In the Name of Patriotism

You know, at first, when I got the e-mail inviting me to be one of the American Patriot Institute blog participants, I wondered if I should be part of it or not. My feelings have changed somewhat and maybe I’m not so much in agreement with the rest of the members anymore. Let me explain.

No, I didn’t go over to the Dark Side and side with chain dick the almighty or all of a sudden think that we should be fighting an illegal, immoral war that we started on false pretenses. No, nothing like that. I’m still one hundred percent against the war and for the unforeseeable future, I’m against all war. So it’s nothing like that.

What has changed in me to a certain extent is the way I actually feel about our government. And not just this current corrupt and dishonest administration. I’m talking about the 500 years of genocide that has been offered to the original inhabitants of this Nation. Most of this at the hands of the government of the United States of America.

The evil they are doing now, in Iraq and other parts of the world is bad enough. But look back at your history. We have had a hand in so many things around the world trying to tell other countries how to live their lives. How their governments should be run. How they should practice their religious beliefs. How to run their markets. How to allow or disallow immigration into their country.

This is the main problem here in America with the Indigenous people and their rights. These people are treated as second class citizens unless they adjust and accept the governments way of doing things. When they don’t, they are cast aside and forgotten, allowed to remain poor with no opportunity for advancement, held on Reservations as their land has been and still is taken from them.

So, I’m having a hard time being patriotic and proud to be what I once felt proud to be, that is, A Warrior, a combat soldier who served his country. God knows I didn’t serve the country that was doing these things to people. Yet I paid no attention as it went on right before my own eyes. I didn’t know what life was on the Reservation. I didn’t know about the land grabs. I didn’t know about the poisons thrown into and onto the land and the water where the Indians live.

I didn’t know so much because I had the luxury and privilege of being a white man. Even the poorest of white people can reinvent themselves when times got bad. If you are white, you could move and become someone else, meet new people, get a job. The Native Indigenous person didn’t have this choice or opportunity. They would always look like an Indian. The Latino or Mexican American the same, the African American too.

My most recent experience was with the Indian Nations, so that is the fight I’m picking right now. It is hard to honor the flag when I know the Eagle Staff was the first flag of this Nation. The Eagle staff was here long before Betsy Ross sewed a flag and we called it our National flag. Yet the Native people honor the Flag right along with their Eagle staffs. And they serve in the military, with honor, more often, per capita, than any other race.

It is confusing, to say the least, this idea of our great country taking language away from people. Sending children to boarding schools and not allowing them to have their own culture. Taking the land away by devious methods of misinterpretation of, or outright disregard for, treaties. To say we are in a country with religious freedom and force people into churches as we judge them as savages and heathens just wreaks of running things with a double standard, the old “forked tongue” idea.

Now, we do this in the modern day with the Islamic religion and any Muslim. The Muslim is put under scrutiny. Like Barrack Obama’s middle name, Hussein. Make the comparison that he is a Muslim and therefore a terrorist. Attack those that don’t share the anglo saxon white man way of praying to a god that kills and hates and steals for greed, their messiah is money.

Nope, I’m just confused. I wasn’t born an Ojibway. I wasn’t born from parents of people who were brought here against their will from Africa. I wasn’t born of a poor farmer whose family was starving, so he came North to pick grapes. None of these. I was born, in Chicago, at a hospital, and on my birth certificate in the space that states Race: Mine says Caucasian.

There were even times years ago when the darker skinned Sicilian Italian was called names by the whites. Dago, Guinea, Wop. We called names back at the Polish, the Irish and the Chinese. Yet we fought in wars to protect them all. Why don’t we stand up and protect those that were here before the occupation by Europeans? We spend billions to rebuild and repatriate the countries we attack. We spent billions in Japan after we bombed the shit out of them. We spent billions in Germany rebuilding. In each case, we allowed them their religion and their human rights, yet we don’t lift a finger for those whose land we took in conquest.

My plans have always been to treat everyone in a way I know to be right. Fair and equal to everyone, no matter how they eat, live and pray. No matter what language they speak, no matter if they know English at all. I’ll continue to pray that I understand all who are different so as to not have hatred or fear from that which I do not understand. I pray I learn and understand as I feel understanding is the key to accepting.

And I’ll continue to fight, ever so patriotically, for the wrongs that this government has done to others. After all, I am a Patriot. I don’t want to leave this land because of the horrible things that have happened at the hand of the American government of democracy. I want to bring it to your attention and to the attention of the people of the world. And with this knowledge, we go forth, one person at a time, and change the landscape. We allow and accept people as people, and pray that we ourselves are accepted as Americans.

I am proud to a part of the American Patriot Institute. I am honored beyond belief to be accepted by my fellow Veterans. And I proudly cry out to all to right the wrongs of the past and live from this day forward without hatred, judgment or bias of another human being, but rather leave that work for The Creator of all things.

Peace to all as ALL life is Sacred.