Patriotism is the willingness to kill or die for trivial reasons.
-- Bertrand Russell, English Philosopher (1872-1970)
In the 1970s, The United States was perpetrating a war of imperial aggression on the people of Vietnam, with many similarities and a few differences to the current war of imperial aggression in Iraq. Although I had been taught, as we all were, to assume that the 'we' were the 'good guys,' and that patriotism was a virtue, it occurred to me that the Vietnam War, along with the Cold War and various other military skirmishes, had been going on for my entire life. By the time I entered high school, I was deeply sad and disappointed. The tragedy of all the people who had killed and been killed in a war so trivial that most of the people I knew could barely pay attention to it, was almost unbearable to me. I wore a black armband, and every morning, while the good youth of America were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, I sat in my seat and looked at the floor. One day, a Social Studies teacher was watching the room for our homeroom teacher and flew into a rage when I refused to stand and recite the pledge. He pulled me, by my hair, into the hallway, where he beat me with a wooden bludgeon -- a pine board with a handle carved into one end, painted white, with blood red lettering that styled it the "Board of Education." The beating was long and violent and public. I was aware of my fellow students who had flooded out of their homerooms to witness this spectacle.
I may never know what effect the beating had on the students who watched in silence as I was battered for my lack of patriotism. I am fifty years old now. I can still feel the pain in my hips when the weather changes. This country is still involved in wars of imperial aggression. Human Beings are still killing and being killed for trivial reasons. I still refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
It is clear to me that the persistence of Human Being in this Universe depends on the fall of this bloodthirsty, 'patriotic' empire.
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