In grade school they hit us with Nationalism, and they hit us hard. We pledged allegiance to the flag, and then we marched in place to “You’re a grand old flag/You’re a high-flying flag/And forever in peace may you wave/You’re the emblem of/The land I love/The home of the free and the brave…” The song later boasted “where there’s never a boast or a brag…”

Miss Heath, the pouter-pigeon of a Chorus teacher, wasn’t done with us yet. Here’s one she played so many times I still remember it 50 years later, though I’ve never heard it since:

This is my country,
Land of my birth;
This is my country,
Grandest on Earth.
I pledge thee my allegiance,
America the Bold,
For this is my country
To have and to hoooooooold!

So what’s wrong with a little patriotic zeal? Well, it perpetuates Us as opposed to Them. And, folks, we’re all of us on Earth in the same leaky boat right now. We have much to do, we world citizens, or, say most climate scientists of repute, things are going to get tipping-point uninhabitable before this century’s end.

My modest proposal, implied via my latest journal page, is that we change focus.

Here are the words to the acrostic:

Notorious illusions make us fear
And nictitate our vision–make unsclera
The blinding process yields an idiot
Invading Homeland’s soul & presidio
Oppression strikes peones y patrón
Nulls personality with harsh persona
And M I C R O —L O C A L I Z E S commonweal
Let’s focus on Cassatt & Ming & Schiele