When I entered the term Patriotic into the Google search engine I was met with
14,200,000 patriotic web site results and 140,000 patriotic images. To my surprise,
most of these results were decidedly American. With the World Wide Web being
just that - world wide, why is it then that there is so much content on the
Internet related to American Patriotism?
Even before the horrors of September 11th, Americans were a vocal force on
the Web; promoting national pride in many and varied ways. This broad-based
army of poets, politicians, artists, spiritual leaders, business people and
average citizens has redoubled itself in the time since 911 with tens of thousands
of blogs, forums, webrings, personal, community, church and commercial patriotic
Web sites only a keyboard away.
Upon closer inspection, I see a vast array of individuals, groups and companies
out on the Internet trying their best to express pride in American. The most
notable of the range are the average everyday American putting their thoughts
and images out on the Internet for the world to consume. Just go to www.blogspot.com
or www.journalspace.com and
do a search for "Patriotic" and see what I mean.
I went back to Google.com and dug a little deeper into some of the top Patriotic
sites of today. As of the day that this article was written, the number one
Patriotic site on Google.com, in a testament to free speech, is a Web site that
parody's the Whitehouse site. The www.whitehouse.org
link leads to a page selling t-shirts that make fun of the Bush Whitehouse.
Number two is Patriotic
Music Online, a USAF band site featuring patriotic music. Further down the
results is http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/4601/patriotic.html.
This site provides patriotic graphics for use by others building patriotic Web
sites. It is a site that is unique partly because of how it is hosted. Geocities
is Yahoo's offering for free hosted websites. Geocities and hosts like it offer
the opportunity for anyone from anywhere to build their own webpage. This level
of accessibility to the Web was unheard of only a few years ago. It has helped
the cause of the patriotic Web page enormously.
There are many other examples of patriotic personal statements in the form
of communities or forums: http://p211.ezboard.com/bpatrioticamerica,
http://www.pro-american.com/forums/
and http://www.network54.com/Forum/193764.
For a collection of patriotic sites, I found http://www.usa-patriotism.com/,
http://www.thefreedompage.org/
and http://www.usflag.org/
to be outstanding.
If you would like to make your own patriotic Web site, you can sign-up for
free at one of the many free hosts like http://www.geocities.com,
http://www.tripod.com or
http://www.bravenet.com
to name only a few.
Individuals are not alone on the patriotic World Wide Web. Many businesses
have taken to the Web to offer a wide variety of patriotic American gifts and
products. Everything from patriotic t-shirts to home decorations is available
online today. I have sampled a few online patriotic stores and here are my top
picks: http://www.patriot-mall.com
- This appropriately titled site offers a bit of everything including clothes,
jewelry, decorations and party supplies. James Mindor, the sites owner had this
to say: "We have seen a steady increase in traffic and sales since our
opening ten months ago. The appetite for American patriotic merchandise is strong
and very active online. The response to our site has been fantastic!" Second
was http://www.politicalgifts.com.
This site has a much more political feel than http://www.patriot-mall.com
but it has some very cool merchandise. Last in my top three is http://www.promowebsite.com/usa-items.htm.
They sell more promotional items but they are unmistakably patriotic.
To quote James Mindor from http://www.patriot-mall.com:
"Americans are extremely proud and vocal about patriotism. Some of us come
from oppressive backgrounds. The Internet is the perfect venue for patriotism
and patriotic gestures. It is free of oppression and loves freedom"
To answer my own question: "With the World Wide Web being just that -
world wide, why is it then that there is so much content on the Internet related
to American Patriotism?"
We as Americans have always been vocal in our defence of our liberties and values.
The Internet is an especially fertile place for the planting of personal ideals
and the expressing of personal pride in country. I believe that as a direct
result of our democratic ideals, we have been blessed with the tools, time and
freedom to put our hearts and minds on the Internet for all to read.