How Do You Feel About Patriotism?

[Fadeaway]

@Anarchy The problem with what you say is that you have to change the general mindset of the people.

In the U.S. at least, we have a very strong mindset of self sufficiency and look down on the poor as being lazy. We perpetuate the "Hard work equals success, your level of success is directly related to how hard you worked" A very common saying is, "you make you own luck" Obviously as someone with PTSD I call b.S. We all had bad luck, we didn't create that bad luck though, any more than a kid who was born into the most perfect and wealthy family, created their ow luck via birth.

You would have to change they way people see people in need. but right now it is an Us versus Them mindset, and few people think helping is ok.

 

[Anarchy]

I think that @Lemontree is touching on a very interesting area, which is where love of our surroundings and pride in the positive qualities and achievements of our neighbours and community gets twisted into a sense of entitlement.

and the other side of it where a malignant sense of victimhood is spread and used (by high functioning psychopaths and narcs) for their own benefit. This greivence is directed towards a scapegoat on whom all of our troubles, whatever they are can be blamed.

what follows isn't trying to bash @Simply Simon or anyone who lives in Israel.

During the 19th century, there was a romanticist growth in nationalisms and ideas that people who lived within the lines drawn on maps were actually different races, had distinct characteristics and needed different things to survive.

There was also a backlash against the incredible wealth being generated by laissez faire liberalism and industrialization. Napoleon had earlier berated England as "a nation of shopkeepers" and some amongst the Prussian hierarchy spoke and wrote about the warrior spirit being the correct one and trade leading peoples to be weak and degenerate - certainly war had gained much for the Prussian hierarchy, with the annexations culminating in the wars against the Hapsburgs and Denmark in the 1860s and France in 1870, consolidating the over 1,000 independant cities, principalities, cantons and manors that had existed prior to the Napoleonic wars, into one - with them in charge. The same had happened at the same time in Italy with the House of Savoy at the top.

Parallel with this, was a romantic (and thuggish) Jewish movement, pushing the idea that Jews could not live ammongst none Jews, that jews could only flourish with their own state.

Enter the run up to the dispute between the Hapsburgs and the Serbian leadership, which escalated to become the first world war: The War To Make The World Safe For: Lenin & Trotsky, Benito Musolini, Generalisimo Franco, and Adolph Hitler...

Romanov Russia was THE anti Semitic power of the time. How to sway the prosperous Jewish businessmen and bankers to fund the war aims of an alliance which included the Tzar?

British minister, Balfour came to the rescue, with the promise of a small province which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, as a "Jewish Homeland". Financing for the alliance including the Tzar was secured, and the seeds for stories of "Jews selling Germany out" were sown.

Exactly what cooperation there might have been in coordinating and funding Lenin and Trotsky and getting one via Germany and the other from America, into Russia, is a very interesting question, that I don't know much about.

What about Zionism?

Is the darkest end of it's ideology so different to that of the NSDAP? The idea that "a people" cannot live alongside others, but must live separately, and have "lebensraum" (sorry if my spelling is incorrect).

Very controversially, it seems that in 1933, post Reichstag Fire, some German Zionists did see a close similarity and so did at least one senior NSDAP thug, Leopold von Mildenstein, who visited Palestine had a commemorative medal struck to mark the occasion and wrote up the story in the NSDAP party rag "The Assault". That much appears to be factual, the rest of the story appears to be hotly contested.

 

[Anarchy]

We must also keep in mind that the people back then had no free information, many believed the lies they were told such as "poland started the war by attacking Germany".

The present day politicians are desperate to control what free info we do have, using excuses about "protecting children" and "combatting extremism" in their attempts to censor the web.

I felt really sad when an english newspaper had an article about the anniversary of the bombing of one of our cities and the commentors just acted like everybody deserved it - including little children - but then that was the Daily Mail. So what does one expect and I do understand that they probably lost family members.

The entire terror bombing campaign was a militarily useless war crime. the fire bombing of Dresden at a time when the NSDAP's collapse was imminent stands out as a gratuitous war crime (same for Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

Amongst Libertarian revisionist historians, there is an idea that the only reasons Woodrow Wilson sought to get America into the war were

1. so he could extend his own power - which he did in a disgusting manner which was arguably pre-fascist.
   
2. to prevent an early peace and Britain defaulting on war bonds that had been bought by Wilson's Wall Street cronies.

Without the Americans, there's a good possibility that a negotiated peace would have been reached after 18 months - No treaty of Versailles, no punitive reparations and no Hitler - or at worst, a French Hitler - much easier to deal with, and no Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot....

 

[intothelight]

devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.

I am patriotic and wholly support and will defend the values upon which this country was based as set forth in the Constitution. It does not however mean that I blindly agree with interpretations, actions or laws enacted by this government. I do not find patriotism, individuality, agreement, disagreement, independent thought, or concepts of community mutually exclusive.

Historically, I have never read nor found a model of a working government that reaches the standard of Utopia. Humans learn from history and it is in those lessons that ideas are born; however, no matter how lofty an idea is for humanity, it is in the implementation that things go wrong. Democracy as we know it is far from perfect, but the principles upon which it was based are as solid today as they were in the ancient civilizations from which they originated.

So I am an unabashedly patriotic American, who is not of Irish descent, but loves a good party, and loves the fact that this country offered opportunity to many who felt the hope of something better and were willing to risk all. .

 

[Ronin]

You speak about strong communities but what about those who are no member of such a community - like the elderly childless widow whose friends died from old age?

