11-03-2012, 09:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-04-2012, 08:27 AM by FireIceTalon.)
Sorry if I don't view the world through rose colored glasses. And it isn't just a few bad things - this kind of shit happens everyday, much of it goes unreported. The world is NOT a beautiful place in its current state, it is anything but. Whether it has been worse in the past or not, is not relevant from my point of view. I am not concerned with the past, I am concerned with the NOW. As a communist, I feel like I've advanced beyond the bullshit we see today, and that the rest of society is trying to play catch up.
Nationalism is inherently racist and extremely reactionary - but what is more, it's a pre-requisite to fascism, something every Leftist despises and wants to fight against. It's just a short way of saying your country and culture is better than "others". Being a "patriot" and a communist are not compatible - one is reactionary, the other revolutionary. This is part of the reason Maoism and Stalinism are NOT compatible with Marxism - they have nationalistic elements, based on the flawed doctrine of 'Socialism in one country' (which is also very un-Marxist). Racial and gender equality, and internationalism are the pre-requisites to being a good communist.
Besides, as Marx said, the working man has no country anyway - it is controlled and operated by and for a ruling class. Why should I support a country that doesn't give two shits about me? All they want to do is keep me, my family, and friends as wage slaves so the rulers can sit back and relax, while we do all the work and they extract profits from our labor (we get table scraps). And then it wants to send OUR children to fight THEIR (the capitalists) wars to go kill a few people whom we've never even met, in the name of "serving your country" (translation: making a bunch of politicians and corporations richer) because they have ideological problems with whoever it is they are going to war with. Fuck that they should send their own children, I'm not interested, nor should any other reasonable person be. In fact, Ill quote Howard Zinn here and say that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - now that is a form of patriotism I can get down with.
Yes, America is relatively more democratic than the middle east - but it is still extremely reactionary, backwards, and ignorant. Terms like "liberty", "democracy", and especially the false dichotomy of "libertarianism vs authoritarianism", from a Marxist perspective, are meaningless, because they are at best, relative, and generally difficult and subjective to define. Liberty you say? Define liberty. And liberty for who? When and where? The same issue applies to democracy and all the other little words we love to throw around wildly. Lastly, the quality of life we have here is better, largely because of American imperialism and exploitation of lesser developed nations. Nothing to be proud of man, so people can take their patriotism and ethnocentrism and stick it where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. And while I despise nationalism from any nation, I have a particular dislike for the American version, for personal reasons....
I remember once in like 3rd grade, I didn't say the pledge of allegiance because I had strep throat or something, and being ridiculed afterward by the teacher and some of the students. The teacher actually got quite offended and gave me serious grief for it, actually saying something like "you little communist, you are supposed to say the pledge of allegiance". Now mind you, I had no idea what a communist or communism was at the time, or even really what the purpose of the pledge itself was. I just know that my throat was hurting that day so I wanted to keep talking to a minimum. I look back at that incident and realize what a fucking asshole that teacher was. If I had a kid and this happened to him/her, I'd probably go down to the school and burn the flag in front of the whole class and say "yes, I'm a communist, I hate America and capitalism, and my son/daughter doesn't have to say the pledge if he/she doesn't fucking feel like it. Got it?"
Anyways, I can crack a smile or laugh as much as anyone else, and as I said in the past, I generally avoid politics in most social settings [in person] unless someone else brings it up first. But when it comes to that subject, don't expect any sympathies regarding the current way of things from me, cause you won't get them. The redeeming qualities I see in this world would be my family and wonderful girlfriend - they are my reason for living, and without them, I would probably be indifferent to my own existence.
Nationalism is inherently racist and extremely reactionary - but what is more, it's a pre-requisite to fascism, something every Leftist despises and wants to fight against. It's just a short way of saying your country and culture is better than "others". Being a "patriot" and a communist are not compatible - one is reactionary, the other revolutionary. This is part of the reason Maoism and Stalinism are NOT compatible with Marxism - they have nationalistic elements, based on the flawed doctrine of 'Socialism in one country' (which is also very un-Marxist). Racial and gender equality, and internationalism are the pre-requisites to being a good communist.
Besides, as Marx said, the working man has no country anyway - it is controlled and operated by and for a ruling class. Why should I support a country that doesn't give two shits about me? All they want to do is keep me, my family, and friends as wage slaves so the rulers can sit back and relax, while we do all the work and they extract profits from our labor (we get table scraps). And then it wants to send OUR children to fight THEIR (the capitalists) wars to go kill a few people whom we've never even met, in the name of "serving your country" (translation: making a bunch of politicians and corporations richer) because they have ideological problems with whoever it is they are going to war with. Fuck that they should send their own children, I'm not interested, nor should any other reasonable person be. In fact, Ill quote Howard Zinn here and say that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - now that is a form of patriotism I can get down with.
Yes, America is relatively more democratic than the middle east - but it is still extremely reactionary, backwards, and ignorant. Terms like "liberty", "democracy", and especially the false dichotomy of "libertarianism vs authoritarianism", from a Marxist perspective, are meaningless, because they are at best, relative, and generally difficult and subjective to define. Liberty you say? Define liberty. And liberty for who? When and where? The same issue applies to democracy and all the other little words we love to throw around wildly. Lastly, the quality of life we have here is better, largely because of American imperialism and exploitation of lesser developed nations. Nothing to be proud of man, so people can take their patriotism and ethnocentrism and stick it where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. And while I despise nationalism from any nation, I have a particular dislike for the American version, for personal reasons....
I remember once in like 3rd grade, I didn't say the pledge of allegiance because I had strep throat or something, and being ridiculed afterward by the teacher and some of the students. The teacher actually got quite offended and gave me serious grief for it, actually saying something like "you little communist, you are supposed to say the pledge of allegiance". Now mind you, I had no idea what a communist or communism was at the time, or even really what the purpose of the pledge itself was. I just know that my throat was hurting that day so I wanted to keep talking to a minimum. I look back at that incident and realize what a fucking asshole that teacher was. If I had a kid and this happened to him/her, I'd probably go down to the school and burn the flag in front of the whole class and say "yes, I'm a communist, I hate America and capitalism, and my son/daughter doesn't have to say the pledge if he/she doesn't fucking feel like it. Got it?"
Anyways, I can crack a smile or laugh as much as anyone else, and as I said in the past, I generally avoid politics in most social settings [in person] unless someone else brings it up first. But when it comes to that subject, don't expect any sympathies regarding the current way of things from me, cause you won't get them. The redeeming qualities I see in this world would be my family and wonderful girlfriend - they are my reason for living, and without them, I would probably be indifferent to my own existence.
https://www.youtube.com/user/FireIceTalon
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)
"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class." - Marx (addressing the bourgeois)