Judeo-Christo-Fascism Awareness Week Comes to American Campuses!

[Plane]

Nationalism is what the Government uses to rally support for its big projects and for support of itself , yes they are diffrent things, but the Government without nationalism would be imposed on an unwilling people.

So the government has to wave flags and brand the country to get people to support it?

Doesn't that seem a little odd?

That is what is done.

What is odd about it?

In the early history of our country citizens felt more connected to their state than the USA , the rise of Nationalism is in part a conscious effort on the part of our governmental leadership. The pledge of allegience is one such effort , it was origionally intended as indoctronation for the children of the South where there was a sad lack of Nationalism directed twards the USA.

[_JS]

Are we inherently better than Canadians, Mexicans, Russians, Germans, English, Welsh, Irish, Egyptians? No

Our nation's system is inherently better than most.

Are you inherently better, due to being an American, than a Canadian or an Egyptian individual?

Nope
I belong to a better club.

Aren't they just as likely to say the opposite?

And then the Brit might say: "you're all wrong" and the German too.

You cannot prove it to be true, any more than you can prove fried catfish tastes better than shepherd's pie, wiener schnitzel, or a gyro.

So what's the point?

[_JS]

Nationalism is what the Government uses to rally support for its big projects and for support of itself , yes they are diffrent things, but the Government without nationalism would be imposed on an unwilling people.

So the government has to wave flags and brand the country to get people to support it?

Doesn't that seem a little odd?

That is what is done.

What is odd about it?

In the early history of our country citizens felt more connected to their state than the USA , the rise of Nationalism is in part a conscious effort on the part of our governmental leadership. The pledge of allegience is one such effort , it was origionally intended as indoctronation for the children of the South where there was a sad lack of Nationalism directed twards the USA.

Calling the lack of nationalism in the South "sad" is subjective. I'm sure there was a lack of nationalism amongst the majority of Native Americans as well.

Just because it is "what is done" doesn't make it an appropriate, or even moral way of acting. Again, I'll point to Nazism, which was brilliant at taking an economy in ruins and turning it into a productive force to be reckoned with - probably one of the most miraculous transformations of a modern economy ever witnessed. It did exactly what you said, lots of Nationalism...grotesque amounts of the stuff.

I've yet to see what's so great about it. It still seems to me that patriotism and nationalism lead to a lot more cost than benefit.

[gipper]

It seems to me that arguing against nationalism is like arguing against the sun rising tomorrow: it's a natural phenomenon that we can't affect. The human psyche is organized, I suggest, according to a fairly solid template, along these lines: self, family, culture-religion-community, class, political subdivision, nation, planet -- in fair order of priority. To alter this repeated, scientifically verifiable order is an impossible task but in fleeting moments leading to disintegration and chaos. The project is not to abrogate the order but to ameliorate it with salient, salvic and salutary concepts and emotions, tempering the I-ness into a We-ness. In this vein, it must be remarked that the social organization represented by the nation-state is capable of tremendous good not only as a starting proposition but also as a defensive stance against metasticizing forms of organization either natural progressions of the "normal order" or frank mutations of it. Who, for example, would have fought on the triumphant side in World War II?

[Plane]

Nationalism is what the Government uses to rally support for its big projects and for support of itself , yes they are diffrent things, but the Government without nationalism would be imposed on an unwilling people.

So the government has to wave flags and brand the country to get people to support it?

Doesn't that seem a little odd?

That is what is done.

What is odd about it?

In the early history of our country citizens felt more connected to their state than the USA , the rise of Nationalism is in part a conscious effort on the part of our governmental leadership. The pledge of allegience is one such effort , it was origionally intended as indoctronation for the children of the South where there was a sad lack of Nationalism directed twards the USA.

Calling the lack of nationalism in the South "sad" is subjective. I'm sure there was a lack of nationalism amongst the majority of Native Americans as well.

Just because it is "what is done" doesn't make it an appropriate, or even moral way of acting. Again, I'll point to Nazism, which was brilliant at taking an economy in ruins and turning it into a productive force to be reckoned with - probably one of the most miraculous transformations of a modern economy ever witnessed. It did exactly what you said, lots of Nationalism...grotesque amounts of the stuff.

I've yet to see what's so great about it. It still seems to me that patriotism and nationalism lead to a lot more cost than benefit.

You half answer your own question.

Organiseing large groups to all pull in the traces can move mountains , accomplishing amazeing things.

We agree that this tool can be used badly and that it can be used to betray even  the people who are participateing.

But it can be used for good stuff too .  Why do you maintain that it cannot?

