Is Using The Term 'American' Sometimes Shortsighted?

I'll just tell you what I read recently.

In some parts of the world, I think I read the Middle East specifically, they think US residents using the term "American" is kind of chauvinistic and shortsighted. Because you know there are two American continents, North and South. I mean what about Canadians and Mexicans? And for that matter, Brazilians and Chileans too? Shouldn't they be called Americans too? Now think about this.

Anyway, to avoid any confusion, and so not to offend anyone, I always preface such words with US, using that as my adjective. Never American.

What do the rest of you think? And does knowing this change any of your minds? No judgement. Just asking .

 

'Murica...

 

More political correctness. No big deal,and to make one of it risks backlash.

 

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”
Arundhati Roy

"Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them."
Abbie Hoffman

 

Exactly. Hard to go wrong with Mericans.

 

They all hate Americans anyway...unless it's time for money or troops and arms, or intelligence, or technology or rescue aid in a disaster or financing NATO.
Let's see how much foreign aid the US gets when this giant hurricane slams into Florida tomorrow. "Oh, look, Germany says they will send over seven tents and a few tins of Spam-schnitzel on the next boat after holiday.....wait....why do the tents say U.S. on them?".

 

Some day, maybe. Meanwhile, patriotism (not the same as nationalism) remains an important organizing principle for civic participation, and societies that lack it are in trouble in a rough neighborhood. All we need to do to help fuel the MAGA movement is to add America to the burgeoning list of words we're now forbidden to use. Will we be able to sing America or America the Beautiful, and if not, how do you think most Americans (excuse me,United Statesans) would react to that? I was whistling "My Old Kentucky Home" the other day, and asked myself " would it be politically correct to sing this song anymore, and if so, how would it go? "The African- Americans are happy and jolly?" I think this sort of political correctness feeds the Trump backlash, and could contribute to disastrous result.

What's the difference between patriotism and nationalism? Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and attachment to one's country and its institutions. It can be taken to pathological extremes, as in "my country, right or wrong"..I tend to agree with Abbie Hoffman on this: "My country, right its wrongs." My own patriotism is grounded in admiration for the political values of our constitution: as Lincoln put it, a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." We haven't always lived up to these high ideals, but I think we can be proud of the fact that we launched an important experiment in human governance. In relative terms, compared with other nations the world, I think we compare favorably, and have made incremental progress toward a more democratic, egalitarian, and relatively free society. Admittedly, there is much room for improvement. Nationalism is something newer and different: a belief on the part of a sizeable people that they constitute a community, based on shared culture, values, way of life or ethnicity, and the notion that it should control the state. Richard Cottam, Nationalism and Politics. Nationalism isn't necessarily a bad thing either, but it does present a special risk of exclusion of "the other"--i.e., those who don't share those characteristics. We see today, in the United States and elsewhere in the world, the rise of particularly virulent form of this, in response to immigration and the fear of "replacement".

I'm not a big fan of Abbie Hoffman and his Yippie movement. It made some useful contributions, but for the most part fueled a form of flame throwing radicalism that called for sowing chaos and burning it all down, in the expectation that paradise would arise phoeniix-like from its ashes. The Alt Right--Yiannoupolis, Bannon, Roger Stone and the rest-- seems to have developed a right-wing counterpart of this that is currently threatening civilization as we know it. I can't imagine that these assholoes would be able to produce a liveable alternative. Radicalism, whether of the right wing or left wing variety, risks making the perfect the enemy of the good.

 

Oh, can't we all just get along?

 

I agree man. In the last few decades, Patriotism has been equated with "White Christian Republican love their country" and if we are not White Christian and Republican by birth, then we don't love our country ... because that would be impossible according to the White Christian and Republican.

 

How?

 

The tents are made in China

 

And as always, a very small percentage of radicals and loudmouths seem make the most racket, while the silent majority diddles on their phones.

 

I thought SPAM-Schnitzel was pretty creative...

 

In the last few decades we have seen patriotism turn ugly with: White supremacy..Hah
Anti democracy…Misogyny….Ignorance….Hate….Proud boys and their ilk are not patriots. They are ignorant, violent, antisocial fascists. We saw what happened in 1930s Germany; let’s not go down that rathole. By the way Christian Evangelists are neither Christian nor part of a just society. Truly religious people will not accept hate and violence.

 

From almost the beginning of this country, there's been a Calvinist strain of so-called Christianity, starting with the Puritans, which twisted the Bible into justification for chauvinism and even genocide. They got the idea into their heads that they were the rightful successors to the Israelites, "God's chosen people",:and thought of us Native Americans as Canaanites, godless heathens, who could be pushed off our land or exterminated. I attended a Baptist church recently, and was shocked to see the flag displayed and saluted as part of the service. I said to myself , "these people can't seem tell idolatry when it's in front of their noses!".

 

<<the flag cries out 'please wash me...'>>

 

Shameless!