The Progressive Case for Patriotism

[Guest guest]

The Progressive Case for Patriotism

By Peter Dreier and Richard Flacks, LA Weekly

 

Posted on July 3, 2004,

http://www.alternet.org/story/19146/

 

Since 9/11, patriotic expressions in public life have

dramatically soared. We see displays of the Stars and

Stripes on cars, businesses, T-shirts, caps, lapel

pins and even tattoos, along with bales of CDs with

patriotic songs. During periods of social and

political turmoil, America's leaders have always

sought to impose rituals of loyalty, civics lessons

and other forms of patriotic observance. In that

tradition, George W. Bush has tried to define

opposition to his war policy as unpatriotic. His first

response to 9/11 included the declaration that " either

you are with us or you are with the terrorists, " a

comment aimed not only at leaders of other nations but

at domestic critics as well. (The misnamed Patriot Act

was clearly designed to stigmatize dissent.) And the

buildup to the Iraq invasion was framed by endless

miles of star-spangled bunting and the continuous

looping of " God Bless America. "

 

This post-9/11 patriotic fervor has revitalized the

conventional wisdom that love of country is synonymous

with conservatism. Conservatives, we are told, wave

the flag. Or wear it on their lapels. Leftists, by

contrast, only scorn it. Or burn it. Since the Vietnam

War era, many liberals and progressives have been

uncomfortable about patriotism. They equate it with

jingoism and militarism. They have been reluctant to

wave the flag. They weren't sure it was theirs. And

George W. Bush's brand of blind " my country right or

wrong " jingoism has, on this Fourth of July, only

deepened the dilemma.

 

But some progressives are now challenging this

conventional reflex, no longer conceding that

conservatives have a monopoly on Old Glory. During the

weeks before Bush's invasion of Iraq, the anti-war

movement countered with bumper stickers illustrated

with an American flag that proclaimed, " Peace Is

Patriotic. " Since then, demonstrations against the

invasion and occupation of Iraq have been festooned

with American flags. The Veterans for Peace are doing

more than any official body to publicly honor those

who have given their lives in combat, creating

symbolic Arlington cemeteries with crosses marking the

war dead in a growing number of cities.

 

" Take Back Our Country, " a line used by Pat Buchanan

when he declared a cultural war at the 1992 Republican

Convention, has now become a rallying cry for

liberals. John Kerry has been appropriating the key

line from Langston Hughes' Depression-era poem " Let

America Be America Again " as a campaign slogan.

 

Indeed, throughout the nation's history, many American

radicals and progressive reformers proudly asserted

their patriotism. To them, America stood for basic

democratic values – economic and social equality, mass

participation in politics, free speech and civil

liberties, elimination of the second-class citizenship

of women and racial minorities, a welcome mat for the

world's oppressed people. The reality of corporate

power, right-wing xenophobia, and social injustice

only fueled progressives' allegiance to these

principles and the struggle to achieve them.

 

Nevertheless, progressives are faced with the tough

question of what exactly it means to be patriotic in

an increasingly global economy and interdependent

world. Multinational corporations based in the U.S.

obviously have no loyalty to this country. They do

their best to outsource jobs to low-wage countries and

to avoid paying taxes. (Ironically, most American

flags are made in China, and Wal-Mart, whose founder,

Sam Walton, promoted the motto " Buy American, " now

imports 60 percent of its merchandise and accounts for

about 12 percent of all U.S. imports from China, most

of it made under sweatshop conditions.)

 

But the slogan " Buy American, " which sounds patriotic

to some and protectionist to others, isn't much help

if you're a progressive hoping to shop with a

conscience. Most apparel produced in the U.S. is made

under awful sweatshop conditions by companies that

exploit immigrants and violate minimum-wage and other

labor laws. Even the Department of Defense buys some

of its uniforms from companies that operate

sweatshops.

