I am a South Jersey Friend and dad with a love out of outreach and a passion for looking afresh at Friends' testimonies, language and practices. I am the publisher of Quaker Quaker, a community site for Friends, and write about online publicity, organizing and design on my business site at MartinKelley.com.
Howard Zinn: The Scourge of Nationalism
Howard Zinn, one of our favorite progressive historians looks at the tool of nationalism in this month's Progressive:
Is not nationalism--that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder--one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking--cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on--have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
I particularly like his call to "assert our allegiance to the human race." So many of the political leaders who call for war do so by whipping up fear that the enemy has already called for war against us. We justify our armies by pointing to other armies. It's like a big global racket dreamed up by the arms dealers who are often happily selling to both sides. Threats are indeed real, but we need to see beyond our self-justifying propaganda of the war machine.
May 18, 2005 6:47 PM.
View Comments
Categories:
culture of peace
Categories: culture of peace
Social:
Seen Around the Web
Feed Subscription:
You can also sign up to get daily posts delivered by email. Enter email address:
Talkback
Favorite Topics:
Favorite Posts:
Many of these are collected in book form in the
Quaker
Ranter Reader ($12.00 CafePress).
Support this work
Recent Clients
Quaker Blogroll
Reprinting
QuakerRanter by Martin Kelley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at www.quakerranter.org.
