Mastodawn

Remember: the cultural heritage of America isn't only white supremacy, sexism, racism, bigotry, and capitalist greed. Our heritage is ALSO abolitionists, labor unions, civil rights, women's suffrage, environmental activism, etc.

Don't look at history just to find the mistakes. You can also look at history to find the victories and inspiration. We stand on the shoulders of generations of people working together towards a more perfect union. Sure, there's a whole lot of shit that's fucked up, but there's a whole lot of people who are also going out there every day to try and fix stuff too.

Sharon Gibson Morgan Jun 12, 2023

@JessTheUnstill This is true. But the problem is the effort to whitewash the one aspect of American history, i.e., white supremacy, sexism, racism, bigotry, and capitalist greed, while ignoring the other.

#histodon #history #BlackMastodon

G. Willow Wilson Jun 12, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Really well-put.

Earthling Jun 12, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

👏👏👏 You are completely right!
Therefore, all these good people should join together in the fight against the GOP and followers who want to turn back the wheel of history. The threat is real to lose all what has already been achieved.

John Brewer Jun 12, 2023

@JessTheUnstill This reminds me of something Neil Gaiman said about the lesson of fairy tales being not that monsters existed, but that they can be defeated.

skua Jun 13, 2023

@jbrewer_jera @JessTheUnstill
Can be a lesson.

Other tales have other lessons; I.e. Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Rescuer of Death, early versions of Little Red Riding Hood, and all the dreadful tales that successful monsters tell their offspring.

#Tales #OldTales #Fairytales #Folktales

Temple Square Jun 12, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Well said! I always felt uncomfortable with my liberal friends abandoning the US flag to the confederate right. Maybe it was a post-Iraq War thing?

But to me the US flag is a symbol of abolition, sufferage, equal rights... and in the future, universal health care, etc.

Alexander Karn Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

This reminds me of something heard circa 2016-17:

They took the Oval Office.

They took SCOTUS.

They took the House and Senate.

Don’t let them take your joy and pluck.

It’s about nourishing what is necessary to sustain #resistance.

It’s about staving off the hopelessness that authoritarians depend on to feed complacency and therefore compliance.

It’s about living in truth (Vaclav Havel) without obeying in advance (Timothy Snyder).

#politics #citizenship #history

Alexander Karn Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

The aspiration, exercise, and implementation of democratic pluralism, no matter how flawed or incomplete, is worth defending. Without that determination and belief in justice in principle, the authoritarians and the meanness of power for power’s sake will surely have won.

Tiota Sram Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill these things don't need to be contextualized within a nationalist framework to be inspiring though. And if you think that abandoning US nationalism feels too painful or hopeless, maybe consider why you feel that way, and what your outlook would be if you didn't?

I've always hated the "more perfect union" phrase because this nation was founded on genocide, and the resolution of that which I'd like to see involves #LandBack. The words "merciless Indian savages" are in the founding document of the USA, and the genocidal intent which put them there is alive and well; its project actively continues today. I'd prefer to see abolitionists, union organizers, etc. as part of an imperfect legacy of shared humanity standing up to oppression, and to recognize the ways some of those movements were more inclusive than others, than to treat that all as redemptive of the US project merely because they happened here.

If you want to take "hope for a truly liberatory US" away from this post I can't stop you, and that's not the worst position to be playing from, but I'd encourage you to think very carefully about whether your efforts under that banner are really advancing liberation or are merely putting a nicer face on things, especially to the extent that you work to solve problems here without addressing the systemic roots of those problems and how progress for some is often predicated on further oppression for others, especially others abroad.

There is a rich intellectual tradition of people opposed to nations themselves if you grounding beyond nationalism.

mybarkingdogs Jun 13, 2023

@tiotasram @JessTheUnstill

Good point. I was thinking that the OP was trying to contextualize the good within the US context not to be nationalist, but to be "there's resistance and change, even within the imperial core" (why I RTed it) but I can also see how it could be taken as US-nationalist or worse, US-supremacist.

