"Historian Howard Zinn, writing recently in The Progressive, said that this past
Independence Day, Americans
'...would have done well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.' His column was an argument against the basic idea that we should consider
ourselves Americans, and instead advocated an 'allegiance to the human race,' as
if the two were somehow incompatible."
I don't think that nations are inherently bad, any more than religions are inherently bad. While it is true that many religions have been used for the abuse of power, that doesn't make it wrong. Religion has served as a form of community that has given people strength and courage and helped them to over come great difficulties. The same thing could be said about nations, I think that there have been actions that have been taken that have helped all of humynkind, but were done out of patriotism. The easiest example is the moon landing. People thrive on unity with a group that they can understand, we have formed these groups from the beginning of time, and they do not mean we cannot act as humyns while acting as Americans.
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