National Pride
Theory On Why Nationalism And Racism Go Hand In Hand:
Or perhaps more like a well fitted glove.
In numerous cases throughout history,
We find National pride seems to rhyme with genocide.
It seems simple enough to me why we’re facing this problem again in America.
In order to have a nation, you have to specify some borders.
As soon as there are borders,
Not only are you on one side and,
“They” are on the other side,
Suddenly immigration policy complicates and restricts the free movement of individual humans.
There it is, right there.
Here’s the theory:
If black people were allowed to move around freely,
White supremacists wouldn’t have to live next to them.
Holy shit, what a concept!
But wait… Where will everybody live?
Surely there isn’t enough room for us to share?
There’s about seven and a half billion acres of arable land on Earth.
That’s about an acre per person, which is more than enough to grow food for one.
Incorporating all the extra land we consider non-arable, about 17 acres per person.
I update these figures every year or so,
And even with an explosion of the human population,
There’s still plenty of room to share.
I’m not suggesting that segregation, especially the kind enforced by law or government or violent action, is going to solve these problems. I’m suggesting that if you don’t like someone, you should be free to leave, so you don’t have to be around them.
For all you white Europeans are making a claim that black people need to go back to Africa, or Syria, or wherever…
You should be aware that if you don’t think it’s completely fair for people to show up where you’ve lived for a long time and force you off your land to make room for themselves, you might want to consider going the fuck back to Europe.
But then to all the black and Latino people, and even white women who continue to live in America despite the abundance of bigots and long standing historical traditions of oppression towards women and people of color, you might want to consider going to Europe also.
Or perhaps Canada. South America. Australia. Africa. China. Russia.
Earth is a big place. There are lots of different kinds of people.
If you’re paying attention, you can pick your neighbors.
Or it you’re a hate filled bigot, lots of empty space.
You don’t have to have neighbors at all.
Some of your ancestors were brought here as chattel slaves, and many of you are still peasants and serfs…
WHY??
WHY would you want to STAY?
Oh… Right.
NATIONALISM.
That keeps coming back up, doesn’t it?
If you’re attached to the idea of America, fine.
But this,
points down and stamps feet
This isn’t America.
This is just dirt.
I could put this house and the dirt it’s built upon onto a barge,
Ship it around the world,
And put it on Russia’s shore.
It would be no more or less my dirt, or my house.
Whatever your idea of “America” might be,
That idea doesn’t change if you go to Brazil.
Or Russia.
Or even Israel.
Though I challenge anybody to visit Israel and have it NOT change their idea of America…
But that’s beside the point;
Nations are not real.
They are imaginary.
We made it all up.
I’ve stood right at the Canadian border… There’s nothing there but trees.
The trees on that side are the same as the trees on this side.
Deer happily gambol and frolic, playfully jumping from one side to the other with no regard whatsoever for where your idea of America stops, and Canada begins.
What I mean to say, nationalists, is that deer are smarter than you.
And they’re having way more fun.
What a fucking foolish thing to fight over for millenia.
As for why so much racism, and sexism, the strategy is to divide and conquer.
People are visually oriented, so the mind naturally tends to group things that look similar.
That makes it easy to generalize based on color or gender,
And hard to base on political philosophy, hobbies, sexual preferences and the like.
You can’t usually see those from across the street.
Since the elite depend on the proletariat to do their bidding,
It would be a shame to have the poor turn against the rich,
So the poor must be turned against the poor,
And kept fighting among themselves.
How do we get them to hate and to fight each other?
We draw some rectangles.
And we tell them they’re not allowed to cross this line,
And THEN,
We tell them THIS COLOR person is coming for YOUR land.
They’re going to take YOUR jobs.
As if there were no other jobs and no other land anyplace.
You have no choice but to fight to defend YOUR rectangle,
Because somebody else owns ALL of the other rectangles,
On a whole planet… The vast majority of which is uninhabited by humans.
We tell the ladies,
The PENIS humans are oppressing the NON-PENIS humans and you have to fight for your rights!
Then we tell the fellas,
The NON-PENIS humans are coming for YOUR JOBS AND YOUR PENIS! You have to defend yourself!
Do you see how completely silly that sounds?
The rich oppress the poor.
Say it with me now,
THE RICH OPPRESS THE POOR.
NOT THE WHITES/BLACKS,
NOT THE MEN/WOMEN
THE RICH
OPPRESS
THE POOR
Wherever you are,
You don’t have to throw anybody out,
Or fight over your patch of dirt,
As long as you’re free to take a walk.
I understand that not everyone has the luxury of just taking a walk to Canada at present.
Because someone
(THE RICH WHO OPPRESS THE POOR)
Owns all the land
(WHICH IS HOW THEY OPPRESS THE POOR WITH IMAGINARY RECTANGLES.)
It’s not enough for any one person to decide nationalism is stupid.
Everyone kind of has to realize it at once.
Otherwise we’ll just have more
White nationalists
Fighting black patriots
And female separatists
Until the goddamn end of time.
So to any patriotic American reading this now,
Are you having fun yet?
What a great ride!
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey aren’t closing up shop because the animal rights activists finally got their way – It’s because they can no longer compete with the circus we have every day. They’ve thrown in the towel because politics and philosophy are now officially wackier than the ACTUAL REAL CIRCUS.
Can any of you tell me why nationalism is good, or what it is good for?
Because from where I’m sitting,
It looks like it would be much more pleasant,
To have a cancerous tumor of the eyeball.