This diary will be short, I promise! As a historian and activist, I revere a handful of academics who have been scorned as 'presentists' by antiquarians who think 'history' (and those who write it) should be static and far-removed from current affairs. Charles Beard, Herbert Gutman, E.P. Thompson, and Ron Eller (on Appalachia), among others too numerous to mention here, all sought answers for contemporary dilemmas in the lessons of the past.
But Howard Zinn is the one historian who can bring me either to tears or red-hot activism in a heartbeat. This American treasure has, once again, summed up where we are, where we need to be, on this 4th of July...
In an essay published today by Alternet, Zinn reflects on
Patriotism and the Fourth of July.
In celebration of the Fourth of July there will be many speeches about the young people who "died for their country." But those who gave their lives did not, as they were led to believe, die for their country; they died for their government. The distinction between country and government is at the heart of the Declaration of Independence, which will be referred to again and again on July 4, but without attention to its meaning.
...
When a government recklessly expends the lives of its young for crass motives of profit and power, while claiming that its motives are pure and moral, ("Operation Just Cause" was the invasion of Panama and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in the present instance), it is violating its promise to the country. War is almost always a breaking of that promise. It does not enable the pursuit of happiness but brings despair and grief.
I'm going to abide by the three-paragraph rule and ask you to please go read the entire essay. Zinn reflects on the diametrically opposite reactions of Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt to the massacre by American soldiers of 600 Filipino men, women and children on a remote Philippine island. He unequivocally asserts that U.S. soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan NOT for their country but for Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, "for the greed of the oil cartels, for the expansion of the American empire, for the political ambitions of the president." Worst of all, our children are "dying to cover up the theft of the nation's wealth to pay for the machines of death."
Yet again, as he has so often in his prolific writing, Howard Zinn poses hard questions that SHOULD cause all of us to search our hearts, to reflect on superficial displays of shallow patriotism:
Should Americans welcome the expansion of the nation's power, with the anger this has generated among so many people in the world? Should we welcome the huge growth of the military budget at the expense of health, education, the needs of children, one fifth of whom grow up in poverty? Instead of being feared for our military prowess, we should want to be respected for our dedication to human rights. I suggest that a patriotic American who cares for her or his country might act on behalf of a different vision. Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism that has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade-- some call it "globalization"--should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity? Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.
Have a safe and secure holiday and, when you see a flag waving, think on Zinn and our many children who go forward for the 'government' but not for US.
Always the mountains,
va dare