Recently, I saw a YouTube clip of a man in Texas who said to a few friends, "The worst day in America is better than the best day anywhere else." He might as well have said, "Jesus Christ is Lord," for the group around him smiled in pious agreement. O, the arrogance!
The United States is, hands down, Number One in the world regarding Covid-19 deaths, but it lags behind other countries according to many indicators. We are the only wealthy country that lacks universal health coverage; we rank 35th according to longevity statistics, (just below Lebanon and just above Cuba), despite spending twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries; among the 31 OECD countries, we rank last regarding obesity; we are certainly nowhere near the best regarding infant mortality and education. The American Dream is alive and well, well, in Denmark.
Something is rotten in the United States, and it's about time that we do something about it.
The patriotic hubris of the Texans is not an isolated incident.
How many times have you come across someone asserting that this is the greatest country in the world? If you haven't ever been told this by a neighbor, teacher, or friend, you have probably been living on a different planet.
I am 75. When in grade school, I had to memorize the doggerel line, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." At that time, Columbus was, in effect, a secular Messiah, who brought the gifts of Western Civilization to the New World. No mention of the Arawak Indians, who soon become extinct in Hispaniola, where Columbus first landed; not to mention the genocide against South American Indians, one of the worst genocides in history.
Regarding Thanksgiving, we were led to believe that Edward Hicks's painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans got along just fine, was historically accurate.
Later on, we were taught the concept of Manifest Destiny, namely, that it was God's will that the United States gain sovereignty from coast to coast, The wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mexican and Native Americans, had to be swept away like underbrush. And they were.
I remember the shock I felt, when, fairly recently, I picked up a bible with the American flag plastered all over it. It included on back pages a collection of religious hymns and patriotic hymns, and a mixture of both. America and God--there seemed to be no difference. An aria from The Messiah came to mind, with lyrics from the Old Testament, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?/And why do the people imagine vain things?" Those lyrics were of course missing in that American bible.
I thought traditional religions taught that, while it is good to be patriotic, we live in a fallen world and every nation suffers from various degrees of fallenness. Not so in the American Religion, as the gaudy bible I had picked up proclaimed. It is dangerous, is it not, when the prophetic maxim, "walk humbly with your God," becomes, in effect, "God has chosen us to be on top!"
America's Original Sin
I grew up in the 1950s, and, like most white kids at the time, lived in a segregated neighborhood. (In a restricted sense, I still do, although my multi-racial family is no longer as unique as it once was.) Race was like rice in a pressure cooker over high heat--God had long since abandoned the kitchen--Pretty soon everything had to explode. And explode it did.
Blacks have had access to higher education; many have assumed positions of power. They are unwilling to be subjugated any longer. Progressive whites reject the racism of the past, as the multiracial protests in Portland attest. Yet not every white person is progressive.
When a pressure cooker explodes, expect a mess. I am firmly convinced however, that the mess can and will be cleared up.
Take the case of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Colin Kaepernick--whose name sounds like that of a Dutch explorer--famously knelt in 2016 during the playing of the national anthem before a NFL game. He was protesting police brutality; his protest caused a furor in our divided country. God-and-country whites were deeply offended. Trump, in 2017, strongly advocated that players who refuse to stand during the anthem be fired. The NFL lost a lot of money.
The vehemence of the protests reminded me of the vehement arguments supporting either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, subtleties of Christian dogma over which people actually killed each other in the past. (Have people chosen to forget that the most important behavior is how we treat each other, not how we treat a flag? Colin Kaepernick has spent a lot of his money and time on children).
Things have since calmed down. On July 4, 2020, during a much-publicized game, it was left to the players to stand or to kneel during the anthem. A professor of African-American studies wrote, "I would have found it hard to believe it a year ago. I would have said something really happened in America to cause that. Clearly what has happened in America...fundamentally changed people's perceptions as it relates to racism in this society." The catalyst for this change was the brutal murder of George Floyd. You can be cynical and believe that the owners found a way for money to flow into their coffers again; nevertheless a change has occurred.
The intolerant God-and-country crowd, however, is still with us. I recently talked to some gym friends, who are mostly Trump supporters. When the topic of kneeling during the national anthem somehow came up, one of our friends went ballistic.
This person is vehemently against the removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues as well. Not much of a surprise there.
German Patriotism
I sometimes watch German-language TV. Once they had a segment regarding teaching German teenagers the horrors of the Holocaust. Regarding the rabid anti-Semitism of those days, a teenager replied, in utter disbelief, "Is this fiction?!" Yes, the degree of evil of the Nazi regime is beyond comprehension.
How do German patriots--and mostly everyone everywhere is, and should be, patriotic to some degree--fare these days? A teacher replied, "We love Germany. But we must love it with a broken heart."
I like that. America's racism has been, well, awful. America has also committed many atrocities around the world. Vietnam, Iraq, South America. There is a saying in Mexico, "Pity us. So far from God and so close to the United States." If you wonder why they could say something like that, ask a Native American.
There are of course many good things about our country as well. It is still--maybe not for long? a vibrant democracy. Long live the First Amendment--a variation of which in many countries simply doesn't exist. Despite many challenges, contemporary and in the past, the Constitution has been a beacon of light for the entire world.
Germany, with its sad history, is known as perhaps the least overtly patriotic country in Europe. It is also one of the most progressive. We could learn a lot from them, for our history has not been as good as many think.
