be truly patriotic. We've seen American flags tied to car antennas, affixed to bumpers, pinned on shirts, displayed on front porches, unfurled at sporting events and raised on flag poles to declare our allegiance to our nation. While I agree that the flag is an important symbol, I believe true patriotism is a much bigger challenge than that. It's easy to display an American flag. It's easy to lay your hand over your heart and say the pledge of allegiance or sing the national anthem. It's easy to say that we have the best country in the world. It's easy to say that we support the president. It's easy to say that the government should do whatever is necessary to root out terrorism. But is that really patriotism? It's easy to watch the images on TV and wish ill on the people who committed these acts of terrorism. It's easy to send donations to relief funds to help the victims. It's easy to nod our heads in agreement when threats are issued against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It's easy to say, "United we stand" and "God bless America." But is that really patriotism? For many people, patriotism means that you never say a harsh word about our country, especially in a time of crisis and especially if that criticism is about our foreign policy. For some, patriotism means giving unflagging support to our military, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with their current mission. For some, patriotism means that we put aside our differences and cancel our debates so we can show our enemy a united front. But is that really patriotism? I'm a patriotic American. I love this country, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world. That love compels me to guard jealously the only thing that there is to be patriotic about - the U.S. Constitution. People tend to get wrapped up in the flag at times like these, but every country has a flag. How many have a constitution? The United States is the greatest nation because individual citizens here have the freedom to think, to act, to travel and to create. We have freedoms of speech, press, dissent and religion. We're guaranteed speedy and public trials, insulated against self-incrimination and unreasonable searches, and protected, by Supreme Court review, from legislatures that seek to violate those rights. The Constitution should be the focus of our patriotism, because everything else is just window dressing. But it's hard for people to be patriotic at a time like this. In our pain, anger and search for justice, we get caught up in the symbols of patriotism rather than the substance. We wave our flags at the terrorists and scream, "You've failed! We're still standing, still proud, still united, still Americans!" Which is true. But while we're waving our flags, our legislators are chipping away at the document that makes us great. They're expanding wiretapping authority, extending the time that people can be held without being charged with a crime, and signing over billions of dollars with carte blanche spending authority. While we're proving with our symbols that the terrorists don't scare us, our government is leaning toward a guilty-until-proven-innocent model of profiling, hoping to secretly record the meetings of certain religious groups and pushing for wide-spread use of surveillance cameras coupled with face recognition software so that computers literally could know where any of us is at a particular moment. If we're really committed in keeping terrorists from stealing our freedoms, then we must be true patriots to our Constitution. But in times like these, it's difficult for people to be patriotic. It's much easier to wave a flag. Former Denver Broncos player Reggie Rivers (reggierivers@clearchannel.com) writes Thursdays on the op-ed page and is a host on KHOW Radio (630 AM, weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Wednesday, October 3, 2001 in the Chicago Tribune In Dire Need of a Patriotism of Dissent by Lloyd J. Averill A patriotism of dissent has been one of the most vital ingredients of American political life throughout history. It has always been in the national interest to "speak truth to power," and never more so than in times of crisis. We are now entering an era in which the nurture of an active patriotism of dissent will be a most difficult, but most essential task. Patriotic dissent is required if we hope to achieve anything approaching rational and moral balance in American policy and behavior. It is essential for people of faith and goodwill, who seek to honor the prophetic traditions of all religions, to explore what we can say to predispose such an outcome. We need each other because, clearly, the national mood and political momentum generated by the events of Sept. 11 will move massively against patriotic dissent. It is an admirable sign of national strength when some disaster brings Americans together, and that strength has been shown in small and large ways since those sad September days. Expressions of unity demonstrate an awareness of a common humanity amid our great diversity, a capacity to come together in grief and in resolve, and the presence of shared bonds that are present but sometimes go unnoticed. Unity is not, however, acquiescence, especially in a national tradition that values dissent. We share a common heritage, but a part of that heritage is respect for diversity of commitments, for differences in outlook and aspiration. So we must be vigilant lest the celebration of a kind of spiritual unity be turned into an expectation of, or worse a demand for, political uniformity. I have no idea who first characterized the events in New York, Washington and western Pennsylvania as "war." The striking fact is that the characterization was taken up at once by President Bush and by his administrative apparatus, which made an immediate effort to persuade the American public that waging this new form of war would involve a long-term commitment. Prior to the day of crisis, the president's approval rating had sunk to nearly 50 percent. He and his administration had been in trouble, even among congressional faithful, and had increasingly experienced political heavy weather among the public on a wide range of domestic and foreign issues. By late morning on Sept. 11 there was an instant transformation. Suddenly, the wartime leader of a nation victimized by cowardly attack, the president reduced his response to crisis to a few simplisms (Osama bin Laden "wanted dead or alive"), spoke them with obvious conviction to a public desperately seeking firm assurance, and soared to an unprecedented 82 percent approval. What is the same, of course, is the man, George W. Bush, with all of his limitations of political outlook and vision, though now with a stronger sense of mission to see them realized. He is surrounded by the same advisers, many with a Cold War mentality, now given fresh range and new opportunity. There has been no transformation of the Bush program with respect to missile defense, education, the environment, patients' rights, taxes or Social Security. Those issues still are what they were, with whatever strengths or defects they had before Sept. 11. But with the radically altered political climate, they now face a strikingly altered prospect. A patriotism of dissent is needed now on at least three levels. On the first level, we must say "no" to the president when he promises that America under his leadership will take action against the