I think leftist movements in the imperial core will need to embrace at least some national symbols in order to go mainstream. We're 3-4 centuries into this whole national identity thing, the last of which involved wall-to-wall national propaganda and persecution of citizens who opposed the national identity project. Opposing all of that is a(nother) gargantuan task, but there's no material reason for people to buy into it (as you have with opposition to capitalism).
There's also no material reason for leftists to prioritize a conplete rejection of national identity. If everyone in the U.S. government was magically replaced with clones of Lenin, would it make any sense to oppose this new U.S. on the grounds that the flag was the same?
National identities also contain many positive concepts ("liberty and justice for all") that leftists can repurpose. Which is going to be easier: convincing some middle American from first principles that poor people deserve a decent life, too? Or leaning on "everyone says liberty and justice for all, we just take it seriously"?
No, I am already highly critical of even global south nationalism, I am never going to accept it in the imperial core. We are internationalists, there is no inherent difference between a french and english. We don't believe in national borders, folks. Please, we should stand for a new world and new concepts not try to use inherently reactionary images.
I agree, but you can't solve every problem at once. You can't jump from here to utopia. You have to take one step, then another, then another.
At each of these steps it makes sense to ask if we can be doing more, but we're not going to get real far if we if we don't critically support all those intermediate steps.
A comrade once explained Trotskys idea of the transitional program to me, I forgot the details, but I feel like I should inform myself again. It seems like the right concept fro this problem.
nah im disgusted by symbols that represent oppression of millions or billions of people. If you want a movement of confused reactionary chauvinistic white people go ahead but you're alienating all the people who actually matter. I wouldn't even entertain the thought.
case in point: this organization in the tweet above, and the caleb maupin crap show you that people who embrace the "national identity" of the west are weird creeps and losers. Moderately successful movements in the west didn't use the US flag.
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I think leftist movements in the imperial core will need to embrace at least some national symbols in order to go mainstream. We're 3-4 centuries into this whole national identity thing, the last of which involved wall-to-wall national propaganda and persecution of citizens who opposed the national identity project. Opposing all of that is a(nother) gargantuan task, but there's no material reason for people to buy into it (as you have with opposition to capitalism).
There's also no material reason for leftists to prioritize a conplete rejection of national identity. If everyone in the U.S. government was magically replaced with clones of Lenin, would it make any sense to oppose this new U.S. on the grounds that the flag was the same?
National identities also contain many positive concepts ("liberty and justice for all") that leftists can repurpose. Which is going to be easier: convincing some middle American from first principles that poor people deserve a decent life, too? Or leaning on "everyone says liberty and justice for all, we just take it seriously"?
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No, I am already highly critical of even global south nationalism, I am never going to accept it in the imperial core. We are internationalists, there is no inherent difference between a french and english. We don't believe in national borders, folks. Please, we should stand for a new world and new concepts not try to use inherently reactionary images.
I agree, but you can't solve every problem at once. You can't jump from here to utopia. You have to take one step, then another, then another.
At each of these steps it makes sense to ask if we can be doing more, but we're not going to get real far if we if we don't critically support all those intermediate steps.
A comrade once explained Trotskys idea of the transitional program to me, I forgot the details, but I feel like I should inform myself again. It seems like the right concept fro this problem.
deleted by creator
nah im disgusted by symbols that represent oppression of millions or billions of people. If you want a movement of confused reactionary chauvinistic white people go ahead but you're alienating all the people who actually matter. I wouldn't even entertain the thought.
case in point: this organization in the tweet above, and the caleb maupin crap show you that people who embrace the "national identity" of the west are weird creeps and losers. Moderately successful movements in the west didn't use the US flag.