Howard Zinn, one of our favorite pro­gres­sive his­to­ri­ans looks at the tool of nation­al­ism in this mon­th’s _Progressive_:
bq. Is not nation­al­ism – that devo­tion to a flag, an anthem, a bound­ary so fierce it engen­ders mass mur­der – one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with reli­gious hatred? These ways of think­ing – cul­ti­vat­ed, nur­tured, indoc­tri­nat­ed from child­hood on – have been use­ful to those in pow­er, and dead­ly for those out of power.
I par­tic­u­lar­ly like his call to “assert our alle­giance to the human race.” So many of the polit­i­cal lead­ers who call for war do so by whip­ping up fear that the ene­my has already called for war against us. We jus­ti­fy our armies by point­ing to oth­er armies. It’s like a big glob­al rack­et dreamed up by the arms deal­ers who are often hap­pi­ly sell­ing to both sides. Threats are indeed real, but we need to see beyond our self-justifying pro­pa­gan­da of the war machine.