Smurfy,

The ideal society would be continental networks of eco- villages that surround themselves with miles of healthy wilderness, using whatever technology is helpful, and where women have the right to decide if and when to birth how many or few children. That way there would be no population explosion, no expanding economy operated by imperial corporations, no nation states, no federal or state bureaucracies, no war, no ecocidal pollution, etc. But we can't do it.

Patriotism is about showing love towards one's country - the well-being of its people, its govenrment and leaders (whom should reflect the people's wants and needs),all of its ecosystems, the relationships with other countries. Unfortunately, for myself and others who are informed and have taken a critical look at our country, its policies, and society, to be patriotic these days is about dissent.

The power of change lies in the people. Informed people need to organize with others like themselves, to learn from the past, to know our civil rights and how we can use them, to form alternatives to the current system. We need the media to inform the masses (the believers, not quite critical thinkers yet) of the truth, to show intelligent debates, to get people thinking and thus acting.

Praises to Amy Goodman and DN! for being truely patriotic!

Blondemike. I don't think I have ever heard Amy Goodman propose an idea that would lead to locking up all black males between 13 and 50. And Fascism isn't allowing only the police and other branches of law enforcement to own guns. Furthermore, in the article, Amy Goodman isn't doing much more than quoting Howard Zinn.
It's unfortunate that you aren't able to stop for a moment and consider ideas other than the ones you believe you hold. What if your father was shot in the head four times and murdered? My father was. Yet I still believe that people should have the right to choose whether or not to own a gun. I also believe that children should be taught how to properly use guns and that they should also be educated in the destructive power of guns.
I don't know what kind of life you have had. I have been to jail and prison and seen many things. As with guns and education, I feel that the lack of a good education is the reason many people are in jail. Without an education, your choices are limited and crime is an easy thing to turn to.
I would hope that in time we all come to realize that disputes can be solved in a non violent manner. We all need to grow up. We all need to work together and stop shouting meaningless B.S. It's time we all learned to think about an issue from more than one angle. I know you wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of a gun. And if you ever have been shot at, then you also might think a little differently. And I'm not talking about just the "bad guy" here, I'm also talking about the police and prison guards because they are even worse when you're locked up with nowhere to run. Sometimes, it takes days before you reach the infirmary.

You have touched on all the right chords. Why do we divide our thinking and make no connections when the connections are so clear?
My other thought is how very difficult it must have been for a young Korean to find friendship and understanding from his community and schools while growing up in Virginia. This was a lifelong hurt combined with a not very strong temperament and possibly deep shyness that culminated in this horror. We must learn to accept each other and care for one another so other horrors will not occur.

Good article. Zinn should be required reading. I prefer the concept of Matriotism in that it goes beyond the archaic notion of nations and recognizes our larger global community and it's oneness with the planet.

As Goodman indicates, patriotic citizens need to gather needed information, come to reasonable conclusions, and have heart and courage to do what is right.

By gathering information and intelligence from credible and truthful sources, and then communicating it to other honorable people, we make progress.

We are all "intelligence agents" and agents of intelligence. For more on this, see:

"Gathering intelligence: Grassroots intel by and for the people"

PopulistAmerica.com
January 30, 2007

http://www.populistamerica.com/gathering_intelligence_grassroots_intel_by_and_for_the_people

America is a place of intense personal competition where the strong succeed and the weak fail, and that jock psychology still dominates the universities. Change that and many other good changes will follow.

You have to reframe every single debate in these terms: anyone who sends troops to die for no reeason aside from oil and money MUST be called a traitor; anyone who decides they cannot serve in the army in Iraq must be called a patriot. Any attack by Israel on civilinas in Palestine must be called terrorism. There is no such thing as abuse in secret prisons - there is only torture in concentration camps. The more these terms are used the more it will sink in with people

What can be done in the immediate, is better gun control laws that are enforced. Just like obtaining a license to drive a car, something similar should be done for guns.

Who can justify the need for assault weapons??

Patriotism in the USA has been perverted it seems to me. TOO MANY people link it to actions that give the US government permission to do whatever it desires. All too often these US government actions are diametrically opposed to the principles the USA was founded upon.

In Raging Bull, a forum of disrepute, poorly administered, some posters there often equate patriotism with the term..."REAL Americans" , meaning those that support the actions of the Administration and stand for the "My country Right or Wrong" type thinking. A POX on their houses for pushing that concept.

While I certainly agree with Zinn, Goodman, Twain, Thoreau and many others that peace is patriotic and the essence of patriotism is to support the nation at all times and support the government only when the government is doing what's right, framing public policy debate as a dialogue over who's the "real" patriot seems destined to be as self defeating as the incessant partisan food fight in Washington over who "really supports the troops" the most. While good people with good intentions can indeed make insightful comments and cogent arguments within that framework, the inherent problem seems to me that appeals to patriotism do indeed remain the last refuge of scoundrels.

Why let the dogs in? It's a short jump from squabbling about patriotism to hurling about accusations of treason.

