{"id":499,"date":"2013-10-16T09:13:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T14:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/?p=499"},"modified":"2013-10-16T09:13:57","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T14:13:57","slug":"patriotism-abandoned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriotism Abandoned"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>When our founding fathers crafted the government of the United States, they no doubt had the wisdom of women who reminded them, behind the scenes, how life really worked. Together, those whose names we know and those we do not anticipated a remarkable number of contingencies.<\/p>\n<p>What they never could have anticipated was a time when those who were elected would abandon their patriotism and love of country in favor of a craven partisan desire to be re-elected. That kind of attitude probably has been on display in Washington from the beginning, but only now has it crippled the country in such extraordinary ways.<\/p>\n<p>The practice of gerrymandering hyper-partisan districts has been practiced by both parties. One could assume the Republicans have been better at it, though, because, despite the fact that a million more Americans voted for the other parties, their carefully carved districts allowed them to retain the majority in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>The result of that is a cadre of representatives who clearly do not think they have any obligation to represent the country but only their artificially contrived districts. Compromise and bipartisan governance are not possible in such a world \u2026 and neither is democracy. When love of power replaces love of country true patriotism is dead, and the country our fore-parents designed cannot survive.<\/p>\n<p>This reality hasn\u2019t infected only Washington. We live in a world in which greed has motivated corporate leaders to risk the welfare of humanity for profit. They fund pseudo-science to undermine the reality of global warming and then fund a Faux News network to spread their corporate propaganda. It shouldn\u2019t work, except many Americans\u2019 401ks are tied to that excessive corporate profit. So we become complicit.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus said, \u201cUnless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it abides alone.\u201d He might have said that a people and a country who care only about themselves and this moment will die.<\/p>\n<p>Blessings,<\/p>\n<p>Rev. Michael Piazza<br>\nCo-Executive Director<br>\nThe Center for Progressive Renewal<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When our founding fathers crafted the government of the United States, they no doubt had the wisdom of women who reminded them, behind the scenes, how life really worked. Together, those whose names we know and those we do not anticipated a remarkable number of contingencies. What they never could have anticipated was a time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1064,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Patriotism Abandoned<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When our founding fathers crafted the government of the United States, they no doubt had the wisdom of women who reminded them, behind the scenes, how\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Patriotism Abandoned\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When our founding fathers crafted the government of the United States, they no doubt had the wisdom of women who reminded them, behind the scenes, how\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Renewal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-16T14:13:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/191\/2012\/05\/PR.Michael-Piazza.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"527\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cameron Trimble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cameron Trimble\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/\",\"name\":\"Patriotism Abandoned\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-10-16T14:13:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-10-16T14:13:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/#\/schema\/person\/1f85a162b209ae46281f65ab21d1bcd8\"},\"description\":\"When our founding fathers crafted the government of the United States, they no doubt had the wisdom of women who reminded them, behind the scenes, how\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/2013\/10\/patriotism-abandoned\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Patriotism Abandoned\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/\",\"name\":\"Progressive Renewal\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/#\/schema\/person\/1f85a162b209ae46281f65ab21d1bcd8\",\"name\":\"Cameron Trimble\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/progressiverenewal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6988e2a11c53b79eb0640227db484b22?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6988e2a11c53b79eb0640227db484b22?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Cameron Trimble\"},\"description\":\"Rev. Cameron Trimble is the Executive Director of the Center for Progressive Renewal. She most recently served as an advisor to the Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Team of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ and as Associate Conference Minister of Church Development in the Southeast Conference of the UCC. She works with almost every new church in the United Church of Christ and many new churches in other mainline denominations. She is the co-author of the book, Liberating Hope: Daring to Renew the Mainline Church. 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