Maybe we could learn to love our country while we happily sing, "Hail, Columbia" without Columbus, and with a tear in our eyes. If we do, there is a good chance that George H. W. Bush's dream of a kinder, gentler nation would be fulfilled.
The United States is, hands down, Number One in the world regarding Covid-19 deaths, but it lags behind other countries according to many indicators. We are the only wealthy country that lacks universal health coverage; we rank 35th according to longevity statistics, (just below Lebanon and just above Cuba), despite spending twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries; among the 31 OECD countries, we rank last regarding obesity; we are certainly nowhere near the best regarding infant mortality and education. The American Dream is alive and well, well, in Denmark.
Something is rotten in the United States, and it's about time that we do something about it.
The patriotic hubris of the Texans is not an isolated incident.
How many times have you come across someone asserting that this is the greatest country in the world? If you haven't ever been told this by a neighbor, teacher, or friend, you have probably been living on a different planet.
I am 75. When in grade school, I had to memorize the doggerel line, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." At that time, Columbus was, in effect, a secular Messiah, who brought the gifts of Western Civilization to the New World. No mention of the Arawak Indians, who soon become extinct in Hispaniola, where Columbus first landed; not to mention the genocide against South American Indians, one of the worst genocides in history.
Regarding Thanksgiving, we were led to believe that Edward Hicks's painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans got along just fine, was historically accurate.
Later on, we were taught the concept of Manifest Destiny, namely, that it was God's will that the United States gain sovereignty from coast to coast, The wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mexican and Native Americans, had to be swept away like underbrush. And they were.
I remember the shock I felt, when, fairly recently, I picked up a bible with the American flag plastered all over it. It included on back pages a collection of religious hymns and patriotic hymns, and a mixture of both. America and God--there seemed to be no difference. An aria from The Messiah came to mind, with lyrics from the Old Testament, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?/And why do the people imagine vain things?" Those lyrics were of course missing in that American bible.
I thought traditional religions taught that, while it is good to be patriotic, we live in a fallen world and every nation suffers from various degrees of fallenness. Not so in the American Religion, as the gaudy bible I had picked up proclaimed. It is dangerous, is it not, when the prophetic maxim, "walk humbly with your God," becomes, in effect, "God has chosen us to be on top!"
America's Original Sin
I grew up in the 1950s, and, like most white kids at the time, lived in a segregated neighborhood. (In a restricted sense, I still do, although my multi-racial family is no longer as unique as it once was.) Race was like rice in a pressure cooker over high heat--God had long since abandoned the kitchen--Pretty soon everything had to explode. And explode it did.
Blacks have had access to higher education; many have assumed positions of power. They are unwilling to be subjugated any longer. Progressive whites reject the racism of the past, as the multiracial protests in Portland attest. Yet not every white person is progressive.
When a pressure cooker explodes, expect a mess. I am firmly convinced however, that the mess can and will be cleared up.
Take the case of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Colin Kaepernick--whose name sounds like that of a Dutch explorer--famously knelt in 2016 during the playing of the national anthem before a NFL game. He was protesting police brutality; his protest caused a furor in our divided country. God-and-country whites were deeply offended. Trump, in 2017, strongly advocated that players who refuse to stand during the anthem be fired. The NFL lost a lot of money.
The vehemence of the protests reminded me of the vehement arguments supporting either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, subtleties of Christian dogma over which people actually killed each other in the past. (Have people chosen to forget that the most important behavior is how we treat each other, not how we treat a flag? Colin Kaepernick has spent a lot of his money and time on children).
Things have since calmed down. On July 4, 2020, during a much-publicized game, it was left to the players to stand or to kneel during the anthem. A professor of African-American studies wrote, "I would have found it hard to believe it a year ago. I would have said something really happened in America to cause that. Clearly what has happened in America...fundamentally changed people's perceptions as it relates to racism in this society." The catalyst for this change was the brutal murder of George Floyd. You can be cynical and believe that the owners found a way for money to flow into their coffers again; nevertheless a change has occurred.
The intolerant God-and-country crowd, however, is still with us. I recently talked to some gym friends, who are mostly Trump supporters. When the topic of kneeling during the national anthem somehow came up, one of our friends went ballistic.
This person is vehemently against the removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues as well. Not much of a surprise there.
German Patriotism
I sometimes watch German-language TV. Once they had a segment regarding teaching German teenagers the horrors of the Holocaust. Regarding the rabid anti-Semitism of those days, a teenager replied, in utter disbelief, "Is this fiction?!" Yes, the degree of evil of the Nazi regime is beyond comprehension.
How do German patriots--and mostly everyone everywhere is, and should be, patriotic to some degree--fare these days? A teacher replied, "We love Germany. But we must love it with a broken heart."
I like that. America's racism has been, well, awful. America has also committed many atrocities around the world. Vietnam, Iraq, South America. There is a saying in Mexico, "Pity us. So far from God and so close to the United States." If you wonder why they could say something like that, ask a Native American.
There are of course many good things about our country as well. It is still--maybe not for long? a vibrant democracy. Long live the First Amendment--a variation of which in many countries simply doesn't exist. Despite many challenges, contemporary and in the past, the Constitution has been a beacon of light for the entire world.
Germany, with its sad history, is known as perhaps the least overtly patriotic country in Europe. It is also one of the most progressive. We could learn a lot from them, for our history has not been as good as many think.
Maybe we could learn to love our country while we happily sing, "Hail, Columbia" without Columbus, and with a tear in our eyes. If we do, there is a good chance that George H. W. Bush's dream of a kinder, gentler nation would be fulfilled.
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