Discussing about America's greatness

[Red Velvet]

My opinion? US has been very slowly jumping the shark since WWII. So slow that it’s almost an invisible process. Before that, there’s more stuff to admire, even if no place is perfect, the history of all the American continents is based on blood after all, it’s nothing exclusive to the US. But it was WWII that completely established the US as the new world superpower over Europe after all and that is due to the history and previous events that led to that point.

However, the Cold War and especially the contemporary post 90s days makes so easy to interpret US as a caricature from the outside. There is stuff that is just very hard to understand because they sound very alien to the political culture or the reality of people living outside. Stuff like how universal healthcare is argued to be “radical socialism” and how paying for it is such a controversial topic when the image sold to us is that the US is the richest country. Or the gun culture as a main representation of freedom in general. Idk, my impression (could be wrong) is that Cold War shaped US culture and some sense national identification way too much, with some lasting effects to this day that are just more bad than good.

I mean, there is something that is just weird when a MILLIONAIRE is the face and hopes of a populist movement. Reagan probably helped speed the process the most, it’s in the movies from the 80s that you see a big shift in American art and the way they communicate through their media. But you could already see signs of US going down this road since the 50s, so I consider WWII the last moment where US was a major positive inspiration to the world. Of course there were positive influence coming out after that as well, especially in the 60s, but I mean on the whole.

It’s so weird to watch movies from the 40s and then from the 80s and notice such a drastic change in the message of the Hollywood movies. I see cinema and art as a great way to document the trends of each era and that is something that fascinated me, to discover films like “The Grapes of Wrath” or “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Because they represent something that at the time I never imagined it would be aligned with the caricature of “US values” that it was always sold to me by the media or more recent films.

[Red Velvet]

This nation has a great deal of greatness in its history and culture of resistance, progress, and innovation that isn’t talked a lot about. Instead, the dominant narrative and pop culture based on oppression, slavery, and insanity is promoted in its place. Yes, saying that this country is all bad and is uniquely evil among nations is false, but accepting the dominant narrative that you should handwave the bad I’d also incorrect.

The positives include the protest music of modern folk singers, the struggle of labor unions of the late 1800s/early 1900s, and the mass of history shakers now standing up to police brutality.

Please read Settlers by J. Sakai.

I actually did read Settlers by J. Sakai. Outside of wrongly attributing all white workers as non-proletarian or even oppressed, instead of recognizing the intricate caste system we have in the United States, I don’t know where your going here?

My point is that, in a political context, anything less than unequivocal denunciation of the United States is a waste of time at best and actively serving the bourgeoisie at worst. That doesn't mean that I don't wish for the best for American workers.

However, I also recognize that America is where capitalism is the strongest, and therefore the place where it will be hardest to overthrow. The easiest strategy for doing so at present is for anti-imperialist and socialist movements in the Global South to reduce the accumulation of capital in the imperial core, thereby weakening those national bourgeoisies and making it easier for the American workers to overthrow them.

Unfortunately, it is precisely because American workers have it better than most workers elsewhere that makes revolutionary socialism a harder sell for them.

I generally agree with the sentiment but after learning how precarious is some very basic stuff there, like access to health, it’s hard for me to see lower income Americans as privileged on some regards. Especially since I visited the country once and needed to be attended to do a medical exam and was shocked how abusive and exploitative it is. At home, I can not pay anything to do the same exam and same would be truth in other American or European countries.

Not to mention many other socioeconomical problems they have that are hidden under the rug, mostly stuff that is designed to target lower income groups.

Sure, they may benefit on some specific ways from being part of the empire like you say, but they’re victims of it as well. And there’s something especially more perverse about exploiting your own people for the sake of more excessive gain for corporate white elites, because these people support the system that oppresses them thinking they mostly benefit from it, when reality is that as time passes, the more exploitative that system becomes to them.

It’s basically class alienation achieved by national propaganda of being “the greatest country” that got established post WWII, because if you’re the greatest place to live then it means people can’t complain about their struggles thanks to their supposed “privilege” and therefore they must support the system. I can’t not feel solidarity for poorer working class Americans like I have with people from anywhere else, even if they’re often tools used to support the establishment.