The Tepid Echoes of Patriotism

Hugh Hefner is selling an image with Playboy Magazine. Oprah Winfrey is selling an image with her media conglomerate. Only the times are capable of telling, like with real art, if that image currently is palatable. Reality has the amazing ability to weed out the bullshit. President Bush quit playing golf during the Iraq war. Skateboarding died a quick death the beginning of the Viet Nam War. The pet rock, the chia pet, and the hula hoop all took dives at appropriate times. What is the most real image anyone can fathom today? It is not difficult, and it also is not pleasant. Anyone living in close proximity to a military base, especially on Memorial Day weekend, can’t help but be effected by their own mortality. The sheer determination and patriotism of returning Iraq veterans is commendable. They, with their military code, are sworn to the service of their Commander-in-Chief. On this Memorial Day weekend the echoes of patriotism were weak. The Republican spin machine attempted to use it in their favor, but Senator John McCain’s meeting with President Bush thwarted that. If anyone could have played the patriotism card well, it would have been an ex-Naval aviator and prisoner of war. Bush is an ex-pilot too, but in the Air National Guard. He didn’t see much action in ‘Nam. The Republicans, with a well-calculated blow to Barack Obama, exposed how much we don’t know about him and his past. Does such a diverse upbringing equate to the rigid standards of patriotism we normally ascribe to the presidency? In today’s time the answer is yes, because like Playboy and Oprah have and are becoming anachronisms, so is patriotism in America. Like our current government, we don’t have much to remember that is positive. It might be the test of patriotism is the true breaking point of the Baby Boomer generation. Generation X did have ramifications of Desert Storm, but watching a war on TV is not like taking shrapnel at Normandy. What does the current generation have to be patriotic about?