Posted on 09/26/2014 5:16:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
"God bless you, and God bless the Homeland."
It won't surprise me if that's how a future President closes one of his "State of the Union " addresses.
The un-American term "the homeland" is taking over America.
Everywhere I turn it's being used to replace the words "country" or "nation" or "the United States."
All the media have accepted the phrase. It's all over CNN, FOX, MSNBC. I hear it on NPR.
It's in the news pages and headlines of the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post and the Weekly Standard.
"The homeland" is a bipartisan insult to America.
It's being used by liberals, conservatives, politicians, pundits, the White House, government mouthpieces and Middle East military experts who otherwise wouldn't agree on what direction the sun sets.
President Obama and Republican hawk Peter King both throw around "the homeland."
Democrat Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado recently said he didn't think ISIS was "an immediate threat to the homeland."
Dan Senor, a Bush II neocon, dropped the H-word on "Morning Joe" Wednesday morning during his pitch for putting boots on the ground to defeat ISIS.
How did defending against additional terrorist attacks after 9/11 change from defending "the United States of America" to defending "the homeland"?
"The Homeland" - it'll soon be capitalized - sounds like one of those phony words George Orwell invented for his novel "1984."
The Merriam Webster dictionary gives away its foreign origins, defining it as:
"Homeland: 1. native land: FATHERLAND. 2. a state or area set aside to be a state for a people of a particular national, cultural, or racial origin."
The great wordsmith Peggy Noonan tried to warn us off using "homeland" back in 2002.
In her Wall Street Journal column urging the Bush administration to come up with a different name for the Department of Homeland Security, she nailed it:
"'Homeland' isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring -- Ve must help ze Fuehrer protect ze Homeland! -- and Republicans must always be on guard against sounding Teutonic."
That must explain why every time I hear the words "the homeland" I have the strange urge to give a Hitler salute.
"Homeland" - as well as its Soviet cousin, "The Motherland" -- is not a word fit for use by truly patriotic Americans.
As Noonan wrote, "the essence of American patriotism is a felt and spoken love for and fidelity to the ideas and ideals our country represents and was invented to advance -- freedom, equality, pluralism. 'We hold these truths...'
"The word 'homeland' suggests another kind of patriotism -- a vaguely European sort. 'We have the best Alps, the most elegant language; we make the best cheese, had the bravest generals.' "
Noonan knew immediately the USA was headed down the wrong road with the word "homeland."
So did a few others, including the lefty Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.
In 2002 he said the phrase "the homeland" had "a deep blood and soil tinge to it which is distinctly Germanic, more than a touch un-American, and a little creepy."
"The homeland" has always had a totalitarian ring. It's why FDR didn't use it during World War II. And why no president used it during the Cold War.
It's why in the 1984 election my father's political advisers didn't build an ad campaign around "It's morning again in the Homeland."
Excuse me, we're Americans, not Homelanders. This is our country, not our "homeland." In the United States of America we love our freedoms more than our mountains and spacious skies. But if we don't watch out, one of these days the opening lyrics of "America" are going to be changed to "My Homeland, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of Germany, of thee I sing.
I do not like the term, it reminds mo of Hitler’s Fatherland
This article is such perfect timing. I heard the President use the term “homeland” the other day and the first thought that popped into my head was since when did we become Germany?
‘Homeland’... the continuing effort to trivialize American citizenship and the concept of ‘AMERICAN’.
Make no mistake, there is NOT NOW and there NEVER WAS anything trivial or GENERIC about America.
Why ELSE would SO many routinely risk life and limb trying to GET HERE, no matter what?
Liberals YET AGAIN demanding and getting it BOTH ways.
‘America ain’t no great shakes but we MUST permit all the rabble of the world to come here and benefit from our security and abundance.’ Really??
It’s no big deal. obama just wants God to bless Kenya where he’s from.
The rest of us would rather God Bless America!!
God bless America, my home, sweet home
God bless America, my home, sweet HOME.
It’s never really bothered me.
I see “home” as distinctly different from ‘father’ or ‘mother’
Taking a cue from Orwell, anytime I notice a new word or expression replacing an old, commonly-used one, I always ask Why?
For instance, “the world” or “the earth” replaced by “the planet”.
Or “tell” or “announce” replaced by “share”.
Or (a laughable one) “giving/gave” replaced by “gifting/gifted” - the emphasis being on the thing given rather than the person giving. (Might just as well say something like, “This morning I pantsed and shoed myself before belting and tieing myself, then I carred/trucked myself to work.”)
Then there are the fuzzy, ambiguous, “use-your-imagination” words so often used lately in place of those that precisely describe reality. For instance: presence, bid, move, message, narrative, identify, engage, resonate, etc.
Orwell was onto something.
That was my first thought when George Bush announced the creation of “Homeland Security”;I still despise the term.
It reminds me of Moo admitting Kenya was the usurper’s homeland though she said, “home country.”
I agree. This “Homeland” stuff is nonsense. I much prefer the term Aryan Reichland.
Considering the political climate these days, don’t be surprised to hear “Die Vaterland” soon.
When I grew up in Germany, we used to ask strangers (wo ist deine Heimat. Meaning where is your home town. Never from what country are you
I hope you realize that Homeland security was created out of necessity after the terrorist attack on 9/11/2001
I despise that word. I’d love to know who decided on the Dept of Homeland Security. It sounds like something the Nazi’s would say.
well, “the Fatherland” is what fascists prefer and “the Motherland” is what the communists prefer, so “Homeland” is hokay by me
gender neutrality is better than the LGBQT land
LOL!
Indeed. When Bush first started using it, I thought it was a wonderfully teutonic turn of phrase. By design.
I realize no such thing.
I realize the agencies already existing didn’t do their jobs.That when warned of the hijackers’ strange attitude during their aviation lessons,the higher ranking officials dismissed the concerns of the people in the field. I realize the hijackers were nearly all Saudis and our government was afraid to offend the Saudis.I realize the only plane allowed to leave the U.S. right after the attack was a Saudi one.I realize a lot of agency managers should have been dismissed but were not. I realize the only plane that didn’t cause casualties on the ground was the one in which the passengers didn’t act like meek sheep and comply with the hijackers as instructed by government policy.
I realize the Homeland Security meme has been used to further infringe on peaceable American citizens’ rights in ways undreamed of by our forebears when they fought the Nazi and Japanese.
This should be treated in such a way to put the term “Homeland” in context, and it works in several ways.
First of all, when commenting in any forum, replace the word “Homeland” with “Fatherland”.
Department of Fatherland Security.
Importantly, traditional uses of “Homeland” often held a racial aspect. “Fatherland” has a paternalistic, not maternalistic or feminist association.
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