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| Fifth Column |
| Why I Don't Celebrate July 4 |
| 2010-07-05 |
| By Matthew Rothschild, July 3, 2010 It's July 4th, my least favorite holiday. "That's because those around me are enjoying themselves." And I'm not referring to the bugs, or the crowds, or the traffic on the highways. "I don't like those, either, because I'm so sensitive..." I'm talking about the mindless patriotic bubble bath we're all supposed to soak in all weekend long. Well, not me. "Love of country's got nuttin' to do with me." My heart does not beat faster at the strains of the Star Spangled Banner, much less at the sight of F-16s flying overhead to kick off the show. "Nope. Leaves me cold." You see, I don't believe in patriotism. "I am without love of country, without love of my countrymen. American accomplishment leave me cold, since I am unaccomplished myself. I stand alone, an unrepentant unwiped anus." You can call me unpatriotic if you'd like, but really I'm anti-patriotic. That's kind of a quibble, isn't it? You are or you're not. If you are you can be kinda patriotic or you can be a super-patriot, or you can be quietly patriotic or even just a little bit patriotic. If you're not patriotic you're unpatriotic by definition. I've been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. "Studying fascism, I'm familiar with all the works of Gabriele d'Annunzio, to include his poetry and his plays. I have perused the works of il Duce in the original Italiano, and I have read the Spanish theorists of fascism. Having studied European history, I'm aware that fascist dictatorships such as Italy and Germany were quite happy to overthrow or overshadow nationalist regimes in Austria or Romania or Bulgaria or Hungary. I'm quite familiar with the differences between your common garden variety dictatorship and a fascist regime." And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. "Such as for instance in Britain in the late 1700s." Patriotism is not something to play with. It's highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. Yet without it the body politic becomes anemic and is easily knocked over by some other, more robust entity, like maybe a gang of brownshirts. It gulls people into believing their leaders. Occasionally people have leaders who speak to them truthfully. It masks those who benefit most from state policy. I'm not too sure how patriotism does that... And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation. Like Glaxo Welcome, Panasonic, people like that... Plus, it's a war toy, wheeled out whenever a leader needs to improve his ratings by attacking some other country--often after invoking God's name, too. It's been so since the Spanish-American War and World War I and right up through the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. Forget about the Maine. What was our beef with Kaiser Bill? Hawaii wasn't even a state when Pearl Harbor got bombed -- we shoulda ignored it. Korea? Why not let the industrial north reclaim the agrarian south? Vietnam? Guess Jane Fonda and Wally Cronkeit settled that question, didn't they?Iraq?... Ummm... What were you saying about fascism? Afghanistan? 9-11? What's 3000 dead out of a population of 330 million? American patriotism has also gotten in the way of solving global warming. Many in the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world's resources but has just 4 percent of the world's population, believe we have the God-given right to use up all the resources we can. And there is an all-too-common attitude that we don't need to listen to any other countries, or the U.N., or obey any international agreements because we're Americans, and we're better than everybody else. Until we got the current president we used to have 25 percent of the world's productivity, which is a more accurate guage of our resource requirements. We've got to get over patriotism, and we've got to cure the American superiority complex. The current administration's doing its best to do that. We the people are waiting for the next election because we kinda liked being exceptional. So celebrate the 4th if you like. I have and I will. But as for me, between God, country, and apple pie, I'll take the apple pie. Sounds more like the posings and posturings of a stunted, childish personality. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #31 Charles Emmerson Winchester III and Thurston Howell III went to Harvard. I don't think I'd care to spend time with either. Andy "the Nard-dog" Bernard went to Cornell and although wimpy he's still kind of funny. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-07-05 23:31 |
| #30 see: Olbermann, Keith "Ivy Leaguer, Ag School" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-07-05 20:25 |
| #29 A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983 Based on the above, we can estimate Mr. Rothschild obtained his BA (no doubt not with honours, as it wasn't mentioned) in 1980 or '81. In other words, it took him twenty-seven years to come out with his first book, and he a professional in the writing biz -- and as publisher and editor he could order his projects to suit himself. And even then the book is touted as a pastiche of the kind of stories that must have come across his desk by the dozens, the kind of thing he could write in his sleep... and probably did. No wonder none of the major or elite publishing houses were interested! The biggest thing the gentleman ever did was graduate from Hahvahd -- his life since has been an illustration of the kind of successful failure the over-educated, properly precious graduates of prestigious universities can be. Separately, Cornell's agricultural school is not part of the ivy league, but rather a member of the New York state school system. If I recall correctly, the ag-tech students pay about a third as much tuition as the lib. arts private university students. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-07-05 19:24 |
