Says Scott Adams... who managed, without actually saying it, to create the idea in my mind — I know he's a hypnotist — that "The Star-Spangled Banner" will soon be widely regarded as racist and no longer acceptable as the national anthem. And that's before I read the CNN article he linked to: "Slavery and the national anthem: The surprising history behind Colin Kaepernick's protest."
And even though I personally reject the argument that Kaepernick needs to love America because it's better than the alternatives — it goes against my aphorism "Better than nothing is a high standard"* — I think Kaepernick's forefronting of the general abstraction of patriotism helps Trump.
I can imagine a psychological study that divides undecided American voters into 3 groups. Group 1 watches some well-crafted propaganda designed to inspire love for America. Group 2 watches a serious exploration of the pros and cons of whether Americans should love America. And Group 3 watches something — no more or less entertaining — that has nothing to do with patriotism. I'm guessing Group 2 would lean more toward Trump than Group 3.
___________________________
* Yes, you have to live somewhere, but you don't have to love it. Back in the 60s, those who didn't like the various anti-war and other protests had a slogan "America — love it or leave it." It was kind of like the old parental demand — on presentation of some unappetizing food — "You'll eat it and you'll like it." Why must I also like it? And how can I be ordered to like it? More sensible parents — like mine — would just say: "That's what's for dinner." They didn't prod me to go see if I could go get dinner at someone else's house and taunt me with predictions that I wouldn't even like it. This is dinner. This is what we're having. You need to eat. But you can have your own thoughts about it and dislike it even as you use it to fulfill your needs.
IN THE COMMENTS: Balfegor said something I meant to make you think:
I wouldn't be surprised if Group 2 actually leaned more towards Trump than Group 1 too . . . sort of like what we saw with Obama, Obama benefited when race was made salient in voters' minds (e.g. by the media and his other proxies), but less so when voters were beaten about the head about racism (cf. his late fade against Clinton II back in the 2008 primary). However well-crafted, propaganda that articulates a clear point of view can provoke a counter-reaction. That said, I suppose that means it just wasn't well-crafted enough.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237Meanwhile, the country's military is fighting and dying in the Philippines or Vietnam or El Salvador or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria, and these Great American Patriots are contributing nothing more to the nation's interests than are the people they despise because they "don't sufficiently love the country" because they're not doing the ritual.
Yes, but the people doing the fighting and dying really, really like the ritual. They like it when the civilian population show their respect and support for the nation for which they have their lives on the line. They consider it also a demonstration of respect and support for them and the job they're doing.
Meade wrote: "People opting out of islam aren't sneering at it. They're opting out"
More precisely, outside the US, they are opting out and running for their lives. If they have nowhere to run, they are opting out and dying.
"Whereas the Philippines stood squarely athwart the path of the American trans-Pacific offensive. "
I have made a study of this whole thing my entire life. So I have made a collection of histories and memoirs for 40 years.
As for the necessity of taking the country - it did and it didn't. The Philippines was not absolutely necessary to US Naval strategy. They could just as well have taken Formosa, which was an option in planning. Or they could simply have seized bases on certain Philippine islands (the place as a whole is simply indefensible) and bypassed the rest, which was more than sufficient for their strategic purposes. And they had other options. At the time MacArthur had to work hard to convince the Joint Chiefs to extend the costly campaign to Luzon.
It was much more important for the Japanese to keep the Philippines away from an enemy, to preserve their logistic routes, than it was for an enemy to hold the whole of it, because it was not necessary in order to interdict Japanese logistics. Even this, arguably, was unnecessary, as the route through the China sea was already nearly completely closed by submarines.
The Japanese fortified the country as a bastion but it did not need to be taken. This was a political decision that was consequential upon the way the place was lost, and that was seen as politically significant post-war, and other factors such as the loyalty and support of the population, which made attacking 350,000 Japanese on Luzon a much less costly prospect.
But if the place had simply permitted a Thai solution there wouldn't have been such a good set of reasons to go back, and those 350,000 Japanese could have been ignored.
Note that there wasn't much Filipino antagonism toward the Japanese in 1941. The Filipino attitude towards the Americans was benevolent, but there weren't all that many happy to die for them. The Filipinos were a colonial people. They certainly hadn't asked to be taken by the US in the first place, and had no overriding reasons to be loyal. It was the act of the Japanese invasion, and moreso the Japanese behavior as invaders that made them enemies and the Americans beloved, as co-sufferers from their aggression. The Filipinos rather liked Americans in 1941, but loved them in 1942. This "blood brother" business is culturally significant - this is one thing Stanley Karnow gets right, even if he cant understand it.
