anti-patriotism quotes

[sypher]

I am looking for some quotes from famous people/groups that are anti-patriotism

so far I have one
"patriotism is the virtue of the vicious"
-oscar wylde

[canikickit]

Company Flow, have a song out called Patriotism. The first line is:
"I'm the ugliest version of passed out tax and capitalist, rapid emcee perversion, I'm America!"

I forget.....anyway, probably not the type of thing your after.

Oh! here's another one:
"Patriotism is bullshit, man"
- some guy I met in the pub

[man in the red suit]

sypher's was much bettter, no offense. Not that guys in pubs don't have great quotes or anything.

[Conghaileach]

"Patriotism is the last resort of scoundrels."
Samuel Johnson

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it..."
General Douglas MacArthur, 1957

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
Julius Caesar

"Sensational appeals to patriotic pride and animosity made by victories and defeats...[helps] direct the popular interest to other, nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than the unequal distribution of wealth or of creature comforts. Warlike and patriotic preoccupations fortify the barbarian virtues of subordination and prescriptive authority...Such is the promise held out by a strenuous national policy."
Thorstein Veblen

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
Albert Einstein

"War, religion, race, language, political reformism, patriotism - apart from whatever intrinsic merits they may possess - all serve in the hands of the possessing class as counter-irritants, who function is to avert the catastrophe of social revolution by engendering heat in such parts of the body politic as are farthest removed from the seat of economic enquiry, and consequently of class consciousness on the part of the proletariat."
James Connolly

[Xvall]

"Patriotism is the belief that your country is the best because you were born in it.."

I forget who said that..

[BOZG]

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure --- Thomas Jefferson

[Pinko]

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
Malcolm X

What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy.
Rage Against the Machine

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Barbara Ehrenreich

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare --never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
Erich Fromm

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
George Bernard Shaw

[tyronelad]

we had to study some poem about how patriotism is wrong- tyhe title was latin and it meant "to die for your country is a great and honourable thing" maybe some of you have heard of it- the poet died shortly after writing it (in WW1)

[man in the red suit]

no more band quotes. They are retarded.

[BOZG]

Tyronelad,

The poem is "Dulce et Decorum est" by Wilfred Owen. My favourite poem of all time.

The title above means "It is sweet and good" but in the last lines of the poem are "Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori" which translates to "It is sweet and good to die for your country".

Anything by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon are pretty much anti-war/anti-patriotism.



Dulce et Decorum est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Conghaileach]

'The Charge of the Light Brigade' is a good Tennyson poem, featuring the well-known line

"Their's not to reason why
Their's but to do and die"

(Edited by CiaranB at 3:07 pm on Sep. 1, 2002)

[BOZG]

That poem praises the fact that they died stupidly for their country. I always use Dulce et Decorum est and Charge of the Light Brigade in contrast because they see the patriotism from two different sides.

[Pinko]

Heheh
The charge of the light brigade is nothing more than an example of gross stupidity and ridgid discipline.
It will never be know exactly why what happened happened, but it is thought that it was a result of a message being passed on incorrectly (be it deliberately or accidentally is the big question) due to two officers not liking each other. But ultimately they charged to certain doom rather than confirm a set of orders.
Unquestioning loyalty. Give me a thousand of them and I could take over the UK (I might not be able to hold it, but I could take it).


(Edited by Pinko at 4:51 pm on Sep. 1, 2002)

[Conghaileach]

I've always considered it to be an attack on the "good solider" mentality - the mentality that they have to follow orders even though it means marching to a slaughter, the mentality that led to atrocities such as My Lai.

[mooseboy84]

this is not a patriotism quote, but a very good quote non the less

"i find those who dislike conspiracies the most are the conspirators"
gore vidal

i think thats one of the greatest quotes of all time. i saw him make that statement on a show called uncommon knowledge, a pbs program where pepole sit down and talk about issues. its 2 pepole and the moderator guy. a great show. he was with another guy from the independent institute and were talking about post 9-11 america and americas image. it was a great show.