| #28 Btw, people who sell horses for slaughter should themselves be roasted and served up to the Harvard faculty, with fava beans and a good chianti. They could call it a multicultural innovation. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2010-07-05 18:53 |
| #27 Another point in our favor, Bart. In contrast, the Harvard Faculty Club was for many years the only licensed restaurant in the US to serve horse meat. They still do but several other institutions have joined them in this degenerate European practice in recent years. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2010-07-05 18:41 |
| #26 "Someone send this fool an apple pie." And heres a little story for the poor little author who will not receive pie. Good apple pie makers are hard to come by. Some chefs cannot even make a passable apple pie. On a top chef dessert episode air yesterday, only about 50% of so called "CHEFS" could make a pie that had a crust, held together, wasn't burned, and tasted and looked appetizing. Non pie able snobby chefs on the show "Top Chef" yesterday share a lot in common with this author. One even whined (upon being a loser) that "he is not a pastry chef." The judge promptly told him: "and my mother is not a chef at all, but she can make a pie" Its this type of do-nothing whining the author shares in common with the asshattery seen on top chef. These types of idiots are all too common. |
| Posted by: Huge Jass 2010-07-05 18:32 |
| #25 I celebrated Independence Day. Matty considered his pie whole. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-07-05 18:23 |
| #24 Cornell has the best ag school in the ivory-league. Google up a recipe for Cornell chicken, it's wonderfully good. |
| Posted by: Black Bart Shick7973 2010-07-05 17:59 |
| #23 This waste of a carbon footprint took the non sequitur express. Matthew, Matthew ... stick to porn, pal. |
| Posted by: Spatch Speaking for Boskone8774 2010-07-05 15:51 |
| #22 I'm a Cornell alum, capsu. This does not quite have the social cachet of Harvard, at least not among hinterland status-seeker families, but we did have cooler professors (Carl Sagan et al), a better football team, and even wilder hippies. I also have a doctorate, which I see Rothschild does not. Otoh, Rothschild appears to be a veritable lion of the socialist society set, having interviewed Robert Redford no less. Woo woo! |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2010-07-05 15:46 |
| #21 Oh, and in case you missed the multiple mentions in his Bio... " In 2007, Rothschild published his first book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression (The New Press)." I am pretty sure it was an NYT best seller. |
| Posted by: Capsu78 2010-07-05 15:37 |
| #20 Dudes need to let up... He went to Harvard and the rest of us RB knuckleheads are "flyover state school" products at best! Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine, which is one of the leading voices for peace and social justice in this country. Rothschild has appeared on Nightline, C-SPAN, The O'Reilly Factor, and NPR, and his newspaper commentaries have run in the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Miami Herald, and a host of other newspapers. Rothschild is also the author of a book entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America in Our Repressive Age (New Press, 2007). A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983, and has worked for the magazine in many different capacities, first as associate editor, then managing editor, then publisher, and since 1994 as editor. Rothschild brought on distinguished social critics as columnists, including Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, and Howard Zinn. He added monthly original poetry from the likes of MartÃn Espada and Adrienne Rich, and he added the humorists Kate Clinton and Will Durst. On the magazine's website, Rothschild contributes several times a week with his "This Just In" commentaries. And he keeps a running tally of civil liberties infringements in his "McCarthyism Watch." Rothschild writes monthly in The Progressive. He has interviewed Senator Russ Feingold, singer Ani DiFranco, Robert Redford, and the journalist Robert Fisk. He also hosts Progressive Radio, a syndicated weekly half-hour program, and he does radio commentaries Monday through Friday. Rothschild is also the co-founder and director of The Progressive Media Project, which since 1993 has been distributing opinion pieces to newspapers around the country in an effort to diversify and democratize the national debate. In 2007, Rothschild published his first book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression (The New Press). In 2009, he edited Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive, 1909-2009 (Univ. of Wisconsin Press) |
| Posted by: Capsu78 2010-07-05 15:34 |
| #19 Although circulation had fallen to the level of 27,000 subscribers in 1999, by April 2004, circulation reached 66,000. LOlz - there are more people reading old National Geographic magazines Matthew is the editor of the Progressive and it's based in the Collective of Madison, WI. I think we know what kinda tool he is |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-07-05 15:32 |
| #18 By its very nature, there has never been a sovereign country that did not encourage patriotism. Relatively few of them have become Fascist in a real sense (as opposed to left-conformist hyperbole). Rothschild really only decries American patriotism, out of malice toward this country specifically, or more likely out of ignorance of the kind of jingoism and nationalism that are a way of life in Europe, the communist countries, and the rest of the America-hating parts of the world. The degree of nationalistic boasting we hear from European visitors would be embarrassing to Americans if it weren’t so infuriating in its transparent hypocrisy. Among American themselves, one usually hears this from people I call hinterland elitists, college grads or students who had high status in the back-of-beyond towns where they grew up, but who find themselves struggling to maintain that status when they get out into the big world. If you’re around students much at all, this is as characteristic as a finger print. The loudmouthed lefties are invariably children of local muckety-mucks and small business owners. When they get to college, or to their big city career-starter jobs, they find themselves in shock at not being anything special anymore, hence the attention-grabbing embrace of contrarian politics. As Dennis Miller said, “Contrarianism is distinction for the untalented.” |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2010-07-05 15:21 |