That said, it feels like there's definitely a fine line to walk between highlighting "there has always been people who want a better world and try for it, even if they and their place and their means are imperfect" and "glorifying that nation and those means" which is obviously wrong to do in any context

Steven Lipton Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill thank you for this. reading this I also thought those victories and inspiration are also the ones with the most courage.

Nicole Parsons Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

Quote from Sorkin's "The News Room"

"In America, we can do better"

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/the-newsroom-sorkin-writes-the-medias-wrongs/

Saudi despots, #KochNetwork plutocrats, Russian kleptocrats, and corrupt CCCP officials hate that message.

Fascists want stagnation, backwards looking, status quo, frozen social mobility, perpetual corruption, and regressive public policies.

Democracies say "We can do better".

https://whatculture.com/tv/the-newsroom-the-best-possible-version-of-the-argument

A positive message for 2024.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/newsroom-aaron-sorkin-jeff-daniels-hbo-340523/

‘The Newsroom’: Sorkin writes the media’s wrongs

"The Newsroom" has a reassuring mantra: "We can do better."

The Seattle Times

Orc Jun 13, 2023

@Npars01 @JessTheUnstill

I don't think they hate that message, they just have a much more exclusive idea of what "we" means.

SearingTruth Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

Very well said fellow citizen Jess.

Thank you.
ST

"We still have a great hope.

Ourselves."
SearingTruth

Cykonot Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Republicans hate history class because the side they identify with lost too many times. It shows America getting better for most people, but all they feel is shame because they identify with the oppressor

Grandpa Don Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill
Thank you. People lose sight of the fact that all of Europe was various degrees of brutal monarchies. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Viking raids...
Aclot of the immigrants had brought various bigotries with them. Many of the slaveholders came from generations of Scots and Irish who had been brutalized by the English. The initial drfinition of We the People was terribly flawed, but it started something and as you say, many have striven & continue 2 strive to perfect it.

Travis Marble Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill I needed this

zeruch Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill This is a critical aspect that so many miss.

If you only look for the misses, the hits become almost ephemeral...and that's bad.

RejZoR Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill It's hard to given how America is acting like none of what you listed matters. It's 2023 and America is like the only western country that's currently bigoted as hell, racist, busts unions on all ends, stomps on women's rights with draconian abortion laws and is all out corporate greed at expense of everything and anything. Maybe it's America that should remember own the history the most...

Runefar Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill
Maybe though i think the issue is even further than that which is if we cant understand how people in the past were both stimeousily good yet did bad things, how can we understand when it occurs now? We cant portray these past figures as one way or the other and instead recognize how they were also interplaying with different aspects. We need to be focusing on recognizing more not simply flipping what we recognize

The Animal and the Machine Jun 13, 2023

@HollyGoDarkly
And on the list of inspiration is @JessTheUnstill

Jon Sparks Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Good point. It's equally true in the UK, maybe nowhere more so than Manchester: where Marx and Engels did their key work, where Emmeline Pankhurst began her work for women's suffrage, home to a pioneering Gay Village, etc.

@JessTheUnstill I'm with you, Jess.

𝔼k 𝓋ℴ𝓃 𝕂𝔫ä𝔭𝔭𝔢𝔫𝔟𝔢𝔯g Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill we should all study history

Kerri Levine Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill

I love every word in this post, including the "etc".

More people need to think this way.

#StrongerTogether

nonlinear Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Thank you. I see a lot of leftists new at their own history erasing the resistance away and giving *everything* to colonizers.

Just to appease their disneyesque understanding of history, simplifying everything.

Is America ruthless and self-entitled settler colonialists? Yes. Is America where minorities fight to reclaim their humanity? Yes to that too.

Nuance, peeps.

Roy #EatTheRich Pardee 🇺🇸Jun 13, 2023

@JessTheUnstill Hell yes ✊

Thanks for the reminder