[_JS]

You half answer your own question.

Organiseing large groups to all pull in the traces can move mountains , accomplishing amazeing things.

We agree that this tool can be used badly and that it can be used to betray even  the people who are participateing.

But it can be used for good stuff too .  Why do you maintain that it cannot?

No, I maintain that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. Nuclear weapons may be beneficial. I'm sure that is the point of view of a number of countries across the world in various regions. That doesn't make them any less dangerous.

[Plane]

Are we inherently better than Canadians, Mexicans, Russians, Germans, English, Welsh, Irish, Egyptians? No

Our nation's system is inherently better than most.

Are you inherently better, due to being an American, than a Canadian or an Egyptian individual?

Nope
I belong to a better club.

Aren't they just as likely to say the opposite?

And then the Brit might say: "you're all wrong" and the German too.

You cannot prove it to be true, any more than you can prove fried catfish tastes better than shepherd's pie, wiener schnitzel, or a gyro.

So what's the point?

Aren't they just as likely to say the opposite?- yes, and they do ,also they build whatever monument or public work that they can grandly build in order to say so ,
by Jingo!

[Michael Tee]

That was an interesting debate.  I think nationalism's healthy, harmless and natural in small doses.  If I were an American, I'd be proud to the point of tears to be part of a nation that produced Thomas Jefferson, the Wright Brothers and Rosa Parks, among many, many  others.  I can understand why Americans love their country.  There is so much to be proud of.

But it's highly disturbing to me to see the kind of people who are most vehement today in professing their love of country.  Seems like they're the most violent and hate-filled  of the bunch.  They use love of country as a launching point to their real obsession, hatred of the perceived enemies of their country.  They're blind to anything their country has done to create hatred against it, not because they're too fucking stupid to see what's right in front of them (at least, I hope they're not) but because they don't WANT to see it.  They need to hate and to express that hate openly, which of course they would be unable to do if they had to recognize that all this anti-American anger didn't just materialize out of nothing.  For them, I would have to agree with Samuel Johnson's famous dictum that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."  Just as Hitler and Goebbels were able to hijack nationalistic feeling in Germany, American "conservatives" have been able to do so in Amerikkka, using it to lever the whole nation into their nefarious plans and schemes.

[gipper]

I both accept that resolution, Tee, and take credit for it.

[_JS]

LOL

We just won't see it the same way.

I'm not saying nations are useless, far from it! My point is that I believe nationalism and patriotism become a hindrance to truly solving problems in what has become a world where we now know that we are very interconnected and interdependent.

For example, people in the United States viewed the Yugoslav Wars for many years as "Europe's problem." Yet, massacres and senseless violence (in the name of nationalism I might add) should be all of our problem. The fact that Haiti is a starkly poor and absolutely deprived nation even by Central American poverty standards should really be a problem for everyone, yet many Americans probably can't find it on a map, let alone have any clue as to what the problems are there.

And I'm not just picking on the United States, this is true for many nations. It is easy to get wrapped up in one's flags and ignore the rest of the world. It is easy to point to Spain during their elections and say "their voters are cowards." Now that takes an arrogance linked to patriotism (the Iraq War and TWAT) that is irrational and frankly disturbing.

This is the mild side of nationalism. I'm not even going to go into the part where pointing out wrongdoing becomes treason and disagreement becomes treachery, where a national symbol of cloth or plastic, is protected by the police. Where people of different cultures, religions, or languages become targeted.

And worse still. But we don't need lessons on that, do we?

[Michael Tee]

<<I both accept that resolution, Tee, and take credit for it.>>

Fair enough, domer.  I should have said at the outset that I agreed with you.  Sorry.

[gipper]

Again and again, JS, you don't address the arguments arrayed against you.

[_JS]

Again and again, JS, you don't address the arguments arrayed against you.

I apologize.

What argument have I not addressed?

[gipper]

The virtual inevitability (to date) of the arrangement and the project of ameliorating it in the meantime rather than sparring with the stars to eliminate it. It seems to be an inexorable psychological mandate of the ruled or at least the rulers.

[_JS]

The virtual inevitability (to date) of the arrangement and the project of ameliorating it in the meantime rather than sparring with the stars to eliminate it. It seems to be an inexorable psychological mandate of the ruled or at least the rulers.

I suppose I did not address this because there's really nowhere to go with it, Domer. You may well be correct (and I suspect that there is something to this, it certainly worked well in World War II for the Germans, Soviets, United States, United Kingdom, even the Japanese). It would also explain the historical cycle of violence.

Where do you want to go from that?