Patriotism and Progress

First off, thanks to Mike Connery for allowing us to guest blog here at Future Majority. My name is Jeff Kramer and I'm part of the national staff at Swing Semester, guest-guest blogging for Anima LaVoy, our executive director.

Forgive me for a moment for asking you to spend three minutes of your life watching Fox News, but bear with me. Watch the following video (if you dare).

(if the embedded video doesn't load, click here)

What happened to patriotism? Where and when did this concept become so marginalized, so bastardized, so meaningless? How have we allowed this to happen? We have officially arrived at the lowest common denominator - blind, hysterical, raving jingoism. Is it truly the idea to say America is the "greatest, best country God has ever given Man on the face of the Earth" loud enough and often enough to make it true? Let's forget the fact that cultural imperialism does not equate a country with greatness and evaluate the message. Is America about "baseball, apple pie, and kicking your f***ing ass"? Do we ignore every fault, every misstep, every mistake?

As progressives, we must not. We must not let patriotism be defined by others who seek to use it as a weapon and as a wedge, to divide and not to unite. We must not let patriotism be reduced to propaganda as seen in the video above. It must be returned to something meaningful, something important and something true. Patriotism must be defined as Jane Addams once did, "Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation."

At Swing Semester, we seek not only to reclaim and redefine patriotism but activism as well. Our mission is to create citizens and true patriots that care about their country in a tangible and real way. We offer the nation’s first political immersion program, providing a bridge from interest to action for college students, recent graduates, and other young people who care deeply about their country and want to be a part of American history. This September, over 250 passionate young people will venture out to eight cities in critical “swing” states for 10 weeks of intensive electoral work. For those taking off school, academic credit will be available. Participants will live with host families, work in field campaigns, and engage in critical thinking to better understand this country and themselves.

We are in this fight for the long term to achieve the literal definition of this website, a future majority of informed, true and progressive citizens. Join us at www.swingsemester.org (launching tomorrow!).

We'll leave you with a quote from Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer's book The True Patriot, one of the texts on our program syllabus and one of our partners:
"I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country — when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."