 

Progressives show their patriotism today by looking

for a union label in their American-made clothes, or

they can look for a " fair trade " label on various

consumer goods made overseas. (Help is available from

several nonprofit groups: www.fair

tradefederation.com; www.transfairusa.org;

www.nosweatapparel.com; and www.unionlabel.org.) The

American activists who've protested at World Trade

Organization and World Bank meetings to demand better

living standards for Third World workers aren't simply

do-gooders. When workers in China or Mexico get paid a

living wage, American companies have less incentive to

move jobs from U.S. soil, and those workers have more

money to buy U.S.-made products.

 

But let's get back to the Red-White-and-Blue. The

flag, as a symbol of the nation, is not owned by the

administration in power, but by the people. We battle

over what it means, but all Americans – across the

political spectrum – have an equal right to claim the

flag as their own.

 

Most Americans are unaware that much of our patriotic

culture – including many of the leading symbols and

songs that have become increasingly popular since

September 11 – was created by writers of decidedly

progressive sympathies.

 

For example, the Pledge of Allegiance itself was

originally authored and promoted by a leading

Christian socialist, Francis Bellamy (cousin of

best-selling radical writer Edward Bellamy), who was

fired from his Boston ministry for his sermons

depicting Jesus as a socialist. Bellamy penned the

Pledge of Allegiance in 1892 to celebrate the 400th

anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of

America by promoting use of the flag in public

schools. He hoped the pledge would promote a moral

vision to counter the climate of the Gilded Age, with

its robber barons and exploitation of workers. Bellamy

intended the line " One nation indivisible with liberty

and justice for all " to express a more collective and

egalitarian vision of America.

 

Bellamy's invocation of American patriotism on behalf

of social justice is part of a hidden tradition.

Consider the lines inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

" Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free. " Emma Lazarus was a poet of

considerable reputation in her day, who was a strong

supporter of Henry George and his " socialistic "

single-tax program, and a friend of William Morris, a

leading British socialist. Her welcome to the

" wretched refuse " of the earth, written in 1883, was

an effort to project an inclusive and egalitarian

definition of the American Dream.

 

And there was Katharine Lee Bates, a professor of

English at Wellesley College. Bates was an

accomplished and published poet, whose book America

the Beautiful and Other Poems includes a sequence of

poems expressing outrage at U.S. imperialism in the

Philippines. A member of progressive-reform circles in

the Boston area, concerned about labor rights, urban

slums and women's suffrage, an ardent feminist, for

decades she lived with and loved her Wellesley

colleague Katharine Coman, an economist and social

activist.

 

" America the Beautiful, " written in 1893, not only

speaks to the beauty of the American continent but

also reflects her view that U.S. imperialism

undermines the nation's core values of freedom and

liberty. The poem's final words – " and crown thy good

with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea " – are an

appeal for social justice rather than the pursuit of

wealth.

 

In the Depression years and during World War II, the

fusion of populist, egalitarian and anti-racist values

with patriotic expression reached full flower. Aaron

Copland's " Fanfare for the Common Man " and " A Lincoln

Portrait " are now patriotic musical standards,

regularly performed at major civic events, written by

a member of a radical composers' collective.

 

Langston Hughes' poem " Let America Be America Again, "

written in 1936, contrasted the nation's promise with

its mistreatment of his fellow African-Americans, the

poor, Native Americans, workers, farmers and

immigrants:

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real,

and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

 

In 1939, composer Earl Robinson teamed with lyricist

John La Touche to write Ballad for Americans, which

was performed on the CBS radio network by Paul

Robeson, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. This

11-minute cantata provided a musical review of

American history, depicted as a struggle between the

" nobody who's everybody " and an elite that fails to

understand the real, democratic essence of America.

 

Robeson, at the time one of the best-known performers

on the world stage, became, through this work, a voice

of America. Broadcasts and recordings of " Ballad for

Americans " (by Bing Crosby as well as Robeson) were

immensely popular. In the summer of 1940, it was

performed at the national conventions of both the

Republican and Communist parties. The work soon became

a staple in school choral performances, but it was

literally ripped out of many public school songbooks

after Robinson and Robeson were identified with the

radical left and blacklisted during the McCarthy

period. Since then, however, " Ballad for Americans "

has been periodically revived, notably during the

bicentennial celebration in 1976, when a number of pop

and country singers performed it in concerts and on

TV.

 

Many Americans consider Woody Guthrie's song " This

Land Is Your Land, " penned in 1940, to be our

unofficial national anthem. Guthrie, a radical, was

inspired to write the song as an answer to Irving

Berlin's popular " God Bless America, " which he thought

failed to recognize that it was the " people " to whom

America belonged. The words to " This Land Is Your

Land " reflect Guthrie's assumption that patriotism,

support for the underdog, and class struggle were all

of a piece. In this song, Guthrie celebrates America's

natural beauty and bounty, but criticizes the country

for its failure to share its riches, reflected in the

song's last and least-known verse:

 

One bright sunny morning in the

shadow of the steeple

By the relief office I saw my people.

As they stood hungry I stood there wondering

If this land was made for you and me.

 

Stimulated by the recent nostalgia for World War II,

old recordings by left-wing performers of the 1940s –

Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers,

Josh White, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, and Paul Robeson –

are, fortunately, undergoing a revival. This was

material deliberately created to promote the war

effort, expressing the passionate fervor of left-wing

resistance to fascism. The best songs also express the

conviction that the fight against fascism must

encompass a struggle to end Jim Crow and achieve

economic democracy at home. Indeed, President Franklin

Roosevelt's speeches during that period reflect many

of the same themes and images. And if you add to these

songs the scripts of numbers of Hollywood war movies

and radio plays by some of America's leading writers –

some of whom were later blacklisted – it becomes clear

that popular culture in support of that war was

largely the creation of American leftists.

 

Even during the 1960s, American progressives continued

to seek ways to fuse their love of country with their

opposition to the government's policies. The March on

Washington in 1963 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial,

where Martin Luther King Jr. famously quoted the words

to " My Country 'Tis of Thee, " repeating the phrase

" Let freedom ring " 11 times.

 

Phil Ochs, then part of a new generation of

politically conscious singer-songwriters who emerged

during the 1960s, wrote an anthem in the Guthrie vein,

" The Power and the Glory, " that coupled love of

country with a strong plea for justice and equality.

The words to the chorus echo the sentiments of the

anti-Vietnam War movement:

 

Here is a land full of power and glory;

Beauty that words cannot recall;

Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom

Her glory shall rest on us all.Â

 

One of its stanzas updated Guthrie's combination of

outrage and patriotism:

 

Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor;

Only as free as the padlocked prison door;

Only as strong as our love for this land;

Only as tall as we stand.

 

Interestingly, this song later became part of the

repertoire of the U.S. Army band.

 

And in 1968, in a famous anti-war speech on the steps

of the Capitol, Norman Thomas, the aging leader of the

Socialist Party, proclaimed, " I come to cleanse the

American flag, not burn it. "

 

In recent decades, Bruce Springsteen has most closely

followed in the Guthrie tradition. From " Born in the

USA, " to his songs about Tom Joad (the militant

protagonist in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath),

to his anthem about the September 11 tragedy ( " Empty

Sky " ), Springsteen has championed the downtrodden

while challenging America to live up to its ideals.

 

Steve ( " Little Stevie " ) Van Zandt is best known as the

guitarist with Springsteen's E Street Band and, most

recently, for his role as Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano's

sidekick on The Sopranos. But his most enduring legacy

should be his love song about America, " I Am a

Patriot, " including these lyrics:

 

I am a patriot, and I love my country, Because my

country is all I know. Wanna be with my family, People

who understand me. I got no place else to go.

And I ain't no communist, And I ain't no socialist,

And I ain't no capitalist, And I ain't no imperialist,

And I ain't no Democrat, Sure ain't no Republican

either, I only know one party, And that is freedom.

 

In the midst of a controversial and increasingly

unpopular war, and with a presidential election under

way that will shape the nation's direction, there is

no better way to celebrate America than to listen to

Van Zandt's patriotic anthem. And while doing so,

maybe waving a flag and remembering it's also yours.

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.