Well said, sir!! You’re my newest hero (actually, as a UR '93 grad, you were already on the list!). Keep speaking out!
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Yes. I get it. The very word “patriotism” makes some people cringe (myself included, actually), and not without reason. But what’s the dictionary definition of the word? “Love for one’s country” Love isn’t a bad thing. You can love your friend or neighbor or relative or spouse and it doesn’t mean you have to hate everyone else.
So let’s back up and rethink the word, and ask what we want to accomplish. Unless I’m mistaken we all want America to be a better place, more just, more equal. We can’t go back in time and prevent past injustice or racism or imperialism, we only have right now. If 100 years from now the USA is a lot more just and equal (I hesitate to say “perfectly just and equal” but one can dream) then it won’t be so cringe-worthy to talk about patriotism anymore, right?
If you love your country you want to make it a better place. And it’s all part of a spectrum-- loving your family, loving your community, loving your city, loving your state, loving your country, loving your planet, loving humanity. The usual corny hippy bullshit that still matters even if it sounds corny as hell.
I’ll say it again: acting like conservatives have a monopoly on patriotism only plays into their advantage. They are trying to build this narrative that liberals/radicals hate America. Take that away from them. Tell them you love America.
At the very least when anyone on the left flies the flag it will piss them off.
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Of course there was his autobiography,
“I Aim at the Stars…But Most of the Times I Just Hit London”
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I simply wanted to tell Mr Melvin how much I appreciated his letter to the ‘Orange One’ (yes, I’m one of those who refuse to say his name because it makes me feel sick). Then I started reading all this ‘you said’ no ‘you said’ remarks and the now familiar eye roll and gasps were coming from me so I had to push ahead and skipped most of the replys to get here. - whew what a lot of opinion-ating that keeps reminding me of how it feels in our country right now. It seems every single time someone express their feelings on ANY topic these days there’s someone waiting (impatiently) to jump on their remark and begin either tearing it down or just simply criticizing and sometimes it seems like it’s just criticizing for the sake of argument. Our country is viewed as a leader in many things around the world and how we are viewed right now is a country divided. We’re fighting each other instead of coming together. Respect seems to be something we could all use more practice in.
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We have always fallen far short of that aspiration. But at least we usually professed to aspire to it.
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I’ll just leave this here.
“It should go without saying that I love my country and I’m proud to be
an American. But, to quote James Baldwin, “exactly for this reason, I
insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.””
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I’m aware that we have a history of slightly heated debate on this exact topic. I am not trying to pick a fight or irritate you.
However, I do think that this is an important topic, and I think that the perspective I present is useful. But we’re all imperfect humans, working from limited information; the following is my attempt at an informed opinion, but it’s still only opinion. You’re free to disagree, and welcome to argue your case.
Anyway…
Leland Melvin’s statement was well-intentioned, and his motives are entirely honorable. It may have an effect in motivating liberals to some degree. I do not believe it to be an effective basis for a central strategy of resistance.
Which is why I haven’t at any point said anything like that. “Loving America” does not make you a fascist, or in itself aid fascism. Can I make it any clearer than that?
The problem is that America as it is currently constructed is fundamentally responsible for the rise of American fascism.
Trump is not an aberration from American history; he is the natural culmination of it. The violence and injustice of today is not new; it is merely more overt than modern white America is accustomed to.
Most Americans are good people; America itself is a beautiful and bountiful land. But the history, government and structure of the USA is fundamentally based upon white supremacy and the exploitation of poverty.
Loving America is fine. But it has to be a love for the America that could be, not the America that is. And it is impossible to achieve the could be without a thorough and open accounting for the is.
If you have a look at Black twitter, you’ll find that they are almost unanimous in their contempt for the owners. They rightfully see their current actions as self-interested and hypocritical.
That’s a relatively mild example.
This is also a relatively mild example, from a mainstream publication, of the attitude of the Black left to the symbols of American patriotism:
The perspective of white liberal America is very, very different to that of the American left. And once you remove the disenfranchisement of the American working class, the left outnumber the liberals by quite a lot.
The Democrats are not in charge of this resistance. They’re barely even a part of it.
The Trumpists represent the extreme right minority of the country. The establishment Democrats represent the moderate right minority of the country. The center of American political opinion is slightly to the left of the Democrats.
Reaching out to the extreme right, rather than focussing on the majority to the left, is repeating the strategic mistake that got the country into this situation.
