Patriotism

Patriotism. Ever since I saw the topic for Memory Writing in Clarkdale, I have been thinking about the meaning of this.

I was raised in a Liberal-Berkeley home during the McCarthy era.  I was told over and over it was my responsibility to criticize my government. Names like McCarthy, and Nixon and even Bobby Kennedy were tossed around as those “out of control’” Singling out people for being “Communist” limited their free speech. I lost a wonderful social studies teacher to the House UnAmerican Committee.  I had learned so much from him about how our government worked. I got to be a Senator and helped to shepherd my “bill”through our government to allow ice cream in the cafeteria if students paid for it.

“Yes.” Our government was wrong. The threat of stifling so-called Communists was potentially more damaging to our government than anything he filmmakers and artists threatened to do.

I learned it was never “My government right or wrong.” It was, “If the government makes mistakes you are to get out there, vote and fix things.”

Then came Viet Nam. In my world, clearly our government was wrong. We had no business fighting France’s war over a distant land which meant nothing to us. And, my male colleagues faced the draft. Not yet old enough to vote, these men had to find hiding places so they would not get swept up, sent off to kill and be killed in an “illegal” war. I marched and marched. I went down to the train station where new recruits were being put into the trains to take them off to Viet Nam. I screamed to them, cried, prayed, begged them not to leave.

But I did not lose hope in our government completely. I still saw this country as my home. I still felt it was incumbent on me to get out there and change it. The travesty of the 1968 elections. My first time to vote. I dearly loved Bobby Kennedy (the enemy of the 50s). I campaigned for him in the Primary. Sat down to watch his victory party in Los Angeles. Toasts in hand, we watched him walk through the fateful kitchen. Not another shooting!!!! And then Democratic party was in shambles.

The circus of Chicago. I watched that with disgust, from a summer camp. The whole Democratic Convention was co-opted, and my fold would not take this sitting down. By then I knew I was on my way to Nigeria, and the Peace Corps for two years so my boyfriend could escape the draft I could get away for two years and maybe things would die down.

The choice for me and my friends was to vote for Hubert Humphrey who had once been “good”, but was now owned by “them” or to vote for Eldridge Cleaver and the Peace and Freedom Party, throw my vote away, and face the responsibility I helped to elect Tricky Dick. Not until years later have I admitted I did vote, my first vote for president, for Hubert Humphrey.And my major thought as we flew across the night to Nigeria on the night after the election was, “I need to get away.”

While I was gone our country did fall apart. My dear friend had his hand shot off by police, newly returned from fighting in Viet Nam. With shotguns loaded with birdshot they killed one “Hippie”, blinded another, seriously wounded several more, and injured more than 50 peaceful protestors. A year later in Kent State this got the headlines.

In 72, ever the optimist, I worked devilishly for McGovern. I had not lost faith in my country, just in the current government, and I wanted to change it. Two years later Nixon got dragged down by his own hand.
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We are now in a third critical period, within my life, of governmental crisis. We are divided as we were before. but this time it feels different. I believe we are saddled with an entire half of the country that does not respect our government. I see them as being out to better their own lot, without any concern about the broader picture, about this country, and the principals for which it stands. How can my government run those “detention camps”? Am I, as an American citizen, party to the neglect, the abuse piled on people only wanting the freedoms my ancestors got here? How can I, in any way, be a citizen in a  country where I feel my opinion has no stance in how things are decided?

Patriotism in 2019 is hard for me to swallow. You cannot line tanks across the National Mall, a place where I have always sought reconciliation, and say you are celebrating any country. I can claim. A liar for a president? Not in MY country.

I will hold onto my memories of past patriotic celebrations. And I will pray for more in the years to come. This year I chose to sit out the Patriotic.
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