Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

BlackCommentator.com: “Patriotism is the Last Final Refuge of Scoundrels...” and Republicans! - Sharp n’ Blunt - By Desi Cortez - BC Columnist


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There’s little, if any, surprise that America’s aging, withering, nonetheless entrenched, WASP establishment is looking for a “Trojan Horse” - some form of camouflage in which to disguise themselves. Any manner, theme or simpleminded slogan that can somehow make half-mad lunatics appear to be motivated to their damn near lunatical stances by blind patriotism and not racism, sexism and classism will do.

Apparently they’ve found it in the Paul Revere and Minuteman costumes they’ve donned...America, love it or get the hell out.

It’s all so predictable. With a Black man as President, an enlightened lady like Hillary waiting to take the baton, and her inevitable Latino VP waiting to run the next leg...the “sky is fallin’” segment of US society - that angry, paranoid Republican TEA Party card-carrying demographic - are draping themselves in flags, and branding themselves the Sons of Liberty.

America...land of the free? Home of the brave, indivisible with liberty and justice for who...? All? Are you kiddin’ me?

Ponder the calculated patriotic point Conservatives have carved out for themselves: they’re draping themselves in the flag - be it some varying version of the US flag “Ol’ Glory” or even the crimson n’ gray stars n’ bars of the treasonous 1861 Confederacy. Regardless, the “Right” has successfully anointed themselves the lone, last Red, White n’ Blue bastion of true, genuine, authentic frontier patriots who love their country.

Call it the “New” but Old Republican TEA Party.

This is the ideological and spiritual home of most Euro-Americans and they believe America is a White nation - made by n’ for White people. And all of us who’re 3rd n’ 4th class American residents - as far as they’re concerned - we’re the “help” who ought live on the other-side of the train tracks, be seldom seen n’ hardly ever heard.

Only speaking when spoken to.

In pure desperation, the Right has concocted this notion; if they strategically adopt and endlessly embrace the code words, symbols and visual elements of American patriotism...then God is on their side, and their mission to take-back their land and cultural, by any typically barbaric means, is authorized and supported by a divine entity and this John-Wayne-at-the-Alamo imagery will motivate and mobilize the angry White masses.

Unbelievable isn’t it?

The Grand Ol’ Tea Party has monopolized the flag and the birth of the nation as their personal Davy Crockett narrative, and it’s not only inaccurate, it’s a damn lie. Undeniably US history is not all glorious - it’s arguable if the “good” outweighs the “bad” when debating the tall-tale called “America.”

Nonetheless, tragically and erroneously, any talk of so-called social/economic reform, and of the Constitution itself can now also be considered right-wing driven. Now note: its the Right which has opposed the Constitution - applying it to and protecting all Americans. And it is the Right which is economically undermining the best interest of the American worker/citizen by abandoning the investment and upkeep in this nation’s infrastructure - from schools to bridges to National Parks.

The “Paper Patriots” are purposefully pushing the country towards a race war.

Might we be truthful about “where” we are as a nation, right here n’ now; mild, symbolic, token Integration has produced mild forms of inclusion and diversity... and most of White America isn't comfortable with the transformation.

Am I lying?

The human/civil/economic gains of the 1960s “Multi Culturalism,” have these “Real Americans” tell it, eroded, if not-already destroyed the Shangri-la that was the US in 1952...when everybody knew their place. The “Right” yearns for their one-time dominance of all relevant levels and aspects of US society.

Fortunately, at the moment, the US is still a place where American Exceptionalists/White Supremacists still feel inclined to mask their simple-minded hatred as nationalism. Now how long is that gonna last?

More troubling...it’s not merely that they’ve branded themselves Daniel Boone, the Conservative entrenched establishment has branded “the Left” as socialist/marxist/communist traitors who don’t “love America.” We’re interlopers who hate Archie Bunker’s individual freedoms and despise Capitalism. These Defenders of Freedom depict those on the “Left” as delusional Utopians with miniscule respect for their land of liberty or its “founding great White fathers” and their timeless documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights.
As an American ...Of-Color, I’d beg to differ.

We recognize these beautifully big-worded pronouncements... we just know they didn’t apply to us, and every effort to include people-of-color in the “American Dream” has met with overt, over-the-top opposition from the political Right. And obviously US history is replete with scoundrels n’ scallywags who said their God and country were are on their side...

If we’re going to call a “spade a spade,” which much of White America yearns to do... then let’s call a Cracker a Cracker, a Redneck a Redneck.

In our world, “image is everything” - why ought we on the Left - the “permanent underclasses,” the descendants of the survivors, the conquered - why allow the ruling class to present themselves as innocent victims who’re being forced to pick up a assault weapon because we want their money n’ women?

Yes, it’s that primitive...

The real goal of real Americans is to continue “intercontinental Colonialism,” put barefoot, pregnant women back in their kitchens, reinstitute Rand Paul’s racially Separate n’ unequal America, break the back of organized labor, strip mine the Grand Canyon if need be, and if they have to...don the gear of Lexington Minute Men, Christian soldiers or Klansmen...then so be it.

I thought the real Revolutionaries in the room were Nat Turner, John Brown, WEB DuBois, Cochise, Mary Elizabeth Lease, Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Phillip Randolph, Helen Keller, Huey P. Newton, Mary McLeod, Che Guevara, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Crazy Horse, Malcolm X, harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull ...individuals who fought the Power.

All Power to the People!!



BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Desi Cortez, was hatched in the heart of Dixie, circa 1961, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the by-product of four dynamic individuals, Raised in South-Central LA, the 213, at age 14 transplanted to the base of the Rockies, Denver. Still a Mile-Hi. Sat at the feet of scholars for many, many moons, emerging with a desire and direction… if not a sheep-skin. "Meandered thru life; gone a-lot places, done a-lot of things, raised a man-cub into a good, strong man, produced a beautiful baby-girl with my lover/woman/soul-mate… aired my mind on the airwaves and wrote some stuff along the way." Click here to contact Mr. Cortez.

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