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why are american leftists so obsessed with america?
Removed by modAll the time I hear about "the CIA will coup this", "America supported that", "These people opposed US Imperialism". A topic could have absolutely nothing to do with america and involve a place on the exact opposite part of the earth and Americans will find a way to make it about America. For example, people talk about Russian politics and Putin yet seem to support Putin wholeheartedly because his Russia "opposes american imperialism". This framing of the conversation seemingly ignoring how Russian people feel about his reign, how the EU has been having to drag america into the latest sanctions against Russia, and how for the last 4 years America had an ostensibly Pro-Russian president. I swear American Leftists don't care at all about Capitalism or Communism and just want to oppose the United States. Most of the world and people don't care about American influence, let alone to such an obsessive degree.
I don't see why the average american would care too much about bases in other countries. its a very slight cost and has little effect on their daily life or local politics. I bet if the US left every single military base it had abroad you'd still see a very similar if not same political situation of democrats vs republicans there. seems an issue that concerns the local country much more than america if anything
if another country get into a position of having that many bases all over the world and having that degree of influence over the world, then we'll all start talking about them incessantly as well.
and socialists in general should be against imperialism regardless of the effect it has on their day to day life, tho even if we don't think about those bases there part of the structure that maintains the us's dominance and helped it build the wealth it has that american's in general benefit from even if they don't realize it
most of the american socialists I talk to seem to be neutral if not supportive of imperialism by "anti-imperialist forces" so it never seemed like much of a principle as much as an extension of anti-americanism to me.
are you referring to like assad and/or china or something like that here?
I mean those things are relatively contentious amongst the american left but I think anyone who is a leftist should be against america meddling in other countries affairs.
are you making an argument that anti-americanism is bad or are you saying that american leftists are so caught up in being anti-american they forfeit their principles? and what does that have to do with with the fact that what we're point out is america's "importance" in global politics which is an answer to your question, "why do we talk about america so much"?
I mean if you want my real opinion I think american leftists are anti-america first, pro-socialism(defined vaguely) second, and care about actually advancing the cause of proletarians way too far down the list
yeah america has a really bad history with socialism because of its class structure and it's made socialism really wobbly here as a result.
through its history american socialists have done a loooooot of things that are outside what we would conventionally recognize as the conduct of socialists. They've been really opportunistic and much more concerned for advancing the cause of their own careers and material interests than that of socialism or proletarians. Some have even engaged in some really reactionary stuff, for example the chinese cigar strikes and calls by white socialists in california to lynch and push out chinese workers so white workers could take their jobs and tons of others.
Part of this has to do with the separation along racial lines, it wasn't until the mid 19th century that america really had what could be considered a white proletariat (imported from europe during industrialization) for much of its history before hand it used black slaves, indigenous people, and chinese and mexicans in the west to act as the prole base of society which allowed even lower class whites a great deal more social mobility off the backs of bipoc workers, so a lot this stuff is heavily confused here. There's a lot of uninterrogated chauvinism in, particularly, white american leftists. And also of course in the last 100+ years a lot of propaganda and red scare stuff muddying things in general.
I don't necessarily think that anti-americanism is an inherently bad thing, after all they (the govt) are and have been the biggest obstacle/impediment to socialist movements in history but yea in general the american left has been really bad on this front and definitely needs to improve.
Europe or other western countries aren't exactly all white either, due to colonial history and those socialist parties made many similar chauvanistic decisions. most western european countries happen to be higher percent immigrant than the united states these days.
I would imagine it'd be similar forces that led to that then. I mean we didn't get it from nowhere, the country originally was settled by bourgeois and labor aristocracy british people. and it's not like euro/western centrism isn't a problem all throughout the anglosphere and europ.
Can't speak to percentage of immigrants in europe as I know most about america, tho I have been to germany and it definitely didn't seem anything remotely close to the diversity i'm used to in my city. In london I'd say it was pretty diverse tho.