And slavery

I feel that we’re not having the same conversation. Saying that Marxism-Leninism is internationalist isn’t saying it’s the same as Trotskyism or Ultra. I’m not saying or hinting at saying that Socialism in one country is illegitimate. I’m not saying we should be Third-Worldist. Though I think naturally socialism is more likely to develop in the colonized world at the periphery of empire, I think that they will have to fight their own revolutions and form their own governments according to their own national will, just as we have to do the same within our own nations. They don’t need us, but we do need them to weaken the empire enough for us to stand a chance.

Because there is confusion I’d like to try and clarify what’s meant by Internationalism. Internationalism is international proletarian solidarity. Solidarity means that what harms one of us harms us all. At the most local level, it means that if the person I work with is injured or cheated I take it as personally as if it was me who was injured or cheated. At the national level it means that if it happened to someone I never met in another part of the country, I take it as personally as if it was me. Internationally it means that if my country is committing injuries abroad I take it the same as if they were doing it to me. International Solidarity is to view the workers of the world with equal respect.

It seems that you think I meant to say that the problem with patriotic socialism is that they want to focus on American Socialism. Nobody has a problem with Americans focusing on American Socialism. If we could do that, it would be a benefit to us and the entire world. Every Socialist movement in the US took that position. Everybody here wants Americans to focus on American Socialism.

What they don’t want us to do is pretend as much while supporting US imperialism. We shouldn’t associate ourselves with the empire. We shouldn’t protect them by denying their guilt. We shouldn’t endow them with benevolence.

If you’re a socialist, and you understand what Marxism-Leninsism is then why are you adding to socialism something superfluous? Is Marxism-Leninism not patriotic enough? Do you feel it’s missing something that more patriotism would mend? What is the quality of this patriotism? If Marxism-Leninism sees patriotism as national proletarian solidarity specifically opposed the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, your amendment must be trying to add something beyond that.

What you’re saying you want is fine and good. That’s been the standard aim for the last century and a half. What is your patriotism? What is your nationalism? It seems to me, as I’ve already said the comment you’re responding to, that your conception of patriotism is bourgeois patriotism.

Your patriotism is simply this; that the nation is inherently good. While it has made mistakes, so have other nations. Then you follow with the promotion of the standard bourgeois national myth. Sure the United States does bad things, you say, but it’s really not that bad. Sure the United States has a questionable history, you say, but so do other countries.

There’s a problem here that needs to be addressed if you have the time hear it. You’re attempting to compromise socialism in order to make it more acceptable to a larger audience. America has a terrible history of genocide and slavery. The proper way to address the history is to acknowledge them and use them to identify the true nature of the bourgeoisie. The problem with racial identity is that it obscures the bourgeoisie as whiteness. It says to the white man that he should associate himself with the ruling class. When the white man reads history he’s taught to associate himself with the master class.

You, as a patriotic socialist, hear that message and rightly think to yourself that you should have no part in the blame. That’s true. You shouldn’t, but you were never the master class. Your association with it is false. It is of false consciousness. You say to yourself, you don’t want to take the blame, but you’ve already taken the guilt by attempting to erase it. We don’t want you to feel guilty about the crimes of the bourgeoisie. We want you to place the guilt where it belongs in order to help identify the true nature of the bourgeoisie as slaving class, as a genocidal class. We don’t want you to take on the guilt, but we don’t want you to erase theirs. We want you to associate yourself with the slave and with the Indian. That is what Internationalism means.

I’m not saying that patsoc’s aren’t ML. I’m saying that they aren’t going to be the true ML.

Marxism Leninism is internationalist. The only acceptable nationalism is one centered around the working class. The only acceptable history is a history centered around the working class. They don’t seem to want to address that history. They are more interested in taking the national myth as is.

If attempting to gain control of the bourgeois apparatus is a mistake. How much greater is the mistake of taking within us their national myth.

The United States is uniquely evil. It’s a part of larger context, but it is unique in it’s magnitude. It’s unique in that there is nothing real beyond it’s mythos. Other people existed before capitalism. They existed as an organic people. The United States was manufactured. The real organic people were all killed in a criminal history which is uniquely evil. The absolute whole slaughter genocide, enslavement, and exploitation of the Indians was in uniquely evil. That evil was so great as to change the quality of the West into something truly out of hell.

They say that rather than accepting this and fighting against it in a truly revolutionary act, we should instead whitewash it and attempt to be revolutionary under the superstructure of the bourgeoisie.

How can you be Marxist Leninist while saying that capitalism wasn’t so bad? What is the radicalizing motivation? Was love of country the radicalizing motivation behind the Black Panthers?