You Can Choose The Constitution or You Can Choose the Flag and the President

Lloyd Hart

As Americans begin to celebrate the 4th of July it is important in my opinion to discuss what exactly is patriotism. The Bush regime would have us believe in this time of war, the war and terrorism, the never ending war, as it is impossible to win a war on terrorism especially using military might, that we must support the president regardless of the criminal and unethical behavior of many members of the regime. That we must support the president even though the war is undeclared and illegal and not supported by the United Nations Security Council. That this support regardless of all the facts that are playing out before our very eyes to the contrary, that this support is patriotic. That in fact dissent is unpatriotic and immoral.

Well I have some very serious problems with that idea. First of all I am a Canadian living in the U.S. who will never become a citizen of the U.S. for the simple fact that I will be asked at the citizenship ceremony to pledge allegiance to a flag. I will never pledged allegiance to a flag. Let me say it again. I will never pledge allegiance to a flag. Pledging allegiance to flag is the very source of the brainwashing that many Americans suffer from. The knee-jerk reaction when Americans exercising their right to dissent as a form of expression, burn a flag, used to make me wonder, did these knee-jerk reactionaries actually attended the civics class in their school when they were children. It hit me when I began to raise my own children in American schools that the kids had to pledge allegiance to the flag every morning before classes and that there was a picture of the President of the United States in every classroom. This is when I realized that a systematic brainwashing process was going on. It was the flag and the picture of the President that mattered not voting and the Constitution of the United States. How would one be able to raise an army if the American public focused on the Constitution. If the American public focused on the Constitution majorities of Americans would soon realize the drafting the youth into conquest economic adventures overseas of the military type was an unconstitutional use of the citizenry. If the American public focused on the Constitution slavery would have ended July 4th. 1776. If the American public focused on the Constitution the Native American would have been embraced as our brother and sister instead of being systematically genocided from a land. If the American public focused on the Constitution Jim Crow laws would have never gotten out of committee alone to the floor to be voted upon in the legislatures of the South. If the American public focused on the Constitution women would have gotten the vote on July 4th. 1776. The list goes on and on.

So I guess my point is, a nation especially a democratic one, or at least a nation that claims to be democratic should be careful what it makes as the symbols of importantance. Because the president and the flag are more important to Americans than the Constitution, the rule of law that governs the presidency is only applied when the president receives a hummer from an intern and not when the president fails to react to unprecedented intelligence concerning mass hijackings that led to the attacks on September 11, 2001. Because the President and the flag are more important to Americans than the Constitution its no wonder the Patriot Act got past. Because the president and flag are more important to Americans than the Constitution six men are about to be tried by military tribunal after illegally being removed from the battlefield and being named enemy combatants instead of prisoners of war violating the Geneva Convention. Because the flag and the president are more important to the American people than the Constitution it is a simple task for Americans to follow the genocidal maniac in the White House into battle murdering Iraqi men, women and children at will Because the President and the flag are more important to Americans than the Constitution this 4th of July is not a celebration of the American idea as embodied in the Constitution but rather a flag waving contest who's winner will be chosen by the president to sit closer to the master's table to reap the benefits of blind loyalty and unquestioning patriotism to the fascism and treason that has enveloped the entire discourse of what little democracy America once had.

Today I found the a head of the Tomahawk in my garden and I thought of the Wompanoag people that made it and then I thought of the arrival of my father's people in 1620. I will pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States but I will never salute the flag nor the President.