The GOP are fascists. Not just Trump, not just the street nazis, the entire party. Some are more overt than others, but the GOP overall is a party of authoritarian anti-democratic white supremacists.
The left will not tolerate compromise with fascism, for good reason.
Appeasement or collaboration is morally indefensible, historically catastrophic and practically impossible. The working class are in the streets, they are pissed off, and they are not giving up without a fight.
I would prefer that America had never fallen to fascism in the first place.
The fascist revolution is already happening; it is almost complete. There is a socialist counter-revolution brewing. If that revolution fails, the entire world is under the boot of American fascism. Those are things that are happening now; the time to prevent them passed long ago.
Revolutions do not have to be violent. Dr King himself would tell you that.
The sooner it happens, the more chance there is of a relatively peaceful resolution.
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Of course, but I never said we should reach out to the extreme right, they’re a lost cause. Donald Trump will always have about 30% approval rating thanks to those assholes, but everyone else is up for grabs.
Is the extreme right the only part of the country that ascribes to patriotic ideals?
This is exactly what I have been saying all along.
Sure, but I’ve noted that the definition of “fascism” seems to creep leftward; if all Republicans are fascists by your standard, then any Democrat who co-sponsors a bill with a Republican is cooperating with the fascists, so I guess they’re no better than fascists, the Vichy French of US politics.
How many of those that came out to counter-protest the “free speech” rally in Boston were perfectly far left? If you interviewed them all one by one would they all agree with you 100% on every subject? Probably not. Still, they got the job done on that one issue. Don’t set the bar so high you can’t expect to ever get over it.
You could be right, or you could be wrong. I read all the same news stories as you, and I am not so convinced the end is nigh. I try to keep my paranoia in check lest I end up sounding like Alex Jones, but I’m not necessarily ignoring it either.
Unless you’re advocating actual violent revolution, meaning murder, then the intransigent far right isn’t going to go away. So it’s either reason with those in the middle (including lots of people you disagree with), to build a majority that at least agrees on something productive, or sit and complain and have occasional protests that preach to the converted.
Sure, it would be great if millions of Americans got up en masse and marched on Washington demanding a change, but I’m not sure what it will take for that to happen. And I don’t think you have a realistic solution to that conundrum either.
If you’re “reaching across the aisle”, as it is traditionally understood in US politics (i.e. making deals with the GOP), then yes: that is reaching out to the extreme right. Those 30% assholes are the GOP.
No, the center-right (i.e. the Democrats) are quite fond of that sort of thing as well. See The West Wing for the most obvious example.
However, that grouping is not very large. Only about 1/3 of the country voted for the Democrats, and about half of those people did so extremely reluctantly.
Yes.
The reaction of the establishment Democrats has mostly been utterly catastrophic. They are doing a note-by-note replay of the errors of the German centrists in the 1930’s.
They collaborated with the appointment of Trump’s criminal, white supremacist cabinet. They had the chance to block supply, and gave it up for nothing. They almost unanimously voted for an insanely large expansion of the military. Chuck Schumer is cheerfully offering to approve a massive militarisation of the border patrol. Nancy Pelosi is actively contributing to the demonisation of antifa, and attempting to horse-trade with the lives of undocumented Americans.
The left is well aware of the need for a united front, and are working very hard to make it happen. Everything from anarchists to pacifists to Juggalos; all are welcome, so long as they are willing to take a stand against fascism.
So far, that group does not include establishment Democrats.
No, I am not advocating that. I have already posted this many, many times, but once more:
I do not promote violence against the state, or aggressive violence against the fascists. But my reasoning there is primarily tactical rather than ethical, and I do believe that forceful community self-defence is both regrettably necessary and practically unavoidable in the current reality.
And as for what I propose:
.
Step 1: Get people to accept the reality of what’s happening.
Step 2: Organise a united front of left wing activist organisations.
Step 3: Build momentum with issue-focused street protest, ramp it up to a national general strike as rapidly as possible.
Which is essentially what is being done right now by BLM, the DSA, the Struggalos, Redneck Revolt, etc. etc.
The Berniecrats also have a role in that, but they’re currently focused on attempting to salvage the useful parts of the Democratic Party.
Marching on Washington to “demand change” will not do the job. This isn’t a symbolic hearts and minds protest; it’s a strike. It isn’t about trying to convince fascist legislators to be nice; it is about paralysing the economy until the government is overthrown.
