| Ka-pi96 said: Why are Americans so obsessed with their flag? Who gives a shit if people want to kneel down, or piss on it, or burn it or whatever else. It's just a piece of cloth with some colours on. |
I think it's kind of funny to see such a huge discussion about something so trivial. I do believe that the patriotism we see in the US is just a cultural imposition to make the American people more easy to manipulate.
Just think about the Iraq wars. A lot of mothers of deceased soldiers are proud of what their sons did. But what exactly they did? For what they died for? Saddam, while a blooody dictator, wasn't a threat to the US. Actually, removing him allowed ISIS to fill the void so we could say that Americans actually created a threat by themselves.
The reality is that the Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are important US allies. And they used their influence to make the US government remove their political enemies from power (Assad is the last). So all these soldiers died only to give more money and power to sheiks and monarchs, while US representatives filled their pocket with their money and the country as a whole got a somewhat better geopolitical influence in the region.
For me, the American patriotism is fabricated through the education system and media, in order to keep the people obedient and willing to die (or tolerate seeing other Americans die) in wars that are not meant to bring benefits to the people.
It's nice to love your country, but this feeling can't be blind. And this addoration of a piece of colored fabric is part of this massive brainwash. I understand that people actually don't love the flag itself, but the concept of the nation behind the symbol. But that's a dangerous thing because the real nation may be different from the concept they sell to their own people. The latter is why I agree with the manifestations. If the the concept behind the flag is being disrespected due to social and racial segregation, it loses its value. I'm not saying that what the NFL guys are doing is incredible, but it should at least make people think a bit about the discrepance between what the flag represents and the reality. Anyway, most reactions have being knee-jerk at best.
