I found this GQ article on my Facebook feed. It's a reporter's account of her experience visiting a so-called 'Patriot Camp.' The really interesting nugget I found in this article, laid among some rather disturbing evidence of indoctrination.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201210/patriot-camp-gq-october-2012?currentPage=1
"After spending a few days in Paxtang, I start to see why some of the people here feel threatened, as though their grip is slipping on a certain way of life, how it's only a matter of time before the chemistry of their town, in all its ineffable Americanness, will be recombinated by the arrival of outsiders, by a globalized economy, by a different set of values. And how fighting to protect all that doesn't seem political to them as much as an act of self-preservation. No one explicitly said anything like this to me. It was just the undercurrent of every prayer, lesson, pledge: We love this. Don't touch it."
I can understand and respect this impulse. But it is utter foolishness and fantasy to think that the America of yesteryear was the land of uber-freedom, uber-piety, uber-American-ness, and stories of picking-up-by-the-bootstraps prosperity--it sure wasn't for a whole lot of people. There are many versions of the American memory which tell a far different story; and it's a disservice to these children to give them a historical understanding that conveniently dodges this fact.
The America I believe in is a place where we live and let live. If you want to live a conservative, pious, Christian, simple small-town life, you're welcome to stake your claim to that American Dream, start digging, and see what you find. But yours is not the only American Dream, yours is not the only American Fortune, and yours is not the only American Memory. Others are entitled to stake claims on their own American Dreams. That dream may be quite different from yours. And in a country blessed with as much prosperity, power, and wealth as ours, it's downright wrong to demonise the very concept of our society collectively helping out those prospectors who start off much further back on the trail. And you are not entitled to an American Fantasy which robs other people, people same as you, their own fair shot at their American Dreams.
It greatly upsets me that many folks in this country seek to intrude on the dreams of others and to hold back the advancement of freedom, equality, and fair opportunity to keep intact their American Dreams of a time long past. Every child and every adult learns the unpleasant lessons that their lives change and the world changes, and that some dreams of yesterday don't survive the introduction of new demands, priorities, and responsibilities. As America has grown, we've made it a priority to make the American Dream a possibility to more and more people; to African Americans, to women, to immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and all racial and ethnic minorities. Today, we're bringing the Dream to more immigrants, to people in poverty, and to people in the LGBTQ community. With our old expansions brought the death of the dream where women and people of colour were deemed second- and third-class citizens, and the dream that industry could function without having to worry about safety, paying decent wages, or letting children go to school.
Let me have a shot at my American Dream. Let your neighbour have a shot at his or hers. Let your countrymen; male, female, gay, straight, black, white, rich and poor, have a shot at theirs. Because one of the things that distinguished America's Golden Days from those of other countries and peoples is that this is the place where people from all around the world and the country could take their decent shot at prosperity. I want our days to stay golden.
