But there’s an even more exaggerated reason: The essence of the sort of “patriotism” they stand for is absolutely un-American. To be a patriotic American is first and foremost to always put the mirror of self-criticism, what Naomi Wolf calls as the quest for “self-correction,” before our eyes. Is our government in fact acting righteously and justly? And if the verdict is that it is not acting in ways that would prompt others to want to emulate us, Americans have not merely the right, but the moral obligation to raise the most rancorous, most disruptive cacophony that no authority can ignore.
That will to disruptive disobedience is the “American premise;” it is what makes of any of us “Americans.” As Robert Kennedy opined, “Debate and dissent are the very heart of the American process. We have followed the wisdom of Greece: All things are to be examined and brought into question.”
Eugene Debs put the issue eloquently: “Do not worry over charges of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourself.” Or, as journalist Josh Wolf had emblazoned across a T-shirt: “A patriot must be ready to defend his country AGAINST HIS GOVERNMENT.”
Need evidence that protest, not going along to get along, lies at the heart of American patriotism? For decades before the spark that lit the world’s sky that July 4th, ordinary and extraordinary folk — farmers and merchants, the poor in assets and those well blessed — marched and hung burning effigies of British officials, vandalized and razed British counting houses, and topped their outrageous outrages against the crown by tossing 10,000 pounds worth of East India Company’s tea into Boston Harbor. Pacifism in the face of tyranny is not American.
And what is John McCain’s manifested position on civil protest? What does he define as his core “American” (???) values? And, by extension, those of Ms. Palin and all who support them? Indeed, what have been the core values of the Republican Party and the far-Right neocons for the past 25 years? On September 14, last year (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/14/politics/main3262322.shtml.), Senator McCain called for members of MoveOn.org to be kicked “out of the country.”
As Jefferson put it, “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” so I have said that I truly do not give a damn whether I live or die, but I care very much what I live and die for. Some, or any number of un-American misfits’ spurious claims to a right to a vicarious sense of “honor and victory,” provided by the blood and treasure of others, is not amidst any reason for me to live or die for.
And tyranny, when it arrives, most likely will be wrapped in the American flag. That is not to say that, in very many respects, it has not arrived here already. Or, why must those protesting, engaging the most American of all behaviors, before they can even gather, first obtain a permit from some city hall? Then, once the permit is in hand, be confined, out of sight, behind chain-link fencing! Or, face the ostracizing calls of the most un-Americans of all to be “kicked out of the country.”
Steal this election, if you dare, and, as President Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed, “As a nation we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it, ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know Nothings get control, it will read, ‘all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Except I won’t emigrate. This is my country, and I’m willing to assume whatever form of protest and defiance may be necessary to bring such a stolen regime to rubble. That is worth living for. It is worth dying for. It is worth being an American for.
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