Better we should focus our energies on reshaping existing public policies that produce immoral or unjust end results in the real world that we all can see with our own two eyes, rather than endlessly speculating about the level of loyalty or purity of the motives of those with which we disagree.

How many high school history courses include Howard Zinn's book? None? Why not? It cold certainly help make America stronger.

Gun control or state monopoly of guns is the stupidest idea ever to come around. Assault weapons are simply repeater guns. The crime is in the misuse of the weapon, not the mere possession of same. The idea that we can only trust the cops and the military to have guns has got to be pure fascism. Though no surprise that it's advocated by pwogwessive morons. By Amy's wholeassed logic, we should register and lock up all black males between 13 and 50 because we KNOW that would lead to a radical reduction in crime. I guess Amy can't make up her mind whether she's a radical or just another shittypants libdem.

BUSH WEEPS?

Here we have the sorry spectacle of the man in the White House who made the war on Iraq, where a disaster comparable to the Virginia Tech massacre occurs four or five times a day every day, leading the nation in prayer!

Yet when does this man go on television to ask the American people to pray for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have been murdered in the illegal war he launched?

Excerpt From
Momentary Glimpse into Daily Life in Iraq
Massacre at Virginia Tech April 18, 2007
By SHERWOOD ROSS

"Surge the Impeachment" . . . I like the sound of that. But be sure it will include the VP. Then bring on Nancy. The last California to serve is still popular. Why not another one.

This is a very interesting piece reminding and encouraging us that in our history there were remarkable people speaking out, as we should be now. I particularly agree with the comment by "jadedprole", "Good article. Zinn should be required reading. I prefer the concept of Matriotism in that it goes beyond the archaic notion of nations and recognizes our larger global community and its oneness with the planet." Let's spread that concept everywhere.

While reforming our own culture, we should remember that in Canada and Switzerland there are more guns per capita than here. But we are the ones who glorify violence, show it in mass numbers in some sports, on the television and movies daily. We need to join with the feminists, like Kim Gandy, President of NOW, who got zero publicity but were at the meetings with Sharpton and Jackson regarding Imus' comments and dedicate ourselves to stamping out the sexism and racism that are everywhere and contribute mightily to the violence of the men in our country. Mothers, even progressive ones, often without realizing it, perpetuate patriarchy in the manner in which they raise their sons to be "strong" men and hypercompetitive, forgetting that human survival was based on cooperation. Of course, fathers are responsible, too, for turning the ship of patriotism around.

History shows that the system of government is dominated, whatever its purported form, by the political culture. Thus, Marx's communism was distorted by the culture of the czar/dictator in Russia-USSR and has now reverted to the same under Putin's purported democracy. The same happened in China, so that their communism took the form of the dictatorship of the emperors. Thus, we must work in every available venue to change our political culture to cooperate, respect all persons, care for others who cannot care for themselves, educate all children to their full potential, and care for the planet, too. Only through that process of reforming all institutions can we remake our democracy into that is healthy and serving all its citizens and one worthy of respect in our foreign relations.

Other countries send us their outcasts and misfits - how can the US be anything but a disaster? How can it be anything but violent? People who can't get along, can't fit in, and won't work for change in their own country come to the US to join in the pillaging... and you wonder why the US is so violent? Give me a break! How many Swiss do you know? How many Dutch are clamoring to come here TODAY? They left over religious wars - they were already anti-social before they came here. They love fascism - it's just like 'old time religion' - autocratic, unreasonable, and violent. The US will never change until it is forced to, just like Nazi Germany.

Hey armybrat . . . ease up . . . our problems are not unsolveable. We just have to want to fix them.

Blondemike's assertion that "trusting only cops and military to have guns has got to be pure fascism" is the LEAST baked of his many half-baked statements.

First, nobody has suggested that gun possession be limited to cops and military.

Second, if government accountability, checks and balances are enforced in accordance with the constitution, blondmike might not be so fearful.

Broad defiance of the constitution by the rogue Bush regime has has resulted in a fascist state that may very well make blondmike's fears come true.

Blondmike's fears will not be alleviated by criticizing Amy.
Blondmike's fears will be alleviated by redirecting that energy to surging the impeachment.

Impeachment is a joke - and it's not going to happen. But if it makes you feel good...

How are we going to resist empire if we are disarmed, hint the Iraqi resistance that is beating the U.S. military is not using cut fluffy bunnies and hugs they are using weapons. A disarmed populace is an easy mark for imperialist schemers. And no this isn't a right wing viewpoint remember the Black Panthers, and support the Pink Pistols who are gay people who arming themselves against homophobic attackers.

Amy Goodman is clearly the best journalist working today in the United States.
The overwhelming use of VIOLENCE AS ENTERTAINMENT by TV and movies since their inception has become a bedrock of "the American Way."Add to that, the horrendous system of violence practised, sanctified,--- and tied to patriotism and profits--- by the military-industrial-congressional complex, you end up with a religiously hypocritical, spiritually empty, dying culture that can easily produce young and not-so-young tormented human beings full of hate and frustration, a thankfully-few of which,so far, lose all social controls and act out their suicidal despair.

