“The emphasis of young radicals on the negative and reactionary side of American tradition is understandable. It is an effort to counteract the brazen hypocrisy and lies with which the ruling class has concealed its own historic role. Its racist oppression of minority peoples, the pilfering of this nation and the plundering of foreign nations, should all be dealt with and exposed. But the ruling class also distorts the history and struggles of the people; it seeks to bury the revolutionary and progressive side of our traditions - the tradition of Black people, the working people, the various ethnic groups, and so forth. It wishes to hide from the people the fact that every gain they have made was because of their own struggle and not because it was given to them. And it is important that the people know about the progressive side of their tradition so that they can reject the caricature of themselves handed to them by their exploiters. To adopt a nihilist position toward one’s own people and past is to become a stranger in one’s own land. It is to surrender the fight to win the people. It is to mistake those whose minds are poisoned by ideological pollution with the class source of that pollution. If everything in the past of our people had been bad, by what strange logic is one to assume that any good can come from it now or in the future? Such a nihilist position leads only to elitism” - Gil Green

“My history… describes the inspiring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism (Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses), of the labour organisers who have led strikes for the rights of working people (Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, César Chávez), of the socialists and others who have protested war and militarism (Eugene V. Debs, Helen Keller, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Cindy Sheehan). My hero is not Theodore Roosevelt, who loved war and congratulated a general after a massacre of Filipino villagers at the turn of the century, but Mark Twain, who denounced the massacre and satirised imperialism. I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality - and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that” - Howard Zinn

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” - Howard Zinn

“In contrast to the superpatriots, there are the real patriots who care enough about their country they want to improve it. Their patriotism has a social content. They know that democracy is not just the ability to hold elections. Democracy must also serve the needs and interests of the demos, the people. Real patriots educate themselves about the real history of their country and are not satisfied with the flag-waving promotional fluff that passes for history. They find different things in our past to be proud of than do superpatriots, such as the struggle for enfranchisement, the abolitionist movement, the peace movement, the elimination of child labour, and the struggle for collective bargaining, the eight-hour day, occupational safety, and racial justice and gender equality” - Michael Parenti

“If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy… But the American way is to criticise and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country” - Michael Parenti

“In the real patriot’s pantheon can be found Tom Paine, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, John Reed, Eugene Victor Debs, Elizabeth Gurly Flynn, Jeanette Rankin, Rosa Parks, Paul Robeson, A.J. Muste, Harry Bridges, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King - and the millions in ranks who championed social justice” - Michael Parenti

“Real patriots advocate a freedom of speech and freedom of ideas in the major media that would include dissident Left views as well as the usual right-wing and conventional opinions we are constantly exposed to. Real patriots want some relief from the evasive, fatuous, mealymouthed, know-it-all empire-boosting pundits and conservative or otherwise insipid commentators. They want major media debates on the basic assumptions behind U.S. foreign policy and free-market globalism. hey want to reclaim the nation’s airwaves, which belong not to the network bosses but to the people of the United States. Some real patriots want a government that will go directly into not-for-profit production. They want a fair chance given to worker-controlled enterprises and public ownership. If private industry cannot provide for the needs of the people, cannot build homes and hospitals enough for all, then the public sector should do so - not by contracting it out to private profiteers but by direct production as during the New Deal when public workers made tents, cots, and shoes, and canned foods for the destitute - a not-for-profit production that created jobs, served human needs, and expanded individual spending power and the tax base, all done without the parasitic private investors making a penny on it. Real patriots want to open up our political system to new political parties, not just two capitalist globalistic empire-building parties, not just one party that Red-baits and liberal-baits and the other that lives in fear of being Red-baited and liberal-baited. We need to do what numerous other democracies have done and institute proportional representation, ready ballot access to dissident parties, convenient voter-registration conditions, public campaign funding for all candidates, and free TV time for all political parties. Real patriots are not afraid of dramatic changes - if they are in a democratic direction. They want the fundamental democratisation of the political process and the economy of this country. As Mark Twain put it more than a century ago, his loyalty was not to his countries institutions and officeholders as such. His loyalty was to its basic principles of democracy, to the understanding that ‘all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient’. In sum, real patriots are not enamoured by the trappings of superpatriotism but are interested in the substance of social justice” - Michael Parenti

“Finally, real patriots are internationalists. They feel a special attachment to their own country but not in some competitive way that pits the United States against other powers. They regard the people of all nations as different members of the same human family. In 1936, individuals from many countries and all walks of life joined together to form the International Brigade, which fought in Spain to protect democracy from the fascist forces of Generalissimo Franco. Charles Nusser, a veteran of that great struggle, relates this incident of international patriotism: ‘Sam Gonshak and I, both Spanish Civil war veterans were in Guernica on June 1, 1985 [to commemorate the Spanish Civil War]… I will never forget the speech of the organiser of the gathering. He referred to Sam and me as ‘Patriots of the World’. There have always been too many patriots in various countries straining to get at the throats of patriots in other countries.’ ‘Patriots of the World’ who happen to live in the United States want to stop destroying others with jet bombers and missiles and US-financed death squads and start healing this nation. This is not just a good and noble ideal, it is a historical necessity. It is the best kind of security. Sooner or later Americans rediscover that they cannot live on flag-waving alone. They begin to drift off into reality, confronted by the economic irrationalities and injustices of a system that provides them with the endless circuses and extravaganzas of superpatriotism, heavy tax burdens, a crushing national debt and military budget, repeated bloodletting in foreign lands, and sad neglect of domestic needs, denying them the bread of prosperity and their birthright as democratic citizens. We need a return to reality. We need to unveil the lies and subterfuges that so advantage the wealthy plutocracy. We need to pursue policies at home and abroad that serve the real needs of humanity. Then we can love our country - and peace and justice too” - Michael Parenti

“I dream that someday the United States will be on the side of the peasants in some civil war. I dream that we will be the ones who will help the poor overthrow the rich, who will talk about land reform and education and health facilities for everyone, and that when the Red Cross or Amnesty International comes to count the bodies and take the testimony of women raped, that our side wont be the heavies” - Michael Parenti

“I’m a patriotic American. I love the American people, but I hate the American government. It is the Fourth Reich. It is the equivalence of Nazi Germany today” - Russell ‘Texas’ Bentley

“‘Down with U.S.A.’ means down with the ruling class. It means death to the American politicians currently in power. It means death to the few people running that country; we have nothing against the American nation” - Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei