On Patriotism and Tax Burdens

I have a question for the fuckweasels who sneer about Real Americans™, and call liberals and progressives "unpatriotic" and "anti-American" for failing to sufficiently genuflect before the golden calf of American Exceptionalism:

In a time where gigantic multinational corporations like GE and Bank of America pull in billions of dollars of profit and pay not one motherfucking red cent in taxes - indeed, they receive tax benefit! $3.2 BILLION for GE, and $1 billion for BofA - while funding for social services is being drastically slashed for "lack of funds" in the federal government, why the fucking fuck should I be patriotic?

I'm dead fucking serious.  What loyalty should I have for a country that slaps an unemployed woman - a close friend of mine who's been working temp jobs on and off when they're available while looking for steady work and scraping by on unemployment for over a year now - with an additional $14,000 in taxes, while letting multi-billion-dollar corporations practically draw a fucking salary from the taxpayers?  What love should I have for a country the vast majority of whose elected officials are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Koch Brothers, and who are thus working hard to pass laws that will further benefit corporations and the top 1% and the expense of everyone fucking else? 

I'm so fucking over this patriotism bullshit.  Boehner and the GOP have made it clear they hate me, as a woman and as a pregnancy-capable person.  The Religious Reich has made it clear that they hate me, as a woman, a pregnancy-capable person, and a queer person.  My so-called "fierce advocate", our so-called "feminist" president who I worked to help elect and voted for with great joy and enthusiasm, can't be arsed to speak so much as a token word in my defense, when he's not outright undercutting efforts to combat the aforementioned hatred.  "My" party, the Dems, have proven themselves utterly inept even with a near-supermajority in BOTH FUCKING HOUSES of Congress - see: the health insurance "reform" fiasco.  This country has a disgusting history of oppression, genocide, imperialism and colonialism, all of which goes mostly-unacknowledged in public schools because anytime someone tries to get accurate - read: less than glowingly positive - American history taught, conservatives & the privileged rush in screaming about reverse discrimination and "indoctrinating" children to hate America.  The entire tax system is basically set up to allow the rich as many loopholes as possible, while squeezing the poor of what little they have.  Republicans held the government goddamn well hostage in order to extend the Bush tax cuts - AND OBAMA COMPLETELY FUCKING FAILED TO STAND UP TO THEM ON IT - so that the superrich could keep even MORE of their obscene gobs of money, while the rest of the country is struggling through a full-on Depression. 

Conservatives like to talk about the USA like we're God's gift to the planet.  Being insufficiently patriotic and proud of our country is a kiss of death to a political campaign - remember the furor over Michelle Obama's infamous quote, "This is the first time I've been really proud of my country" or whatever the fuck it was she actually said?  But really, why are we supposed to feel this way?  Because of our conceit that we're the ones who came up with this whole freedom-and-democracy concept?  We didn't, by the way; we got it from the Greeks.  That's the only possible explanation I can come up with.  And it's not even accurate!  Oh!  Maybe it's our gigantic military cock we like to swing around all over the fucking place?  I think I'll go with that one.  Sadly, while it's vaguely impressive in sheer numbers, it's impressive in the way that a guy who has a gigantic truck with all kinds of bells and whistles he doesn't need is "impressive" - the truck makes you go "Whoa...I wonder what he's compensating for?"

Face it, fellow Americans: our country is not all that special, unless you count a spectacular degree of insularity and insufferable self-righteousness as "special".  We've got potential, sure, but we're squandering it, over and over, pissing it away in our headlong rush into the most tightly concentrated oligarchy possible. 

I'm staying, for the time being - not least because I can't afford to move, much less the costs of an international move - and while I stay, I will do everything I can to make this country - and the world - a less fucked-up place.  But I am beyond done with this whole "patriotism" shit.  You want my loyalty back, USA?  Force the corporations to pony up their fair share of dough to take care of this country they so happily exploit, so some of the tax burden can come off the middle and lower class.  It makes no sense to ask the struggling among us to carry the heaviest load, assholes.  And if the smartasses coasting on everyone else's work would step up, they wouldn't have to.  Get that sorted out, go back from being a government of, by, and for the corporations into a government of, by, and for the people...and we'll talk.

This rant brought to you by tax season and ridiculously unfair tax burdens.