Hey WernerS . . . America didn't produce this guy . . . He was imported.

The shooter at Virginia Tech was eight years old when he came to the U.S. He is as much a product of our culture as any of us. He was obviously mentally ill and the system did nothing to prevent this tragedy.

I think that fighting to stop the war in Iraq, or to stop violations of human rights, or to stop human suffering in general... is more of a real desire to make the world a better place than anything. Maybe it's patriotism in a sense, in fulfilling a duty to raise the quality of living throughout the world (as opposed to a single country), but I view the activist efforts to reflect more of the way some people actually do care about other human lives.

I have the idea that as long as violence is looked to as entertainment, it will continue to 'leak' into our reality. It's 'difficult' to avoid, basically one must turn off the television. (One nice side effect, that saves me some dough every month and I hardly ever see President Shit-for-brains.)

I cut off TV and cable expenses 6 months ago and I feel very liberated. The amount of commercials and programming is staggering, and like a junkie who comes clean, one doesn't realize how much of this propaganda is being fed into them until they do a cold turkey. I haven't trusted TV news for at least a decade, and only miss Washington Journal/Cspan in the morning and Law & Order, even the re-runs. Gotta admit, that show covers ISSUES that are the legal conundrums of our times.

We love Amy Goodman up here in Canada. Personally I think she is beautiful. After the Virginia Tech incident I was cringing to hear how Geroge would spin this tragedy to serve his cause. He sure spun it good. He said that every community, every school, everywhere in the U.S. is grieving together for the fallen students. How does he know? Why would wanting everybody to grieve help the republicans? ANYTHING THAT DISTRACTS AMERICANS FROM THE WAR IN IRAQ!. That's how.

As with almost every debate these days, it all boils down to the same thing. That which Amy showed me and many others. We need MEDIA REFORM. More than the war, more than global warming. The new superpower is indeed GLOBAL OPINION. We all need to hear about each other from grassroots, progressive media sources.

Thank you Amy,

adamwest@yahoo.ca

"America is a place of intense personal competition where the strong succeed and the weak fail"

Erm, that actually applies to the world in general, to nature, everything really.

The thing to keep in mind is just how exactly you define "success" and "failure"?

"History shows that the system of government is dominated, whatever its purported form, by the political culture. Thus, Marx's communism was distorted by the culture of the czar/dictator in Russia-USSR and has now reverted to the same under Putin's purported democracy. The same happened in China, so that their communism took the form of the dictatorship of the emperors. Thus, we must work in every available venue to change our political culture to cooperate, respect all persons, care for others who cannot care for themselves, educate all children to their full potential, and care for the planet, too"

Yeah, that would be easy! All we have to do is make communism work without actually FORCING it on people!

Soon as we've figured that one out we can start work on solving the inherent calculation problems of communism/socialism.

Problem is, then we'd have people making their own choices and their own calculations (sorta like democracy?) and then we'd have some smart Alec point out that this is called "capitalism" and we'd all feel silly n stuff :o(

A lot of violence in this country could be avoided if society did not treat mental illness as a contagious disease.

Why didn't our famous stock market analysts connect the jump of sales volume a few days ago to the shootings at Virginia Tech? Could it be that any malevolent calamity makes Americans more fearful and hysterical and therefore more able to be manipulated by the owner class?

Impeachment has subtle uses besides outright conviction. Recall that in 225 years conviction on articles of impeachment for a president is 0 for 2 in the record book. While it is hard to imagine that either Bush or Cheney could be convicted (requires much more than a simple majority in the Senate), recall the Clinton impeachment. Although he was not convicted, he was distracted for many months. Many things that could have been started and finished languished, because the president and his advisors were concentrating on defense. If Bush/Cheney were to be impeached, the process and the following trials just might slow down the advance of neo-con imperialism for the next two years, which would be a great boon to the country and the world, and would be far less disruptive than convicting a sitting chief executive. Let history judge the current occupant, and let the rest of us get on with rebuilding American democracy and world leadership. While I think Pelosi was right initially to rule out impeachment, I doubt she (or any of us) anticipated that the Bush machine would begin lashing out in all directions at imagined enemies. Personally, I do believe that Mr. Bush has gone quite mad, and the result is the wild, incoherent behavior he has exhibited lately. He has circled the proverbial wagons, and is firing wildly at anything that approaches, friend, foe, or neutral. Not the behavior of a man in control of his facilities who views the world reasonably, for sure.

I just misread the name of this article as "Parrots Day," which is oddly appropriate. We don't need to redefine nationalism; leave it to the ignorant ones who can't see beyond these borders or develop actual social consciousness.

You know what? I'm suffering from political fatigue. Just call me when Bush and Cheney are in jail. Thanks.

The last time Bush cried was when the string came off his nickel in a pay toilet.