Revolutionary nationalism is championed by oppressed nations in the fight for liberation against the oppressor nation.
Reactionary nationalism is championed by imperialist oppressor nations to justify plunder, empire, and colonialism.
The struggle between the two often yields many variants of nationalism on both ends.
Example: Black nationalism is the one of the most revolutionary forms that emerged in the United States.
But as Huey Newton and others explained, Black nationalism is not monolithic.
He identified a "pork chop" bourgeois nationalism of the US organization that focused on culture and pride at the expense of rather than in congruence with the struggle for material liberation from racism and oppression.
In national liberation movements various iterations of nationalism exist that reflect class struggle.
Fanon and Nkrumah identified these in the African context, Mao in the Chinese context.
In sum, this struggle is between nominal independence vs full economic independence.
In the US, there are many kinds of nationalism but the principle struggle is between these two:
Chauvinist imperialist nationalism of ruling class and its loyal foot soldiers.
Revolutionary nationalism of Black people and oppressed people fighting for self determination.
American patriotism is an expression of reactionary nationalism.
My book on American exceptionalism sets the record straight.
We must win people over in struggle, and develop a revolutionary culture out of it.
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I hate self promotion. But I'm relying on my journalism for income. This allows me to spend more time bringing you the anti-imperialist and socialist analysis you've come to expect.
Weekly articles published in a variety of outlets but primarily Black Agenda Report and CGTN. My last article in CGTN analyzes the US's presumption of holding a monopoly over "democracy" news.cgtn.com/news/2021-10-2…
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The CIA's brief history of targeting China: A thread.
After supporting KMT against revolution, CIA created Radio Free Asia in 1951 to penetrate China with its worldwide propaganda network Board of Broadcasting Governors (now US Agency for Global Media).
The effort failed dramatically when CIA tried air dropping radios via balloons.
Radios were taken by wind. Chinese couldn't use them anyway due to history of semi-colonial underdevelopment. Electricity was still a rarity.
Remember the context: CIA's main role during this period was to stop spread of socialism at all costs. CIA was involved in more than fifty interventions between 1945-1991 alone.
In one week, I'll be leaving full-time work to spend more time on anti-imperialist independent media and analysis.
I'll need a bit of help. I've achieved 96 percent of my $$ goal to make the transition sustainable. Here's how you can help me complete it.
I publish weekly and host a YouTube podcast. You can support this work on Patreon in the link in the bio.
On Patreon, I provide public audio recordings of articles. Subscribers get early access to work and first communication on announcements and content...
I plan on relaunching my program, the internationalist transmission, to discuss imperialism and its connections to domestic and global policy. More specifically, I plan on centering solidarity and have on with guests who embody this principle...
Racism is not just about hate. Racism is about exploitation, it's about oppression, and it's about war.
Racism is a key element of privatization and the Race to the Bottom. It is an economic policy just as much as it is an ideological framework.
Racism prevents universal social policies such as Medicare for All by creating undeserving and deserving poor people.
Class struggle is the weakest in the United States because capitalism here is not organized along class lines alone. Racism is a material problem.
There are material differences between how white workers live in the aggregate and Black workers. The same goes for Mexican workers and indigenous workers, not to mention the workers of the world targeted by imperialism.
THREAD: this pandemic has taught me a lot. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is to not expect to be respected, but to demand it. Respect is an essential quality of dignity.
And in activism and journalism, we don't always get it.
There is a lot of mistreatment that goes on in our circles. We are all fighting ostensibly for the same thing, but we are human too. The lack of resources that we have as left journalists and organizations doesn't help matters either.
Respect starts with the self. For years in this struggle and in media work I internalized the notion that sacrifice without reciprocation was noble. Now I've realized that labor contributed should also be labor compensated, within reason of course.
Truly humbled by all the new subscriptions since I announced that I will be quitting from my full-time job in social work to focus more on people's media.
I am now in need of less than $300 per month until I meet my goal.
Reminder: I publish weekly, run the YouTube channel The Left Lens, and co-edit Friends of Socialist China.
This transition will help me build The Left Lens through the relaunch of my interview series: the Internationalist Transmission.
The Internationalist Transmission will include interviews with antiwar voices from around the world. The goal of the program is to engage in internationalist politics within the independent media sphere.
I also hope to co-author another book on China and socialist countries.