6 September 2010 Atheists’ hymn at Merle Fest has wide reach?

6 September 2010 Atheists’ hymn at Merle Fest has wide reach?


As introduced by Steve Martin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFWA1A9XFi8

This celebrates the lack of sacred atheist music. It is well worth the time required to listen and smile. Keyboard lockups have re-appeared beneath my fingertips. I seriously doubt the interconnection of listening to this song twice and a hardware malfunction that I thought I had resolved.



Top 10 reasons why wars last too long

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, September 1, 2010



http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/01/top_ten_reasons_why_wars_last_too_long



I’m going to jump right to the 10th item on this list, nationalism and its current common perversions Walt does a decent job with this:

“10. National pride. Nationalism is a very powerful force, and great powers usually have lots of reasons to be impressed by their own accomplishments. When you're very wealthy and very powerful, and when your national history is mostly one of great good fortune (e.g., like the United States), it is hard to believe that there are some military tasks that you may not be able to accomplish at an acceptable price tag. Lyndon Johnson just couldn't quite believe that "Asians in black pajamas" could defeat the mighty United States, and it must be hard for many Americans to figure out why we can't sort things out in Afghanistan, defeat the Taliban once and for all, and round up bin Laden while we are at it. On any list of the reasons why wars last too long, hubris deserves a prominent place.”

We’ve seen nationalism twisted into a very ugly creature in this nation. Pride in one’s nation of birth has been twisted into a false patriotism that uses national symbols to justify the worst of human behaviors. Currently this is readily apparent in the Tea Party mobs’ dislike of education and educated citizens. Interest in obtaining an education, in acquiring knowledge, becomes “elitism.” “Elitism” is then depicted as “un-American.” Those with education beyond high school are said to be talking down to the “real Americans.” Yet, looking back only a few generations, the chance to send children to free public schools and to acquire advanced education was a driving factor in the decision of many families to immigrate to the new world.

We also see religion tied into this false patriotism. The religious right and the GOP are constantly trying to link the founding of this nation with their particular brand of protestant Christianity. They insist that the U.S. was founded as a “Christian” nation and acknowledge the 1st Amendment only when it seems to protect their desire to force fundamentalist Christianity into every aspect of public and private life. We’ve seen this theocratic control of other nations. It is nothing to be proud of and nothing to desire. We, as a nation, have no right to force any religion upon any other nation or people. The current plight of much of Latin America is due to the Spanish alliance with the Catholic Church. Allowing fundamentalist Christians to control other nations, or this nation, would result in the basic destruction of what this nation promised to be at inception.

I’ve heard far too many people refer to Iraqis and Afghanis by racist labels. I know all too well that it makes it easier for soldiers to attempt to kill their opponents if they are somehow de-humanized. Labeling them is a primary means of such practice. “Charlie” was the least derogatory label we used when describing North Vietnamese troops. The more common appellations could earn one disciplinary action if spoken over the operational radio networks. I’ve no doubt that the same situation exists among our troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our civilian populace has no reason to use such dehumanizing terms or similar language. The large part of our populace has never been in the armed forces in combat. The adaptation of such language by civilians is evidence of racism, of religious bigotry directed by Christians against Moslems, and of propaganda campaigns paid for by the GOP and religious right to gain favor for pseudo-patriotic behavior by political candidates and parties. Just as LBJ was handed a rude awakening about the capabilities of “pajama-clad Vietnamese,” so was Bush II and his corps of theocrat and theocons advisors and backers about the capabilities of Moslem fundamentalists to organize and carry out irregular warfare against a heavily industrialized nation. Due to our leaders’ hubris and the willingness of our populace to accept a trumped up pseudo-patriotic bag of lies and half-truths that satisfied the desire to believe than dark-skinned Moslems could not defeat us in battle; we allowed our nation’s leaders to waste lives and limbs pursuing their own beliefs while the cost was paid by people who had no reason to be in the war beyond need of a job in a time of growing unemployment and economic downturn.

I watch television news and see people at Tea Party mob rallys waving a Gadsden flag as if they truly understood the need for national solidarity that it symbolizes. Instead of that unity, the people waving it and other symbols of our Revolution are actually calling for a division among our citizens. They’d be all too eager to see another Civil War played out over their concept of “state’s rights,” all too eager to see this nation destroyed by theocrats. Heinlein wrote about uneducated religious fundamentalists taking over the government. His scenarios keep resonating in my mind as I watch the false patriotism and poorly directed nationalism of today played and replayed by poorly educated religious fanatics like Sarah Palin, and those willing to cohabit with them.

What ever the realities are, this nation needs to be joining Steve Martin in singing the Atheist’s hymn and leaving other to play and pray as they will. My keyboard problems are miniscule to the problems we would all face if the theocrats and fundamentalist of any faith get their dirty little censors’ hands into the control panels of the internet.

Julius, thanks for the steer!