Letters to the Editor
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Amen!
To quote from article "Today, after five years of a catastrophic war driven by patriotic vengeance, it's still not acceptable to disturb the myth of eternal American innocence. As David Bromwich wrote in a recent piece in the New York Review of Books, "the uniformity of the presentation by the mass media after 2001, to the effect that the United States now faced threats arising from a fanaticism with religious roots unconnected to anything America had done or could do, betrayed a stupefying abdication of judgment." Stupefying indeed: Patriotism has proved to be a stronger opiate of the people than religion."
And in this presidential campaign we have two of the central archetypes of American mythology: John "Wayne" McCain and Hillary "Scarlett" Clinton. (Please note that both were thoroughly racist, that is Wayne and O'Hara.) And there is Obama who represents the tradition Kamiya writes about, perhaps even that of Teddy Roosevelt with his "Walk softly and carry a big stick."
Last week Obama explained black perspective of patriotism (Good Morning America) comparing it to difference between Sousa marching band and jazz. Someone on dailykos thread suggested that country music was "white man's" jazz. I responded that interestingly, since its inception country music had never evolved beyond its original form, whereas w/in its first 50 years of existence, jazz had developed into several different forms.
Someone else responded w/ sarcasm that calling white folks "simple" would "really help". My response is that to the extent that white working-class folks can not - or WILL NOT - understand that their ECONOMIC interest are linked to black folk AND that Clinton does NOT best represent their interests, then YES, they are simple-minded. After all, "stupid is as stupid does."
And again, note that it has been - and continues to be - working-class white folks who buy into the above mythology wholesale. For this reason - and some others related, i.e. has anyone thought for a moment that Obama's background may assist him in eliminating Bin Laden? - Obama as president would go a very long way toward disabusing this nation of its patriotism/racist mythology.