Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the jingoism

[Critters2]

and nationalism at Memorial Day events? I went to one, and was just sick at the end. No question as to the ethics of war in general or the current war in particular. No suggestion that we should be working for a time when no one dies in wars again. Just red, white and blue mania. It didn't even feel sad, which is how a memorial should feel. Just flag-waving fervor.

I found the whole thing unsatisfying, disappointing. Even disrespectful of those who had died, in some odd way. Can't even explain that, but it just didn't seem to take their deaths seriously.

Which, in turn, did make me sad.

Critters,
pondering

[magellan]

1. Yes

But then I try to remember the Memorial Day parades when I was kid and would watch my dad and uncle (Korea and Vietnam, respectively) marching by in their Marine uniforms. Was it really different then? I don't think so. I think my bad reaction now is because of Bush** and the Republican abuse of patriotism. It's really spoiled things for me...I just don't trust flag wavers anymore.

[gravity]

8. That's a good point

Bush and his supporters hijacked the meaning of patriotism and the flag, equating it with their own agenda.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

2. This was the first year I have not gone to the

local Memorial Day Events in about 13 years. It's just not the same anymore. I have hung my flags on all appropriate days for the past 20 years, but I have not under the * Rule. My Flags no longer mean the same to me. I've not even got my summer red, white and blue buntings up. I feel * has not only perverted religion, he has done the same to Nationalism. Bastard.

[tularetom]

3. Well a lot of it does seem like a cliche

When you have the local newsbimbo mouthing platitudes like "they died in Iraq to preserve our freedom", it becomes really difficult to take it seriously. NObody fuckin believes that's why they died in Iraq. They died there to make a bunch of old fat rich white guys even richer. They died to validate the world view of a bunch of armchair bound academics. And finally they died to make a sad cowardly little mama's boy feel like a man.

But they can't say that can they? It might appear cynical. So they continue to blather the same shit year after year. Nobody really gives a shit except the families of those killed. But they all feel better about things because they went and waved their flags.

It makes me sad every friggin year. So I just gave up watching it. I hang my flag out every year. My family comes over and we have a cookout. This year it's a little strained because my late sister's grandson is in Iraq. But tomorrow our lives will be back to normal.

I think most amurkins just flat don't care.

[LBJDemocrat]

4. Well

I haven't seen anything displeasing in terms of nationalism. I'd expect any country would be just as nationalistic on a day for fallen soldiers. Maybe if you could point to a specific example, I'd get it. Here in Brooklyn, everything seems decent.

On the other hand, I'm not a fan of some of the lack of solemnity I've seen.

[Critters2]

6. Well, one of the things that bothered me was the clergywoman

who gave the invocation and benediction actually drew a connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. In fact, compared it to why we entered WWII after Pearl Harbor. Me, I would've just asked God to be present for the ceremony in the invocation, and asked for wars to cease in the benediction. BUt then, that's why they'll never ask me to do it.

And the mayor talked about how we're fighting for "liberty, equality, and self-governance". Honestly, self-governance.

It just felt like a cheerleading event, not a memorial.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

10. note: Do not waste time on bots. nt~

[dave_p]

9. Good point

"I'd expect any country would be just as nationalistic on a day for fallen soldiers"

I think that's true. Most have evolved though beyond the particular gung-ho attitude to war that characterizes the US since Reagan. War is hell, as Europe found out, though fewer who experienced its full horror now survive to tell the tale.

[dave_p]

5. I think it was always thus

... but maybe nowadays the pretexts for sacrificing lives grow ever thinner while the disproportionality of the action and the suffering inflicted grows ever wider. But it's sad that those who don't revel in such things become effectively excluded from public participation in honoring the dead. Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near such an event: better to remember the cost (ever more of it nowadays to civilians on the "other" side) in your own way and work to avoid its repetition.

[Critters2]

7. I've probably gone to my last such event

I hope for something that will never be. Why beat one's head against a wall?

[Posteritatis]

11. How's Memorial Day differ from, say, Veterans Day in the US?

We've only got the latter up here as Remembrance Day, and it errs on the side of solemnity to say the absolute very least. Our equivalent to Memorial Day - the holiday in May that unofficially opens summer - is Victoria Day, which at this point is all but officially an excuse to get drunk and do entertainly unsafe things with explosives.

Memorial Day and Veterans Day just sound kind of synonymous to me. Fill a Darned Foreigner in; how do they differ?

[RB TexLa]

12. Memorial Day for those who died in conflict, Veterans Day for all who served

[Posteritatis]

13. Ah! I am become clued. (nt)

[Critters2]

14. Memorial Day began after the Civil War, to remember

the dead of that conflict. Originally, it was to honor the Union war dead. Later it was expanded to honor all war dead. It was often called "Decoration Day", because of this, in my opinion, morbid tradition of decorating the grave sites. In time, people would go to the cemetery, decorate the graves of veterans, and while they were there, decorate the graves of other relatives. So, it has become, to some degree, a more general memorial day. In time, the dead of other wars were included in the events.

Veteran's Day was originally Armistice Day, the day to celebrate the end of WWI. It's a much more low-key event in most communities, partly because of when it falls--not many people want to stand around in cemeteries in November--and partly because it just gets overshadowed by its older, more established cousin, Memorial Day. Veteran's Day does tend to be more about honoring those still living, but really the two days just commemorate the end of two different wars.

If the BFEE keeps getting us into wars, we could have a military-based holiday once a week or so in time.