The Dead End of Patriotism

US Tax Dollars and US Terror

Kieran is in the CWA and a union steward in Minneapolis

I haven't stood for the national anthem in years and I don't stand for the pledge of allegiance at Union meetings either. The "tradition" of standing and pledging allegiance is a way to socially coerce obedience to a government and system that is against our interests.

For those of my friends that think that not standing is somehow disrespectful to veterans or our ancestors or something, please think harder.

The US government has a long history of using young working-class men & (more recently) women as cannon fodder in bloody wars of empire all across the world that benefit no one but the very rich. In fact that's what this country itself was built on. From the US first wars against Native nations right up to Afghanistan & Iraq, the soldiers who are taught & compelled to kill - and kill civilians, women, children - are then tossed away by the State as soon as they are not needed any more.

My biological father was a Marine and was among many used by the US government to, first, invade and overthrow a social-democratic government in the Dominican Republic - a small, poor, Black, Caribbean country that posed no threat to our families or communities here but was somewhere US corporations were used to having complete domination over - and then into the meat grinder of Vietnam, where the US military fought a vicious war against millions of poor peasants and workers who were fighting for independence from Empire - whether French, Japanese, or American.

My father and my uncle (who was also a Marine in Vietnam) both ended up with severe PTSD, periods of incarceration, living on the street, and dying young in the VA. The government didn't give a shit about them. Some Metrodome drunk faking his way through the Star-Spangled Banner didn't help them in any fucking way at all.

Of course this tragedy for my family is multiplied x1000 for so many regular families from Vietnam who were on the receiving end of those "rockets red glare".

The question is where is your allegiance? Is it to the Empire, built with slave labor and exploitation on stolen land? Or is it to regular working-class people all over the world (here too!) who want to be free?”