From Patriotism to Poverty

A letter to my Country

“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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

-Hermann Goering (advisor to Hitler)

For a brief moment in time, on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, at about 10:40pm EST, I was transformed- for those who know me this will be hard to believe- into a Patriot.

Actually, it felt good. I was a Patriot not because my government had convinced me that we were under attack and, so, I needed to follow them to war, but rather because the new President-elect had vowed to get us out of the war, help the poor, work on diplomacy with previously named “enemy nations,” and make this country, again, a nation reigned not from a place of fear but from compassion. 

I have been the “pacifist,” scorned by the government and the masses for my lack of patriotism because I did not want to strike pre-emptively a country when there was no reason to do so, much less a country in which more than fifty percent of the population were children under eighteen years of age. 

But in that moment on November 4th, it felt good to be a Patriot, with a president-elect who said he wanted to help the “middle class,” “lower-income” earners, and the children. He wanted to help the people. 

I carried that around for a few days, openly declaring my happiness and newfound Patriotism. Wow, is this what it feels like to be happy? To have hope? How odd. How wonderful.

For that brief moment, I believed that if I publicly claimed my Patriotism, it would be truth, beyond even my own virginal excitement at using the P word to describe myself, 40 and holding, and never, ever, before broken of the cynicism and hope that my country, The United States of America, could be more. I am, yes, an eternal optimist. I have been called a happy cynic. I believe in a prosperous nation that has equal and free education and very affordable healthcare for all. 

At the risk of insulting my husband, I will say that the feelings I had at the moment Obama was elected were almost exactly like what I felt the day I got married. It was a high so fine. I did not want that brief history in time to turn into a past that I could not recollect, even with memory, a keen olfactory sense, or photos. I could not look at my wedding pictures for six months, so afraid that I would weep from longing, from the dream of that pure moment in hope, when it all seemed possible. Not that it isn’t possible. It is. It is just that possibility falls on the outside of the rare bliss that can never be borne again.

It has been three weeks since the unadulterated moment of my Obama ecstasy, and I am touching down. Politics, by its nature, must be a jarring and grounding component in one’s life, if not as fantastical as love. And it is sad to remember that, after that historic flash of rapture, we must, again, defend our Patriotism.

I read about Obama’s Chief of Staff and Cabinet choices, and I am shuttled back into the harsh realities of a conservative state that might be tempted to breach its contract with the people in the name of Patriotism. As I mumble my own fear and disappointment over my morning coffee, I know that it is time again to mobilize the courage to speak out, be unpopular, and retract my unconditional love of country, my Patriotism, in exchange for the accountability to the people in the land that we love.

For, like love of a partner, if love of a country - Patriotism - is unrequited from the nation back to the people, it will eventually become a liability contained by indolence and complacency. It is not enough to say, “I love my country, and we are so much better off.” Or we will find our bright and hopeful eyes blinded by our own neglect of what it takes to maintain a deep and mature love.

Goethe, who created two of my favorite characters, Dr. Faust and dear Mephisto, said “Patriotism ruins History.”  

I agree with Goethe because in the name of Patriotism it is easy to become nearsighted and forget the future, which, inevitably, is history. When we feel so blissful, we rarely look at the long road ahead. 

But we must. We must look to the things that have gotten out of hand, the people's hands, and take ownership of them so that we may change. I believe Obama means that he wants change. And I believe that the people mean that they want change. There is just so much to change now that we, the people, are going to have to be diligent in defending our Patriotism and standing behind our ideals as the great nation we can be. We have no excuses anymore. We have a government whose platform was “Change you can believe in.” Obama has vowed to get out of Iraq in two and a half years, so now we must not make the same mistake in Afghanistan. And we must be the guardians and fervently scrutinize:

The Patriot Act,

Torture and Guantanamo,

Healthcare,

Poverty.

The Patriot Act - what I call "The Goering Factor"- is the most unpatriotic piece of legislation masked in an assumed name. Still, when I mention to people that this act MUST be repealed, I get those same looks projected unto me that I am irresponsible and unpatriotic. These are, after all, times of Terror. 

I then remind people, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they would not have accepted the Patriot Act without having researched it, that a 1978 law allowed the National Security Agency to wiretap for 72 hours while waiting for its papers of approval. Under the Patriot Act, the NSA has a week but is allowed to use the information even if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) rules that the wiretap is unlawful. Therein lies the difference. The NSA can tap your phone for one thing (i.e. terrorism), and use the information in an arrest for something else (say, selling pot or committing adultery – yes, adultery is a crime in New York State). 

The Patriot Act is, in fact, an infringement upon our civil rights. Obama, who holds our hope, voted for an extension of the Patriot Act as recently as 2006. It is we who need to remind him of the danger to a country that loses its civil rights. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither.”

For all of us to be responsible Patriots, we must remind our president-elect other places where our rights are at risk.

For instance…Torture and Guantanamo.

As I wrote in “With Liberty. And Justice. For All,” “Our Nation faces, in conjunction with the torture of war prisoners, excessive numbers of uncharged detainees (over four hundred still uncharged detainees at Guantanamo, at least a hundred in secretive CIA locales, and at least thirteen hundred people in prison in Iraq), and our very own freedom being taken from us in the name of fighting for freedom…”

So how does our Nation break the cycle? 

Wouldn’t a civilized nation uphold the Geneva Conventions and call an immediate stop to the oppression of unjust disadvantage?

Then there is healthcare.

In 2007, there were 47.5 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance (Wikipedia), a projected 80% of which are native or naturalized citizens. And 8 out of 10 of the uninsured persons come from working families. As of 2006, 11.7% of all children in the U.S. were without health insurance.

And, then, yes, the epidemic of poverty and the truly hardworking poor in the U.S.A. 

In 2007  “Although the U.S. is one of the most powerful nations, American children suffer the worst among 21 developed nations in health, safety and relative poverty.” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)

Percentage of children living in poverty who have at least one parent working full-time and year-round: 55% (2007 Census)

10% of all white children and 33.7% of all black children in the U.S. live in poverty. (National Poverty Center, University of Michigan)

The federal poverty guidelines define poverty for a family of four as $21,200.

Yearly earnings of a single parent of two young children working full-time in a minimum wage job: $10,712. Imagine how difficult it would be to live on that.

Percentage of the homeless population who are employed: 44%

It is a fact that if a person works full-time at a minimum wage job he or she cannot bring themselves out of poverty.

Wouldn’t a civilized nation help all its citizens break from the oppression of unjust disadvantage? “With Liberty and Justice for all,” isn’t that what the United States is all about?

I am calling all Patriots, old and new, to redefine Patriotism, not as an ideology obligatory to a state under siege, but as supporting a standard of living, with human rights and dignity for all the People.