| #17 I've been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. Matthew Rothschild, I think you may need to study a bit more. You see eggs don't hatch, they are hatched, by birdy type thingies, although Platypuses also hatch, although I don't know if they hatch Fascists along with bunyip aristocrats. So who are fascists? I don't like fascists, so anyone I don't like is a fascist. I don't like Matthew Rothschild, QED Matthew Rothschild is a fascist. Simple really. |
| Posted by: tipper 2010-07-05 14:34 |
| #16 The vast majority of the comments on the article site itself are very much against this clown and his little eruption of intellectual onanism. One of the best, short and sweet: "Oh I see the problem; he's 'been studying fascism lately.' Must be sophomore year." |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2010-07-05 12:54 |
| #15 Ima thinkrn Fred is feeling better |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-07-05 12:06 |
| #14 I was going to suggest one of the workers paradises - Cuba or North Korea. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-07-05 11:54 |
| #13 Another gullible moron who swallowed the Communist demoralization propaganda. I invite them all to move to Russia then. Or China. Cruel but fitting. Let's see how fast they land in a FSB prison or get their innards parted out. |
| Posted by: ed 2010-07-05 11:23 |
| #12 #10 Why is 'progressivism' considered a rational part of our political discourse? Their ideas and beliefs strike me as lunatic-fringe. Posted by: Free Radical 2010-07-05 10:29 My thoughts exactly. |
| Posted by: WolfDog 2010-07-05 11:05 |
| #11 Same shit, different year. The progressive eqivalent of "mailing it in". Hopefully, he already has his "National Day of Shame" opus on file for Thanksgiving so he can beat the traffic... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2010-07-05 11:01 |
| #10 Why is 'progressivism' considered a rational part of our political discourse? Their ideas and beliefs strike me as lunatic-fringe. |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2010-07-05 10:29 |
| #9 I invite them all to move to Russia then. Or China. We all know the people in those countries aren't even slightly patriotic. What a moron. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2010-07-05 10:17 |
| #8 Having a liberal/leftist file a Fourth of July story is like inviting someone with a known bladder control problem to a pool party. You know they're gonna to ruin it for everyone else. |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-07-05 08:26 |
| #7 Sophist Function: noun Etymology: Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs, literally, expert, wise man, from sophizesthai to become wise, deceive, from sophos clever, wise Date: 14th century 3 : a captious or fallacious reasoner The historical viable alternative to patriotism is tribalism. When the great International USSR collapsed, it collapsed into 'national identities'. China has gone through periods of centralization and warring states. There is no viable 'international' model to take its place. By the way, that pie is mostly full of additives, the flag is now made in China, and mom are having sex change operations. You've got to believe in something. I, however, don't believe in you. If you have no loyalty to me, expect no loyalty back. You've declared yourself not part of the tribe. Enjoy the free ride while it lasts. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-07-05 08:04 |
| #6 He is not even a good Jew. Don't be stupidly offensive, newc. Unless you know the man, you cannot know his religion, let alone whether he is good at it. We won't go into the "even" in your statement, because I don't want to start this beautiful day in a towering rage. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-07-05 07:55 |
| #5 "It masks those who benefit most from state policy." Most people who benefit from state largess have left of center politics like this guy - welfare, affirmative action, public broadcasting at NPR and PBS, education grants and subsidies, the entire public sector union industry, the entire grievance and victim industry, rent seeking "businesses" that wouldn't exist without draconian and useless regulation, bloated bureaucracies which care more about protecting their income stream than doing the job they were supposedly hired to do. In other words, all of the left in this country, and certainly more than 90% of Democrats. Is he outing himself and all of his philosophical fellow travellers as deceptive evil people in a fit of honesty? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2010-07-05 07:15 |
| #4 Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism Marxist Manufactured Myth Socialism is the egg that hatches fascism. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-07-05 05:43 |
| #3 Dear Matthew Rothschild, GFY. 49 Pan |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2010-07-05 02:16 |
| #2 Someone send this fool an apple pie. Then make sure he does not get paid to write anything again. He is not even a good Jew. |
| Posted by: newc 2010-07-05 01:42 |
| #1 But as for me, between God, country, and apple pie, I'll take the apple pie. Just don't forget how that apple pie got there. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-07-05 01:34 |