from the pen of icarus blake

Daily writing prompt

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

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I laughed when I saw this prompt.  A despair-anguish kind of laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

I’m American.  American born, American raised, in the American Wild West.  For a while, I’d dress in my red-white-and-blues for the fourth of July and cover my ears to watch the fireworks.  Indulge in a burger or hotdog from the barbecue.  Those days are long past.

There is little to love about America as a construct.  When I see posters depicting our founding fathers, listing our presidents, all I see now are war crimes.  George Washington enslaved 317 people, only releasing them when he died.  Andrew Jackson carried out a campaign of extermination against native populations and established modes of genocide that persist to this day on reservations.  Harry Truman bombed civilian population centers in Japan to end a war that was already as good as over, introducing atomic weapons to the world and kicking off the cold war.  The damage Ronald Regan did with Reganomics is directly responsible for the economic decline of the country and dissolution of the middle class.  Today, we have no presidential option that does not actively condone and participate in genocide.

These are our star-spangled heroes.  These are (a small selection of) the men that built this country.  Atrocities abound in their resumes — more, I’m sure, in those I’ve yet to investigate.  America is a country built on genocide, exploitation, and war.

With these bloody stars headlining the country, I can’t hate it.  Every time I look at the mountains from my apartment balcony, spot a deer bounding through the woods on my weekend hikes, retreat deep into the national parks in the summer for a few days out of cell-service range, I’m reminded that I can’t really get this anywhere else.  The moors of England can’t compare to the wide open prairies, I can’t stand on the rim of a red canyon in Lebanon and watch a flash flood rush through miles and miles of painted desert.  There is no stopping a thousand miles from nowhere for the best cherry pie I’ve ever had in France.