USA USA
I've seen several posts here complaining, even horrified, by the chanting of USA at the RNC. I wasn't thrilled with it either. I hate pep rally politics. I just can't be part of a group and yell with them. I could see myself at either convention standing quietly with my back against some wall as people chanted USA, O-BA-MA, or Yes We Can. I'd look on mystified at what I perceived to be the antics of those extroverts. I could never be a part of it, not for anyone, no matter how much I admired her.
I'm an introvert, I know I'm different than most. We are a minority among the population. But most of you are not. Most of you who are offended by the chanting of "USA" found the chanting of "Obama" or "yes we can" to be a positive emotion experience, inspiring. So maybe you can explain it to someone who finds all the shouting and chanting mystifying, someone who can't be a part of that group energy no matter who or where its directed at.
Why is chanting "Obama" good and chanting "USA" bad?
I'm an introvert, I know I'm different than most. We are a minority among the population. But most of you are not. Most of you who are offended by the chanting of "USA" found the chanting of "Obama" or "yes we can" to be a positive emotion experience, inspiring. So maybe you can explain it to someone who finds all the shouting and chanting mystifying, someone who can't be a part of that group energy no matter who or where its directed at.
Why is chanting "Obama" good and chanting "USA" bad?
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I just thought it was odd when they seemed to do it in response to a protester being dragged out of the place.
September 5, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I saw many people complaining about the chanting of "USA" before it was chanted while the protester was removed. You're saying that for you it was only a inappropriate that one time?
September 5, 2008 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a relatively new citizen I'm not ashamed to admit that I know a thing or two about chanting in unison: see, I grew up in the Soviet Union, they really did drill us on "unanimity."
I never, ever (having grown up in a dissident family) felt the slightest inclination to join with the rest to chant any of the Party's slogans, until August 1991 when the Party itself was about to be no more. That was the first time when I discovered my own [amazing to myself] ability to unite with the significant proportion of my compatriots, demanding the old system to be gone and the new system to come in.
Not that I had any valid reason to believe that the new system would be so much better (as it turned out not to be, really – as many of our illusions turn out over time). It's just that I discovered then that my deeply-ingrained cynicism was hurting my own dear self and my county and not helping anyone, and it was time to make an effort to change, to let go of it. That was when I realized that what matters is that I – I along with millions of other people – took that idea of a different world and tried to make it true, that I professed my OWN desire for things to change. And it did change – for me and many, many others, for a while.
From what I see, there's absolutely nothing wrong with people's chanting "USA", just like there is nothing wrong with chanting "Obama", or any other slogan we/they can believe in. As long as we really CAN believe in the idea. It's just a matter of being sure that the idea has not become somehow corrupt, as, unfortunately, I think it did in the chanting of "USA" at RNC. "Standing with my back against some wall" is easy. Putting yourself out – wholeheartedly – may not be.
September 5, 2008 2:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have no problem with groups chanting slogans. I just have no desire to join them. I don't see how not joining a group can be viewed as any easier than joining a group. Nor do I see chanting with a crowd as necessary nor any more effective as other ways of taking a stand on principle.
In exactly what way was the chanting of "USA" in your view corrupt?
September 5, 2008 2:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't explain that one, oceankat. I can deal with cheering and applause, but I can't deal with the spontaneous group chants of "USA" or "Yes We Can!" Both creep me out equally.
September 5, 2008 3:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to blatantly promote my own posts, but my "Looking Ahead to 2012" was my (I think funnyish) take on convention behavior in general. And as an indisputable extrovert, I have to say I am no more inclined to chant than you, so it's not that.
There are probably lots of studies on group behavior and lots of theories out there.
To answer your question, chanting the name of your nominee makes sense at a convention, whereas the RNC co-opting "USA USA" speaks to their general attitude that they are America and we are not.
September 5, 2008 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a feeling they were chanting "USA" while McCain stood at the podium to contrast the "Obama" that was chanted when Obama was at the podium. It was set up. As you've seen, McCain is stealing a lot of Obama's motto's--"Change you can believe in", "This was never about me, it's about you"--it's a subtle way to make Obama's supporters out to be groupie's and make McCain's message out to be about Americans. As I see it, McCain doesn't have an original thought in his head, his suddenly realized grassroot goals were stolen from Obama's campaign.
