Everyone outside the imperial core is subjected to the American/European outside observer, the least you can do is return the favor.

Maybe it'll stop some people from going "China bad this. China bad that" when they haven't read a single letter from someone who lives there.

  • KiaKaha [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The author doesn’t seem to be aware of the growing undercurrent of anti-American sentiment among the non-electoral left.

    Your critique that we’re small is very fair—but ideas and movements start small, then spread, barring any other element repressing them.

    The author seems to hint at the possibility of such an anti-American sentiment, a full disavowal, but doesn’t dip into the seedlings that have already sprouted. That seems less of an omission of insignificance, and more one of lack of knowledge.

    I don’t blame the author for not knowing about us. We are not covered in the media, and we are weak. But we exist.

    That the likes of us can forge an identity separate to the constitutions and laws of the imperial core is notable, and the emergence of that (and the failure of it to spread further) should be viewed through a systems lens.

    Our identity seems to be one of leftists, workers, and people marginalised due to their gender identity or ethnicity. That’s a lot to examine for forging new identities, even if they haven’t yet become a national identity.

    None of this is to detract from the core thesis—the author encapsulates the dominant identity and ideology of America. Rather, it would be interesting to see the author’s perspective on how those aforementioned marginal facets of the left form, and how they’re suppressed.