It's Time For Progressives to Reclaim the Fourth of July
It's Time For Progressives to Reclaim the Fourth of July
It’s easy for the Right to caricature our beliefs when we forget to express our civic pride.
I have an American flag hanging in my car. Friends of mine are so surprised by it that some have gone as far as "Hey, that's mo_ztt's car! Oh wait... it has a US flag and he's definitely not a Republican. Huh, I thought that was his car." They told me this after the fact and I was a little off-put by it (like naw dude, I'm allowed to like this country and dislike Trump both at the same time.)
No, actually, you aren't allowed to like this country.
Actually think about it. This nation was built by slaves on stolen land and it has never stopped committing atrocities. Why the fuck would you like this country?
Every "great" nation has committed atrocities. There are always evil men, there are always structures of power for them to grab the reins of. That's true in modern China, it was true in Washington then as it is now, it was true in the USSR and it's true now in Russia, as it is in the government in Ukraine.
Every body of people also has great and selfless people who rise within those structures, or in opposition to them. Martin Luther King was one, Gandhi was one, Abraham Lincoln was one.
To me, morality assigns on an individual level. It's not an excuse for any systemic evil or a reason not to fix it. Absolutely we should fix the problems and punish the evildoers as individuals. But refusing to acknowledge the many great things the US has done, because it's also done great evil, seems unfair to all those people who tried to work for good with whatever time they had.
Because America is the best country on Earth
I'll let Frederick Douglass & James Earl Jones ask the progressive question: what to the slave, is your 4th of July?
When we reclaim it, can we do away with fireworks for the sake of people's dogs?
Or, you know, maybe for the refugee kids that've just barely escaped war only to have mouthbreathing fucknuts jerking off their freedums into the air? Not to mention the millions of vets that spend the weeks leading up to the forced holiday trying their goddamned best not to spiral into the hungry void of their personal terrors.
Fuck the Fourth.
What a breath of fresh air. America is currently in a tumultuous period, but we must always respect the ideals that undermine our society and the sacrifices made by the founders to establish this nation. Toxic amounts of apathy and criticism is equally as problematic as blind devotion and toxic patriotism.
Criticism is toxic now?
Not at all, but if not properly paired with action its just talk. There's plenty of pundits that get people spun up over issues with no real prescriptions of their own as a means of generating clicks and outrage
No, I'm pretty sure it's the latter that's causing most of your problems.
I’ll wait for the October revolution