A Hint of Patriotism

Sometimes a gut reaction is a good barometer of the truth. The Olympics in Communist China and Russia’s invasion of its southern neighbor, Georgia, stir a lot of memories. The world has seen this prelude before and witnessed the clash of ideologies.

The Cold War was defined by scholars as a Protracted Conflict. The collapse of the Soviet Union, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, allowed the world to take a deep breath and relax a little.

A period of jubilant optimism refreshed the West as countries were freed from Soviet domination and the peril of war. Now it seems that what appeared to be a new epoch of peace was little more than a time out between rounds.

As with Russia’s Georgia intentions, only the self-delusional believe the Olympics are a neutral competition among fair minded competitors. The competition reflects the emerging reality that it is again us against them. You can sense a lurking hostility in the coverage of the Olympics.

Listen to the anchors on the evening broadcasts and the reviews of each day’s events on the cable networks. The anchors and commentators can’t hide their gut reaction to every US win. Like the flag raisers on Iwo Jima, the US athletes are portrayed as something more significant than the sum of their individual heroics and triumphs.

The teams are again proxies. This is seen in the obvious distinction which differentiates the media’s near universal response to the victories of US allies, and those they have commonly labeled as US maligned.

Try as it may to sound neutral, the media can’t conceal its patriotism. That we are at war with evil is seeping out between the lips of its anchors, editors and commentators.

The disappointment the media reflects when America loses to western countries, such as Canada and Australia, is offered with praise for the victors. You hear a graceful bow to the opponents’ accomplishments in the news recaps. The disappointment caused by these US losses is healed by the feeling that at least a friend won.

The victories of the Chinese are enveloped in descriptions that reek of disdain. Reminiscent of the Soviet empire, their athletes are described as obedient, mindless cyborgs, bred and groomed on government owned farms. Not much has changed since only the name tags on the East German participants identified their sex.

The joy of every US success the media describes is ripe with the delight it takes in our adversaries’ failures. The message is not deliberate; it just seeps out between the cracks.

The Olympics have not cast a shadow on our international relations. Rather, the Olympics have shed light on the US media. They still have a grain of patriotism despite pretending we are the world’s enemy and that our wounds are self inflicted.

Of course, the media can’t officially admit we are at war with innately evil countries and expect its candidate, Senator Obama, to win. It took the Olympic Games to identify their motivation, dishonesty and the last shreds of their patriotism.