As for the Japanese behavior - they did not antagonize their own allies (they were well liked by the Formosans, their own genuine colonial people), and they treated "neutrals" tolerably well. They certainly didn't mistreat the Thais, Burmese, Malays, Indonesians, Indochinese the same way they did the Chinese or the Filipinos. This I think was the result of the Filipinos being an enemy nation, a co-belligerent allied nation, which they were, which was not the case with these other peoples that were under more overt European colonial rule. These other peoples for the most part saw the war as a battle of foreign giants, a calamity in which they had little stake, and the Japanese mostly respected that.
Nations have divergent interests. It was in the US interest to have the Filipinos fight. It wasn't in the Filipino interest. No possible post-war benefit was worth the resulting cost.
As a foreigner, I bring another point of view, or views. These aren't always going to be congruent with any American one. I look at your situation from off to the side, with different filters.
Balfegor,
My high school French teacher actually taught me the term "jingoism," but in her articulation, Jingo was a bellicose character from a play who demanded that the nation go to war. Turns out, Jingo wasn't a character at all, but rather by Jingo was a 17th-century means of saying "by Jesus" without taking His name in vain. Her explanation of the origins of "chauvinism," coming from Nicolas Chauvin (a fanatical devotee of Napoleon), appears to be more accurate, but now I have also just learned that he, too, may have been purely apocryphal. You learn something new every day! Thanks for the correction!
With all due respect, President Toothy Grin got Professor Althouse to believe that we aren't red states or blue states, we are UNITED states! So apparently she is easily persuaded!
My favorite part of the State of the Union Address is the way the Supreme Court justices just sit there without clapping or jumping to their feet like trained monkeys.
That and their poker faces. They do clap sometimes, though. Like when praise is heaped on the troops. Stuff that's not in any way partisan or controversial or having to do with government.
As anyone who's been there knows, a visit to Ft. McHenry is an experience. They show a film in the visitors center about the battle and writing of the anthem. At the end, the audience is invited to stand and face the picture window. As the drapes open to reveal that HUGE flag that flies over the fort, the SSB starts to play and everybody gets all misty-eyed. Maybe they could take Kaepernick there. Or maybe not. It's Baltimore after all.
Simply standing shows respect for those around you.
I refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag or bow my head in prayer, but when those things happen, like at my kids' high school graduations, I respect those around me and either simply stand, for the pledge, or keep my mouth shut and be respectful, for the prayer.
I actually go with the contract theory; Kaepernick is a terrible quarterback. I wonder how many teams the 49ers approached for even the simplest trade and got turned down. Nobody wants this guy.
Meade said...
Thanks. I had no idea it was a modern fad to individually opt out of racial identification.
Pretending to have poor reading skills is cute. You are pretending, aren't you? Sometimes it's hard to tell.
walter said...
If you go to his Twitter, you can find this jock re-tweeting gems like:
Since he's a mulatto, rather than sitting or standing he should crouch.
buwaya said...
Philippines
Filipino
How did those spellings come about?
English vs Spanish words -
It was named by the conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi after the King of Spain.
Philip
Felipe
Philippines
Filipinas
If he's going to transition to ESPN common-tater, has to build up his bonafides.
"Sometimes it's hard to tell."
Is that what they call a humble brag? Or is it an example of "virtue signaling" that is truly virtuous?
I see, over on ESPN.com, Rodney Harrison felt he needed to apologize to CK for questioning his "race".
Roughcoat said A single-prong drive across the Central Pacific was not practicable
Perhaps. But the IJN was a shell of its former self after Leyte Gulf and the infantry on the island wasn't going to be able to mount a credible sea borne attach force.
MacArthur may have been right (and you too). But I think the argument CAN be made that the Philippines could have been bypassed, but only IF the IJN carrier arm was destroyed. No invasion would have meant no Leyte Gulf. But I think the IJN could have been lured out for the final huge 'sea battle' they were seeking during the whole war. They, too, were trapped in old strategies.
buwaya,
Excellent perspective.
Why we invaded the Philippines in 1944 is stated right in the minutes of the Joint Chiefs of staff.
Everyone in a position of power, thought we needed to cut off the Japanese from the Oil and Minerals of SE Asia and Indonesia. We also needed a large island base to either launch an invasion of Japan, or "Threaten" an invasion.
Which means, either we invade Formosa or Luzon. The JSC actually wanted to invade Formosa but thought we needed to have Leyte to neutralize the Japanese airfields on Luzon. However, once they did further analysis they discovered that a Formosa invasion - after Leyte - couldn't come until April '45. And the JCS didn't want to give the Japanese such a long breathing spell to build up their reserves.