September 5, 2008 7:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the deal (within the political context you've identified, not hockey, or war, or whatever):
"USA" is the chant of denial. It's the chant that owns patriotism, the chant of blind allegiance. When there are no answers, you chant "USA" to make all the bad things go away and feel good. It's a "magical" invocation, the manifestation of a desire to believe the American myth, to will it into being. This is the chant of obedience and submission (especially in the context of the heckler). They were implying s/he (couldn't see) wasn't a patriot. Dissent isn't patriotic. Dissent is drowned out by the evocation of the state-as it is-as the ideal. This is the chant of the status quo. It was phenomenally telling that they began chanting that, actually, rather than just booing or something. They believe they "own" America, they can invoke it and wrap themselves up in it, that their allegiance and submission is the answer.
"Obama" or "Yes we can" is the chant for everyone else who has a different vision of America, the one a little more in sync with its fundamental promise. Dissent is okay. Change is okay. Hell, it's necessary. Here's an agent of change. Here is what we want to invoke: the better world we can imagine, vs. the exaltation of what is.
Chanting is not inherently good or bad. It's what you're chanting for, say like "Death" or "Peace". It's what you hope to invoke, it's making a feeling, an idea, an aspiration something solid (sound waves, etc., the combined force of voices), turning it into energy/matter that you set forth.
So yeah, I was really turned off by the "USA" chanting because of the ignorant, head-in-the-sand, with-us-or-against-us hostility that it represented. It was the orthodoxy shouting down a challenge to its very legitimacy, the core principles and hypocrisy it relies on. It was pretty much the same emotion as in a Nazi rally.
And I don't invoke Nazi analogies lightly.
September 5, 2008 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ran across a good answer to your post elsewhere, mho, and tracked yours down to share it:
Think about why pep rallies are required attendance at many high schools as the football season gets on. The whole sports/school patriotism thing is an exercise in controlling and directing mob energies. (My little hippie freak high school sub-group understood what was up with that and hated it--we wanted in on some of more fun uncontrolled mob action going on on the college campuses.) It is unattractive to any individualist person, i,e., the type that says "I'm not a joiner," because even if well behaved, controlled or for a well-intentioned cause, it still reminds one of the power of the mob.
September 5, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oceankat. I don't do chants either. The differences though, are real. "USA" is about nationalism.... and who OWNS it... and pouring one particular stream of meaning INTO it. The RNC's stream was ALL military, soldiers, 9/11 and death. As they have done for the last 25 years.
Can "Obama" chants also be troubling? To me, yes. (Same as with "Hillary.") I'm not into personality cults - they can also be dangerous. But to take the NATIONAL symbol over, on behalf of a PART-Y, is more than troublesome. I've heard what it's meant, not in some distant past, but in the life we're living today.
For many living outside the US, the seemingly unstoppable rise of this force in American politics (which the Dems have acceded to) produces real inner conflict. All around the world, we have family in the US - it is, after all, a nation of immigrants & proclaims itself a beacon to the world. We were sold the idea that the political principles, the cultural approaches, the economic methods of the US were open to all. But the worst members of this nation which has been doing the selling - many of whom were gathered at the RNC last night - know little of the rest of the world, and care for it not at all.
Right now, I'm in Canada. I have lots of family in the US, the UK, etc. I have family in the Armed Forces, in Afghanistan, today. It may not seem much by American standards, but Canada has lost 100 lives there. At a 10:1 population ratio, that's the equivalent of the US losing 1,000 lives in that one war (it has actually lost ~500 to date.) Why are we there? Well... The argument put out by the US Gov't - both parties - after 9/11, was that it wanted ALLIES in this War, because the War was a "Global" conflict.
Well, Canada bought in. With blood. As did the UK & Spain (including being hit with major terrorist blows for participating.) But what did they hear last night? War war endless war, a global conflict meant to last forever. All wrapped in ONE nation's flag. And worse - claimed by ONE Political Party, the Republicans. Who seem not only not to value allies & their sacrifices anymore.... but not even those of other members of their own nation.
USA USA? Last night... the chant of the heartless.
September 5, 2008 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink