17 years ago, for the first time, here, I recycled an old, short piece I’d written on “Patriotism” published in The Nation, July 15, 1991. Yes, that Nation, with which in a former life I used to be in sympathetic association, as explained in the recycled piece. I recycled it a number of times over the years, the last time a year ago, here, each time with a different introduction nodding to the issues of the day.
Although it sadly still seems relevant (my excuse for recycling yet again), this 4th of July is different. Very different. Outright hatred of the American flag and what it stands for has blossomed in full, putrid bloom on the left, reaching far into the Democratic Party. Candidate Julian Castro has supported Nike’s kowtowing to this anti-Americanism by withdrawing a sneaker with the Betsy Ross flag, which prominent progressive academic and commentator Michael Eric Dyson compares to the Swastika or KKK symbol. So far I have not seen other Democratic presidential candidates disavowing these views.
The American left has come a long way from “This Land is My Land.”
Below, my now 9th recycled iteration of July 4 comments on patriotism, starting with comments in last year’s version:
Four [now 5] years ago I posted the following recycled July 4th piece, linking earlier iterations. Sadly, it still seems relevant, and so here it is again.
Here’s my July 4 post from a year ago, which seem worth posting again (and again … and again):
Here’s how I began a July 4th post two years ago:
On three separate occasions over the blog years — 2002, 2006, and 2008 — I recycled a short piece I wrote for a special July 4th issue of The Nation . As I explained in the first of those posts, I was “in sympathetic and close association with The Nation for a number of years, even working there in a couple of different capacities for a while.”
The remainder of that first post follows, making this the fourth recycling of that July 4th piece. Sadly, it’s still relevant.
Since those comments are still relevant, the remainder of that first post follows … for the fifth time:
I continued to publish there a bit after I left, but with decreasing frequency as my views and the magazine’s began to diverge even more. On one occasion the editor, Victor Navasky … , rejected something I had submitted as too far beyond the pale, but, perhaps for old times’s sake or maybe simply a commendable bid for a bit of diversity, he asked me contribute to a special July 4 issue on “Patriotism” that, as it turned out, contained a large number of short statements by various writers in The Nation’s orbit.
I would say, given the company I was it, my piece was way out in right field. But, given that company, it was so far out that it’s a mistake to regard me as having any company there at all. I can’t link it because that was back in the days before the Internet, even before computers. You can find it in Nexis or the library in the July 15, 1991, issue, but you needn’t. I still like it, and so I’m recycling, I mean reprinting, it in its entirety here:
FOR TOO LONG THE LEFT HAS TOO EASILY REGARDED patriotism as the first refuge of scoundrels. Perhaps the main source of this longstanding discomfort with patriotic sentiment is that patriotism celebrates, at least in theory, the national community as a whole while the left, especially in theory, is oppositional, outside, dissenting. Traditionally class based, with workers viewed as the engine driving society to a better future, the left is now largely a collection of racial, ethnic and gender interests plus some academic defenders of multiculturalism–progressives all, but with no agent of progress and hence no real reason to believe in progress, in sight or in mind.
With little to unite it except opposition to the dominant culture, the left today has lost both the desire and the ability to lay claim to any significant portion of the landscape of American values. Equal opportunity? It has a disparate impact. Free speech? It protects racist and sexist epithets. Self-determination? A principle useful only for bashing the Russians or protecting oil sheiks. This is overstated, to be sure, but not by much. From what precinct of the left today could an authentic voice claim something like “This land is your land, this land is my land . . .”? Patriotism is an expression of solidarity, a principle long favored on the left, but the term itself reveals our predicament. Solidarity of whom? With whom? For what? It is a far but revealing cry from “Solidarity Forever” to “Solidarity in Support of Diversity,” a banner displayed during the recent controversy over affirmative action at Georgetown Law School.
That’s a hard flag to rally around.
