http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/08/6patriotism.htm l Five years after 9/11, country remains divided Almost everyone's a patriot, but what does that mean? By Mark Lisheron AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 06, 2006 This is where we are nearly five years after a terrorist act cost nearly 3,000 lives on American soil. The polls say that Americans remain today as patriotic as they were on Sept. 11, 2001, and that, according to one, the United States is the most patriotic country on Earth. Yet we remain more divided in our definition of patriotism than we were at 8:47 a.m. on that day. >From nearly two dozen interviews with citizens, volunteers, military personnel, academics and researchers, one thing is clear: Americans missed the opportunity Sept. 11 presented to claim and hold a common ground on domestic and foreign matters. The war in Iraq showed how fleeting our national unity was after the attacks. The many pundits who predicted that nothing would ever be the same again were almost entirely wrong about America's widening political rift. The war in Iraq, and President Bush's decision to make it the chief battleground in the war on terrorism touched off by the events of Sept. 11, has brought the split into sharp relief. A year ago near Bush's ranch in Crawford, the sides squared off, supporters of Cindy Sheehan, the protesting mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, denouncing Bush and the war, and a flag-waving group denouncing Sheehan and her supporters. No debate, no dialogue, just hostility. For Stavrowsky, Sept. 11 was proof of a "nihilistic, violent Islamofascist movement" that dragged the United States into "a third world war against Islamic extremists dedicated to world domination." The country elected Bush to a second term knowing his commitment to Iraq as the crucial battlefield in the war on terrorism, and Stavrowsky believes "dissent doesn't hurt Bush; it hurts our country." "I personally believe the dissent about the Iraq war is misguided and dangerous both to our troops and our country," said Stavrowsky, a 53-year-old legal assistant in Austin. "I think the best and most effective time to voice protest against a war is at the polling booth, when voting." Santana believes Stavrowsky's views are the danger. Santana, 49, who runs a small Web design business in Austin, calls it "false patriotism," using the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq as excuses to condemn anyone who disagrees. In July, she was among some 40 protesters who won a ruling in U.S. District Court saying their rights of free speech and assembly were violated by Austin police April 27, 2001, outside the Governor's Mansion. Although the protest took place months before Sept. 11, Santana said the same principle of patriotism applies to the protests of the Iraq war today. Police shunted her group to a place away from the front of the mansion, where Bush and Gov. Rick Perry were meeting. District Judge Gisela Triana's ruling in their favor proved the sanctity of dissent, Santana said. "I think that after a short period of very respectful mourning after 9/11, something developed that is very dangerous," Santana said. "You can love this country and love the soldiers fighting this war and disagree with your country and this war." Flying the flag, that most American expression of patriotism, has taken on a political tone, Harvey Kronberg said. A line 70 to 80 feet long formed at the door of Kronberg's store, Austin Flag and Flagpole, an hour before it opened on the day after Sept. 11. Police were needed during rush hour to direct traffic around the line. Two years later, with the country at war, sales slowed, he said, but over the past 18 months they've picked up again. Kronberg, who tracks state politics through his online Quorum Report, has a theory: "I think that part of the discussion included conservatives questioning the patriotism of liberals," Kronberg said. "I think the moderate left is flying the flag after having their patriotism insulted. The last six months or so I think the handling of the war has become a personal thing." There were many who wrote with hope after Sept. 11 that the attacks would be the unfortunate tool to repair this divisiveness. Richard Harwood began the New Patriotism Project through his Institute for Public Innovation, a research group devoted to developing bipartisan political strategies. His New Patriotism was actually based on very old, very American ideas of the responsibility of citizenship. "To engage in devotion to America," Harwood wrote in an Op-Ed essay for July 4, 2002, excerpted by national newspapers, "means that each of us must assume, in the words of Woodrow Wilson, a 'posture of ownership.' We must stand as part of public life and politics, not apart from it as mere bystanders, commentators, or spectators." Americans did not heed Harwood's call, he said. In his book "Hope Unraveled," published late last year, Harwood contends that politicians hijacked the idea of patriotism. Conservatives, including Bush, wielded it as a way to silence dissent, while liberals, including U.S. Sen. John Kerry, Bush's 2004 presidential opponent, defined it as an obligation to resist the silencing. "After 9/11 the door swung open wide, but unfortunately we did not take advantage of the opportunity to reengage," Harwood said. "The master narrative about politics in this country is that everyone's a crook. They don't listen, they'll do anything for a vote, they will not do what they say they will. We didn't engage in any change after 9/11." Comparisons at the time between Sept. 11 and Dec. 7, 1941, turned out to be faulty, said William Galston, a former aide to President Clinton who wrote forcefully that it was up to America's political leaders to show the public the way back to basic civic involvement, such as voting and public service. Without the broad, deep and long sacrifice asked of Americans during the Second World War, patriotism has not been tested in any meaningful way, he said. "We haven't been asked to give up anything, really," Galston said. "The public isn't fighting this war. President Bush told us if we wanted to help, we should go out and shop. That isn't much sacrifice." Statistically, Americans make the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines look clueless for saying in June that she didn't understand the necessity for patriotism. Every major poll taken before the July 4 holiday this year reported that at least nine out of 10 Americans consider themselves patriotic. The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago said the United States was the most patriotic of 34 countries