So they chose to invade Luzon in December '45 (later moved to Jan) - and then iwo and then Okinawa.
When I was four and my grandfather was very ill, we used to make weekly trips from our home in Minnesota to Winnipeg, Canada, to see him. On the way, My Dad always stopped at a Phillips 66 gas station in International Falls, Minnesota. There, a jolly man would tap on the window of the car while he was filling the gas tank and cleaning the windows. I would turn around and look and he would smile and then make faces at me to make me laugh. Many years later, my father told me that man was a famous professional football player named Bronko Nagurski. I asked my Dad why he was pumping gas in International Falls. My Dad said that he played in the 1920's and 30's when football players didn't make very much money. He used what he earned to buy a gas station franchise. I saw him on TV many years later getting some sort of award. He could barely walk across the field with bad knees from playing football. Yes, football players have First Amendment rights. They can run for political office if they desire. But football is a business, and what I'm hearing is that the customers are becoming unhappy.
I want to lick his tats
People don't listen to:
1- Guys who make millions$$ playing a kids game
2- Millionaires/Billionaires who tell me I how I need to sacrifice
3- People who make a living by reading stuff other people write for them
4- Limousine Liberals
5- People who support illegal immigration and illegal drugs telling me I need to support the Rule of Law aka 'muh Constitution".
rhhardin,
My country right or wrong is a lot older than me. It was controversial in fact.
I like Chesterton's take on it. He said that it was a question of whether it meant "My country, right or wrong, can always count on my devotion to her best interests," or "My country, right or wrong, should always be encouraged to do more of whatever she is now doing." Or words to that effect.
CK has always been a whiny douche. A very talented and wealthy whiny douche but still a whiny douche.
He will get cut and nobody will pick him up because he lost about 30 pounds while healing from injury. He was dependent on athleticism which he no longer has. He will also suffer from the Tebow effect. Tebow was good enough to be a backup in the league but he turned camp's and practices into a circus and wasn't worth the trouble. CK is a douche and isn't worth the trouble for a backup.
rhhardin said...You can go to a ballgame but you have to go through a ritual that makes no sense to you. Does that requirement make sense?
8/30/16, 11:11 AM
So what? Who the hell are you, snowflake? There are many, many, many more people for whom that ritual makes perfect sense and is right and fitting. Have some respect for other people's beliefs. If it bothers you that much, don't go to the ballgame. Why should the vast majority of Americans be denied the celebration of their country because of the selfish whims of a few bitter piss-ants?
Meade said...
"What values are we trying to conserve? "
Values of liberalism.
8/30/16, 12:28 PM
New York values...
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Many years later, my father told me that man was a famous professional football player named Bronko Nagurski. I asked my Dad why he was pumping gas in International Falls. My Dad said that he played in the 1920's and 30's when football players didn't make very much money.
He made considerably more money in pro wrestling than he did in pro football.
Meade said...
"Sometimes it's hard to tell."
Is that what they call a humble brag?
No, it's an insult, as you well know.
You seem to think that you're cute 'n' clever but you're just stupid or dishonest. Probably both. I accidentally read your tripe and made the mistake of responding to it. Won't happen again.
"Much simpler to assume that he's just a fool."
Much simpler to assume nearly everyone is just a fool.
"Why bother protecting the First Amendment when other countries don't? Why bother protecting Due Process?"
These constitutional guarantees, always only selectively upheld at the best of times, are now moribund in this country.
"Yes, we have lots to work on, but the ideals of America are solid. The execution has been shaky at times, but to disrespect the ideal itself? He has the right to do so.... but in so doing, he also excommunicates himself, in my opinion, from taking advantage of those rights in the future. Thus, 'Like it or leave' is, in my opinion, the only appropriate response here."
Heh...your stalwart commitment to our "ideal itself" is underwhelming.
"So I leave the Vance to distinguish between me and the truly disgusting "Unknowns" who think that Marx was God and Hillary is just his latest profit (literally, with her)."
Anyone who thinks "Marx was god" (or who simply thinks he had apt critiques of capitalism) does not think Hillary Clinton--a neo-con in Democrat's clothing--is any sort of representative of Marx. Anyone with clear sight can see she's still a Goldwater girl.
"...the Mormons do not have a 'Mormon lives matter' group marching around killing cops."
Black Lives Matter members are not marching around killing cops. And cops are not marching around killing Mormons.
"But does a nation not have the right to muster troops when needed to fight the enemy? Do we get to pick and choose which wars we fight? I have no definitive answer to this question but I do believe that, as citizens, we have inherent duties."