Two things: noticing who needs help, and reaching out. I think groups of caring and active people (aka what I mean when I say strong communities) don't do so much of 'someone doesn't belong' more of a 'someone I haven't heard from a while... hey fellas can we check this person out and see how they're doing and then help out with what they're needing'? kind of thing.

There isn't a thing like 'not being a member'. We're all people. We're all a member of one community. The rest is just a question of activity and interest, of finding resources and using those that are available in the meantime.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

The entire terror bombing campaign was a militarily useless war crime. the fire bombing of Dresden at a time when the NSDAP's collapse was imminent stands out as a gratuitous war crime

I am not so sure. Some say Dresden was of military importance because it was an important traffic junction and that the Nazis used the children as human shields/should have Dresden evacuated because they knew it would be bombed because of it's strategic importance.

Whatever might have been the case - the children where innocent victims. I think it is just so weird and disheartening that people still "celebrate" it on the Daily Mail commentors section 70 years later.

BTW it was not me who said that about the jews but @Anrish. The jews I happened to meet were nice people who felt neither entitled nor as a perpetual victim and I think it is just normal some jews do wish to remind of the holocaust.

Actually if there is one minority who likes to be offended and likes to play the victim card that is some Muslims. Where I live that really is some Muslims. Some like to harass or even rape our women but still they feel like the victim in this as we have been acting "racist" according to them... and they consider everything on this world racist. Some are deeply offended if you cannot pronounce their name but cannot be bothered to learn our language living here in the third generation. They do not even realize how racist they are, calling us infidels, demanding us to stop serving pig meat in public schools. Pig meat is one of our staple dishes. No idea why their demands are always catered to.

I do have muslim friends though who are not like this at all.

 

[Deleted member 28812]

I don't get it at all. The problem is that if you say that you don't have blind patriotism in the U.S. that you hate the U.S. Can't you feel neutral? In the U.S. we have two major political parties. Every one excepts you to be devoted to one or the other. People act the same way about their political party as they do their country. I personally do not get. I just hate that people insist that if I don't belong to their party, I must be one of those evil bad guys that belong to the other party.

Patriotism is not about hating other countries to me - but about loving yours. People who love their home country are not "bad guys" to me. I think it is quite natural to love your country.

 

[Fadeaway]

@Lemontree Perhaps I didn't communicate well. I am am not sure I understand your response in relation to my statement. Let me see if I can word it better.

In the U.S. especially in certain areas, if you aren't overly patriotic people will accuse you of hating your own country. I am talking more about accusations from others

I never said that people who love their country are bad guys. In the U.S. we have two major political parties. Republicans and Democrats. They hate each other and think the other party are the bad guys. Because I am neutral and don't feel a draw to either party, Republicans will accuse me of being one of the "bad guy Democrats" and the Democrats will accuse me of being "one of the bad guy Republicans"

Hope that clarifies my statement a little better.

 

[Anarchy]

I am not so sure. Some say Dresden was of military importance because it was an important traffic junction and that the Nazis used the children as human shields/should have Dresden evacuated because they knew it would be bombed because of it's strategic importance.

Hmmmmm, incendiaries are not the most effective weapon for use against railway tracks,

They are however very effective against housing and the inhabitants in what was one of the architecturally and culturally most beautiful cities in Europe. It ties in well with one of Churchill's (and the Morganthau plan's) aims, to obliterate German culture and learning.

It also came at a time, so late in the war, that the British and American militaries had almost total freedom of the air. Railway bridges could be destroyed at will, far from settlements.
It was also a time when German industry, which had been hampered even at the beginning of the war by lack of raw materials (the very cause of the war; the policy of autarkic national self sufficeincy, rather than international trade, and the lack of raw materials within Germany to allow that autarky - innevitably resulted in the policy of lebensraum, and the invasions to achieve it) , was totally starved of raw materials and was in chaos due to the conflicting demands of the central planning bureaucrats. The industries were irrelevant, they could not produce anything of military significance.

Whatever might have been the case - the children where innocent victims.

The most innocent of many innocent victims

The disgusting narcissist, Goering (don't know how to get an umlat on an English keyboard), said something very interesting during the easter break in the Nuremberg trials:

“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?

Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany.

That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Arguably, all who were in Dresden, and in the planes which dropped the bombs, all were victims of narcissistic abusers, like Goering Goebbles, Chuchill and FDR.

I think it is just so weird and disheartening that people still "celebrate" it on the Daily Mail commentors section 70 years later.

It's an unpleasant propaganda mouthpiece aimed at people who are not very bright.

The reichstag fires didn't end with the fall of the thousand year reich: look up "operation gladio" on youtube, there is a 3 or 4 part BBC documentary series from the early 1990s, which, like the goering quote, gives an insight into how states operate behind the mask of "caring for the weak".

in summary, it exposes the "left wing" terrorists and terrorist attacks of the 1960s and 70s (bader meinhoff, red brigades etc) including the Milan and Bologna railway station bombings, the massacre in a Belgian supermarket, the kidnap and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro - as having been ordered from NATO headquarters

I know that it appears to be an outrageous conspiracy theory, but the BBC documentary and the Italian parliamentary reports it is based on, are out there.

____________
link to a recoding of the BBC documentaries

 

[anthony]

I see patriotism along the lines of fanaticism... I think anything more than being personally proud of your origins, stems issues. The world is large... and nobody is more right or wrong than another based on countries origins, beliefs and so forth. I toss it into the same basket as zealot religious fanatics--typically bad things will happen as a result.