2008-07-01 Obama on pride -- and dissent -- in America

2008-07-01 \Barack Obama/writings\patriotism\dissent\2008 US presidential race\US-Iraq War http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2008/07/01/obama/print.html Obama on pride -- and dissent -- in America &ldquo;Adams' Alien and Sedition Act, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans â€“ all were defended as expressions of patriotism, and those who disagreed with their policies were sometimes labeled as unpatriotic. .. In other words, the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic. Still, what is striking about today's patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s â€“ in arguments that go back forty years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic. ... Most Americans never bought into these simplistic world-views â€“ these caricatures of left and right. Most Americans understood that dissent does not make one unpatriotic, and that there is nothing smart or sophisticated about a cynical disregard for America's traditions and institutions. And yet the anger and turmoil of that period never entirely drained away. All too often our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments â€“ a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.&rdquo;   