A Moore view of the common man patriotism!
http://snipurl.com/7ojn
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Another update: More from the propagandist, in a piece he wrote for the
LA Times:
For too long now we (who's we?) have abandoned our flag to those who
see it as a symbol of war and dominance, as a way to crush dissent at
home. Flags are flying from the back of SUVs, rising high above car
dealerships, plastering the windows of businesses and adorning paper
bags from fast-food restaurants. But these flags are intended to send a
message: "You're either with us or you're against us," "Bring it on!"
or "Watch what you say, watch what you do."
Those who absconded with our flag now use it as a weapon against those
who question America's course. They remind me of that famous 1976 photo
of an anti-busing demonstrator in Boston thrusting a large American
flag on a pole into the stomach of the first black man he encountered.
These so-called patriots hold the flag tightly in their grip and, in a
threatening pose, demand that no one ask questions. Those who speak out
find themselves shunned at work, harassed at school, booed off Oscar
stages. The flag has become a muzzle, a piece of cloth stuffed into the
mouths of those who dare to ask questions.
I think it's time for those of us who love this country and everything
it should stand for to reclaim our flag from those who would use it to
crush rights and freedoms, both here at home and overseas.
The way Michael Moore sees it, folks who display American flags are
hateful boogeymen who favor 'war and dominance' in order to 'crush
dissent'. And somehow Moore just seems to implicitly know that those
American flags on SUVs are really messages to 'bring it on'. Talk about
fevered paranoia. Jonah Goldberg offers a much saner perspective:
What the left is slowly discovering or rediscovering is the difference
between patriotism and nationalism. A nationalist gives his undying
devotion to a people. A patriot gives his devotion to an ideal. " 'My
country right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would think of saying
except in a desperate case," the essayist G.K. Chesterton observed. "It
is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.' " Although we can debate
how much of an atrocity the abuses at Abu Ghraib were, one reassuring
sign was the near unanimity of opinion here at home that such acts were
"un-American." In the past, the left was so contemptuous of what
America stood for that the idea of something being un-American would
have been considered a badge of honor.
The change is a healthy sign. If we reject the notion that America
represents an ideal, we reject the notion that we should strive for
that ideal. Leftists delude themselves if they believe that
"internationalism," the United Nations or any other version of what
Alfred Tennyson called "the Parliament of Man" can substitute for love
of country. Indeed, the tittering one hears from the cosmopolitans
about the innate goodness of
America misses an important point: If we do not teach that Americans
are good, we also diminish or demean the belief that we should be good
because we are Americans.
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