surveyed. Michael Quinn Sullivan said he thinks patriotism in the U.S. is based on ideas, not party affiliation. Sullivan is the vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. In a treatise written after Sept. 11, he called for patriotism to be taught in public school textbooks: "After 1776 a different paradigm emerged in the world, one less about a patch of land or a sovereign, but to principles. Which parts of the Constitution we choose to defend is really a reflection of our values. Freedom of speech, the right to assemble, the right to defend our homes and to bear arms. At the end of the day we're still talking about ideas." Some of these ideas, though, are dangerous to freedom, he said. "The anti-American movement is alive and well only because our system protects their freedom," he wrote. "If they succeed and our children are brainwashed with anti-American, socialistic vitriol, our freedoms will be weakened in ways we cannot imagine." The force of these ideas has, perhaps, best expressed itself after Sept. 11 by the willingness of Americans to volunteer as soldiers and as civilians. Both regular U.S. Army and Army National Guard volunteer numbers dropped in the second year after Sept. 11, but over the past year, recruiting for both branches has been at its highest levels since then. National Guard enlistment benefited from Sept. 11; troops could be seen securing airports, ammunition depots, power plants and dams. Guardsmen have fought in Iraq and done rescue work after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Thousands are heading to the border to help track illegal immigrants. Lt. Col. Ron McLaurin, recruitment commander for the Texas Army National Guard, said recruits are not deterred by the dangerous duty. "Doesn't matter," McLaurin said. "The biggest thing is seeing the Guard answering the call to help their neighbors. We hear it all the time from recruits who say they want a chance to be part of something bigger than themselves. Especially in Texas, if the cause is just, the cause is right, by God, we're going to step right up and do it." Sgt. Erik Felde of Austin, who returned in December from Iraq with the Texas National Guard, said morale remains high among troops in Iraq, consistent with some news reports from the front and at odds with others who say troop morale is sinking. Soldiers stationed in Iraq see war protests on television, Felde said during an interview at Camp Mabry. They see the reports of polls that say Bush's approval ratings are at record lows because of a war they are fighting. Like other Americans, they question policy, he said. And many, like Felde did during his tour in Iraq, re-enlist. "I'm willing to go back to Iraq because I believe in what's going on over there," Felde said. "There is a strong sense of pride, a strong sense of duty, of wanting to see the mission through. Guys don't re-enlist for benefits. You retire for benefits. You re-enlist because of that guy next to you." Lt. James Campbell, Felde's commander in Iraq, said he believes most Americans don't see the war in the black and white way Stavrowsky and Santana do. Public sentiment is not damaging the effort to win the war. Americans, regardless of their political opinions, support the troops, he said. "How are you supposed to respond to complete strangers treating you like heroes?" Campbell asked. "All you can say is, 'It's an honor and a privilege to serve you.' " Nonmilitary volunteering has also remained high, according to Desiree Sayle, director of the USA Freedom Corps. Bush created the Freedom Corps in 2002 to channel an outpouring of volunteerism that followed the terrorist attacks. From working with the elderly, the poor and the imprisoned to cleanup and home building, Americans are more likely than ever to volunteer time and money, Sayle said. It is impossible to know the motivations of each of the 65.4 million Americans (4.8 million of them in Texas) the U.S. Department of Labor says volunteered at least once in 2005. It is also impossible to say why volunteering has steadily increased nationwide since 9/11. But if patriotism is expressed, at least in part, by a willingness to sacrifice, then our love of country has not flagged, Sayle said. "This is extremely personal for American citizens," Sayle said. "I think people want to volunteer when they see a need. We want these people who are beneficiaries of our freedoms to get involved to make their communities a better place to live." Jackie Johnson of Austin has done just that. Johnson, 37, a library administrator, has been a volunteer for 17 years, for the Salvation Army, in nursing homes and with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice before mentoring young men at Turman House, a correctional halfway house in Austin. Sept. 11 didn't change her commitment, but she noticed a change in others. "I don't know if you call it patriotism, but most of the people who started after 9/11 stayed on," Johnson said. "What 9/11 made all of us do is focus on what is real. All of us could have been in that situation. All of us could use help." The strength of volunteerism suggests that common ground exists in the question of how best to love your country, according to Patricia Somers, a professor of higher education for the University of Texas. In an ongoing study of college students' reactions to Sept. 11, Somers and four other researchers found students more eager to do public service. The study also revealed that students were split on whether the country needed to be supported unquestioningly after the attacks or whether dissent was imperative. "Each side views the other as the enemy," Somers said. "We have not yet reached the point where the two sides can step back and have a dialogue. I don't know when that will happen. It's sad." Stavrowsky said she thinks the dialogue might not occur until the U.S. leaves Iraq. Dissent, she said, has made this war more difficult to prosecute and win. The protests do not hurt the president; they hurt the country, she said. But in spite of her suspicion that dissenters are undermining a necessary war, Stavrowsky said she does not question the right of people such as Santana to protest or their love of country. "I honestly believe our country will continue to elect a president who supports the war in Iraq and the global war on terror," Stavrowsky said. If only those like Stavrowsky could see it another way, Santana said. "We are all part of this community, this nation, this world, and I wish everybody could see that," she said. "But it's not going to happen, not in my lifetime." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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