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Related to that…
The “useful parts” of the Democratic Party are, in rough order of importance:
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Mayors and Governors. They have the power to restrain the police and National Guard, resist ICE and provide emergency support to communities like Houston, St Louis and Puerto Rico.
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The bank account. Protest is expensive, and the working class are broke. If you want working class people to stay in the streets for weeks, somebody has to pay to feed their kids.
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The media. Much of the mainstream US media is functionally controlled by the establishment Dems. MSNBC, Slate, Vox, Huffington Post, etc.
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Congress. They don’t have the numbers to do anything legislatively, but the public profile is useful for rousing the troops. See Bernie’s M4A push as the best example of this in action.
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“Overthrown” is an interesting choice of words – if you’re not talking about violent revolution, then you’re still talking about the ballot box. Replacing establishment Democrats with someone more far left, one election at a time, will take multiple election cycles, and Trump will be out of office by then, probably replaced by a Democrat of some stripe (thus rejuvenating the DNC again.) The next mid-term election is in 2020, not every seat is up for a vote, and how many Democrats are facing threats by candidates who are farther left? Call me a pessimist or call me a realist, but you can’t “overthrow” the government without some violence. A massive paralyzing strike will lead to violence of some kind, despite your best intentions.
Oh god, gimme a break. I wish that were true, but it’s not. The working class are working, or watching TV after a long hard day. If you want to get them out in the street and pissed then give away free beer. A handful of protests is not evidence that “the working class are in the streets.”
The reality here is that a third of the country doesn’t even vote, and they aren’t going to start caring and getting involved in massive protests until things get much much worse. Your idealistic 3-step plan might sound great to a college kid, but it won’t appeal to someone trying to feed three kids and keep up with the mortgage payments.
The disenfranchisement of the American working class was not due to apathy on their part.
Nope.
Again, see Gandhi, Dr King, Naomi Klein, Argentina. Revolution does not have to be violent.
There is no realistic possibility of a constitutional solution to Trump and the GOP. Fascists are counting the votes, and people are dying right now.
Three million Puerto Ricans. Eleven million undocumented Americans. Twenty-five million North Koreans. Fifty-one million South Koreans. Eighty-one million Iranians.
If not now, when?
Yes, it will. From the police. As you can already see in St Louis.
That sucks, but it is not a thing that is avoidable. It just has to be endured.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
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Highly relevant:
I recommend the audio version:
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If the demands are to succeed, the violence from the state must be met with a credible threat of counter-violence.
Not according to MLK/Gandhi/Klein/etc.
There are plenty of recent examples of authoritarian governments being peacefully overthrown. Not all of them successfully handled the aftermath (e.g. Egypt), but some did (e.g. Argentina).
OTOH, folks like Kwame Ture would disagree on the viability of unsupported nonviolence. For example:
https://mobile.twitter.com/blackblocboi/status/897492899528679424
https://mobile.twitter.com/BlackBlocBoi/status/897509802116603910
https://mobile.twitter.com/BlackBlocBoi/status/897513363005165569
Whether you agree with him or not, Kwame is worth listening to.
Personally, I think that you’re better off keeping the focus on the non-violent approach while building community self-defence capability (e.g. Antifa, Redneck Revolt, Pink Pistols, Black Women’s Defence League, etc) just in case.
The US government has far too much firepower for armed resistance to be anything other than a last-resort option.
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You envision a protest populated by millions of saints, but when the average person gets hit they punch back. It won’t just be the police, there will be counter-protestors and Antifa. Good intentions and citing of historical precedent isn’t some magical spell that will control huge masses of people so they act in unison.
Reality is messy. Your perfect utopian peaceful revolution will take twists and turns you cannot control and did not foresee. The peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union led to. . . a KGB officer as de-facto dictator.
Translation: other people’s blood is the easiest to shed.
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Yep, there are going to be some punches thrown on all sides. There already have been.
Firstly, that is inevitable when this many people are involved, whether it be a protest or a party. Secondly, folks have both the right and the inclination to defend themselves when attacked, and US police are globally notorious for their aggression.
Peaceful does not imply uneventful. A protester defending themselves against police assault does not instantly transform peaceful protest into violent insurrection.
That wasn’t an accident. Putin was installed with American backing.
As the US military is well aware. And is once again about to demonstrate on a mass scale.
The danger here is much bigger than a bit of street brawling.
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