Well, here we go again, rehashing old, tired challenges to the patriotism of America's progressives.
The latest challenge issued by Michael Medved, one of the weaker stars in the constellation of RW doofuses, who seem to get it all wrong.
Medved's challenge below the fold...
Faith and nationalism: Indivisible in America
His reference to Daily Kos (Ghandi was right about the whole ignore, attack, win thing...):
An anonymous activist, who identified herself as Radical Faith, used the Daily Kos to report on the unconfirmed incident and to express her sense of betrayal and fury when a soloist belted out the familiar lyrics -- " 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land/God bless the USA!" -- and the entire congregation rose to its feet.
"At that moment," wrote the activist, "I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. And it was a double whammy -- not only was I offended politically, I was deeply offended spiritually. ... Christians should not cater to one national identity. Deification of the red, white and blue is thoroughly out of place. I remember reading about (the martyred anti-Nazi clergyman) Dietrich Bonhoeffer and how he removed the swastika-adorned banners the National Socialist Party had placed in the sanctuary. He felt displays of nationalism were an affront to God."
...
Defenders of secularism might argue that we will enjoy a brighter, better future by severing the associations between faith and nationalism, but they shouldn't attempt to mischaracterize the past -- or to suggest that they're returning us to an era of absolute church-state separation that never existed.
If they do intend to shape a new, unprecedented sense of American identity stripped of its religious and specifically Christian trappings, they must also get to work in composing a fresh array of dramatically different patriotic songs.
Ugh...
I'd start with Mr. Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land, for starters...
Please add or recommend any ditties, songs, whatnot, to counter Medved's lame assertions that progressives are part of some unwashed "other".