Jingoism

Soviet reports today on the British victory in the Falkland Islands said a “new flare-up of jingoism” in Britain obscured the fact that the problem was far from solved.

“When you see several dots on a page you begin to get a line of trajectory. These things mean something,” he said of the repeated displays of jingoism. “And I think what they mean is that China is back, it is powerful and it is not to be trifled with.”

Americans are now too overstimulated and spoiled by choices to be properly manipulated by the old rallies that used to boil nationalistic fervor—billowing flags, unctuous marching band music, and a white man in a dark suit speaking in comforting Judeo-Christian jingoisms.

At a time when the leaders of the “free” world can run systems in an authoritarian manner, replete with their jingoisms and subtexts of internal colonialism, it is rather urgent that we demystify democratism, […]