terrorist threat, "whatever the cost." We must dissent if the cost is an assault on essential civil rights, and especially if hasty legislative action seeks to subvert due process, invade essential privacies, detain without formal charge or adequate representation and utilize secret evidence. Conveniences are expendable; essential rights are not. A reduction in the freedoms that are the essence of the American experiment, and are anathema to our ad-versaries, can never be in the interest of national security. On a second level, we must be prepared to say "no" to still-troubling aspects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. We must be prepared to say "no" to any use of overt military force, or covert action, that destroys innocent civilians. To call such consequences "collateral damage" dehumanizes its victims and ourselves, reducing or eliminating differences between us and our terrorist adversaries. We must dissent from an American arrogance in foreign affairs that seemed to be the style of the young Bush administration, and that may become even more marked post-Sept. 11. And we must say "no" to the president, in the Congress and in public forums, on a wide range of policy issues domestic and international that possess no greater virtue or validity now than they did prior to Sep. 11. Wartime leadership should not immunize the president against organized and principled political opposition. I consider national missile defense to be among these. On a third, pressing, more fundamental level, we must admit that we live in murderous times. If we are to honor those who died on Sept. 11, most fundamentally we must dissent from murder--from the capricious, wanton taking of human life quite apart from any demands of justice. Political philosopher Albert Camus once said that we must make a choice: between being murderers or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all of the force of their being. As individuals and as a nation, in the post-Sept. 11 world, we will be facing some agonizingly difficult decisions. There is danger that, given their difficulty, individually we may simply permit others to make them for us, in which case we may find, too late, that we have sided with the murderers. Lloyd J. Averill is a professor emeritus from the University of Washington. He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Reprinted with permission from Sightings, a University of Chicago Divinity School publication. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Friday, October 5, 2001 in the Toronto Star Now is Not the Time to Stifle Debate by Rachel Giese Not long ago, I complained to a friend about the endless profusion of American flags, a gesture that in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks was understandable, even moving, but now just seemed perfunctory and opportunistic. Every television network has reworked a flag into the logo that appears at the bottom right of the screen. NFL players have pasted tiny flag stickers to the side of their helmets. Fashion designers have sent models down runways clad in flags reworked in every possible way as sarongs, embroidered patches and T-shirts. A week or two after the attack, my Sunday New York Times had an entire section devoted to full-page ads from big corporations commemorating the events of Sept. 11, all with stars and stripes designs underscoring their company logos. The next day, my friend responded by sending me an e-greeting from Yahoo, one of a special Sept. 11 series. It had an animated American flag with George W. Bush's "beacon of freedom" speech scrolling across it and "America the Beautiful" playing in the background. Nationalistic, simplistic and very, very tacky, it perfectly summed up everything I'd been kvetching about. The U.S. has come down with a virulent case of patriotism. That was expected, even necessary. National pride and a love of country created a sense of community in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that enabled rescue efforts and raised millions of dollars for victims and their families. The trouble is, after the initial rush of brother and sisterhood passes, Americans make very dangerous patriots. Democracy, plurality, liberty and freedom. The foundations of the American constitution, the very values the U.S. president says the terrorists so despised, these very things, paradoxically, are the first casualties of patriotism and military action. For proof, one needs to look no further than America's own history. In times of conflict, when the nation has been at its most patriotic, it's also at its most conformist, eroding civil liberties, criminalizing dissenting voices and locking up people without cause. In World War II, more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were interned in camps. During the Korean War and the Cold War, there was McCarthyism and blacklisting. Anti-Vietnam War protesters were routinely beaten by police or had their ranks infiltrated by the FBI. Since Sept. 11, the American battle cries have been "my country right or wrong" and "you're either for us or against us." Never mind that the "us" is a democratic nation with a diversity of belief systems, viewpoints, political convictions and philosophies. Already two American journalists, Dan Guthrie of Oregon's Daily Courier and Tom Gutting of the Texas City Sun, have lost their jobs for writing critical opinions about George W. Bush's leadership. TV's Politically Incorrect host Bill Maher was attacked by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer for calling the U.S. cowardly for "lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles" away. Sears, Roebuck and Co. canceled its advertising after Maher's comment, to which Fleischer, sounding dangerously like a modern-day Roy Cohn, replied: "The reminder is to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and that this is not a time for remarks like that." In Canada, many columnists and pundits have been quick to take up America's cause, treating the only remaining global superpower as though it were a tiny child in need of kid glove care, shielding it from any dissenting or challenging opinion. This is a chilling stance from people who should have a vested professional interest in free speech. "Now is not the time for criticism," said one. "Don't kick a neighbor when he's down," admonished another. Now is exactly when we need dissent, debate, diversity of opinion, deep scrutiny and free expression the most. As America and Britain ready their troops for war. As Afghan refugees, facing starvation, pour into Pakistan and Iran. As violence flares up in the Middle East despite a ceasefire. As Canada deliberates about whether to cede sovereignty over its borders and its immigration polices to the U.S. As Justice Minister Anne McLellan promises new legislation that will give law enforcement officials more power to find and prosecute terrorists and, in the process, will also make it easier for government and police to tap phones and Internet communications and to search private homes. Never mind the flags. The greatest tribute one can make to the U.S. right now is to exercise the principles upon which the country was founded but hasn't always managed to uphold. To speak out. To challenge authority. And to defy all attempts at conformity of thought.
From: tTpYaTIPmAOEzYPPPF
Date: 25 Mar 2010
Time: 08:34:23
Remote Name: 91.214.44.182
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