Aside, arguably**, from WWII, what wars in the last 100 or so years have been fought of necessity in defense of our nation against an enemy who threatened our existence, (as opposed to fighting wars to gain geopolitical domination around the globe and to gain access to or control of access to the valuable natural resources found in other sovereign nations)? What soldiers have died for our freedoms in any of these wars we have engaged in, (again, aside--arguably--from WWII)?
**(I say "arguably" because there are those who argue that it was not necessary for us to join in the war.)
@Cook - I think that you are partly wrong about BLM members killing cops. You may be technically right that the ones killing cops aren't the ones marching around. But the number of cops attacked by blacks in black inner city communities has jumped significantly since the BLM movement started. And more cops have died than in previous years as a result of these violent attacks. The tragic thing is that a lot of the poster boys for the BLM movement really needed to be taken off the streets for the protection of those very same lower income inner city Black communities. But, as a result of BLM, and the increased threat to their own lives, the cops have stepped back from aggressive policing in those communities - the very real Ferguson Effect.
But maybe making things more tragic, there is mounting evidence that a lot of the BLM protests are being funded by the left, and in particular, by George Soros.
As to Goldwater Girl, Crooked Hillary, there are more strains of socialism than just communism. What she seems to support is the crony capitalist socialism of fascism, of Mussolini, and, ultimately, the Germans. It isn't really anything like real capitalism, but rather is somewhat of a hybrid, with the biggest companies doing deals with the government, and getting a lot of benefits as a result. The German companies during the war got slave labor, while first Google gets to pick the USPTO director, and the too-big-to-fail Wall Street firms get to pick the Treasury Secretary and their own regulators. tens of thousands of pages of new regulations, and many more planned before Jan, harming the small companies, but not the big ones, that can spread the increased cost of compliance over much higher sales. And, yes, the natural corollary of fascist socialism - Pay to Play. And the masters of that are,of course, the Clintons, who managed to trade access to them and their power for billions of dollars (if you add their personal take, their foundation, library, etc together). It is questionable whether Crooked Hillary was ever really a Goldwater Girl, and probably never one economically.
It isn't really anything like real capitalism, but rather is somewhat of a hybrid, with the biggest companies doing deals with the government, and getting a lot of benefits as a result.
Good call, Bruce! That's 'crony capitalism', of course but most don't see the similarity to the Third Reich's relationship with private German companies [like Krupp and many others].
What makes you think the kind of capitalism you describe as "crony capitalism" is not "real capitalism?" It seems to me to be the ne plus ultra of "real" capitalism.
Capitalists will always make deals with government to their own benefit, using money to buy influence until they essentially own government, for all intents and purposes. Capitalism not strictly held to legal leash will always be an endlessly voracious predator on everything around it.
Our forebears were quite clear about the destructive power of corporations.
going anywhere I want here.... um althouse... I think you were opining on this:
"Pledging allegiance doesn’t make you a good American. It’s an empty gesture, really, like wearing a stupid fucking flag pin. So is the National Anthem, an unsingable, god-awful song that, at the time it was written, celebrated a country where black men and women were treated as property. Hell, it was written by a man, who, in addition to being a terrible songwriter was also a slave-owner and a fierce opponent of abolitionism."
Seeing early signs of Yeah, let's trash that National Anthem while we're at it...
https://extranewsfeed.com/you-do-not-have-to-be-patriotic-and-other-fun-takeaways-from-the-kaepernick-kerfuffle-5d8bd07dc009#.79taeozrr
"So why did the Mormons, in the very act of leaving the United States so they could have peace, rustle up 500 men that had to leave their families on the cold prairie and march off to war, under the flag of the US?"
1) To make money. And it did. (The men were paid in advance for their one year enlistment and were allowed to keep all of their equipment.)
2) To better relations with the US government, especially Polk, which would be very important in eventually dealing with the United States.
3) To help ensure that Utah did not remain part of Mexican territory.
Further, after mustering out, several of them veterans worked at Sutters's Mill. (Though we have no documents saying so, I've long speculated that one of my great-great grandfathers spent some time a Sutter's Mill after being discharged. He wasn't wealthy when leaving Nauvoo and certainly wasn't rich when he got to Utah, but he did have enough to open a store/inn. BTW, he also ended up with three wives, I descend from the second wife, a woman from Denmark.)
There's also pretty good speculation that their travels through southern Arizona exposed members of the Mormon Battalion to dry farming techniques which were later used in Utah.
The Mormon Battalion is one of those significant, unsung historical events.
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