The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Couldn't agree more BP. I am a huge patriot and believe that as a patriot we should be proud our great country and being a patriotic citizen we must be vocal on what isn’t working be it a piece of legislation or the politician who wrote it looking for more votes in the short-term. Or maybe it is making sure that we have our civil liberties in tact and so on.

Public participation, among other things, help to keep the country great. Most of us take these things for granted. Like you said the divide between rich and poor is huge. Most of the US that believe they are the best country are those who have and as bush said “the haves and the have mores”.

My Aunt and Uncle in Atlanta are bush voters why? Bc he appeals to the “American Dream” –whatever that is anymore- where my Uncle has an Avalanche, Suburban, Mercedes CLK 350, beach house, sea doos, ski boat…. And a huge home in a gated community. They are part of the reason why I wrote the article about censoring your child’s music among other things.

Now go and ask my sister in Syracuse NY how much she loves the US right now as she gets 6 WEEKS for maternity leave…I am sure that she would have preferred one less tank in Iraq and had some quality time with her child, wait I thought the US was all about family and family values, oh yeah it depends on who your family is or how much they make.
 

To quote another great poet, "Get Rich or Die Tryin". That's the American dream as interpreted for the last half century, anyways.

The fabric of their society is stitched with a sense of Meritocracy. If you made a lot of money doing something, you've taken advantage of the dream that America offered, and should reward yourself with the finer things in life. If you're poor? You didn't try hard enough.

When I visited the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam a few years back, there was a very interesting exhibit on patriotism and the slippery slope to nationalism that was basically the blueprint to Germany's frenzy in the 20's, 30's and 40's. They basically show how patriotism (loving your country) could quickly become extreme nationalism (hating other people's countries because it's not like yours) depending on the socio-economic pressures put upon the people and government. In Germany, it was all the economic and political sanctions put upon them after World War I, coupled with the emergence of a leader like Adolf who appealed to the masses because A) he represented strength amongst a surging fear-controlled society and B) he wasn't going to let the other nations of world kick Germans around anymore...

Flash forward 50+ years, and you see the U.S. following a surprisingly similar model where fear-mongoring has pushed citizens into voting for Bush because he represented the safest option to protect the best nation on earth from all it's enemies.

Only the naive think this is a new phenomenon though. The threat of Terrorism in the US is just "Coke Blak" to the Communist Threat's "Coca Cola Classic."

Funny how the fear and panic always happen close to election times, eh? How many "amber alerts" have you heard in the last couple of years?

Sorry BP, your blog's probably on a watch list now. :)

Oh, and one last note about that Anne Frank exhibit: Canada and Australia were both extremely high on the list of patriotism based on the results of their interactive surveys they ran at the museum. The final warning in that exhibit is that it's okay to love your country, just don't start hating others because it's not like yours.