A Question for Fellow Leftists
What’s the plan for the day after we get what we want? | #TC77
Welcome to Third Cultured, a Queer Reading of the American Empire through crisis-after-crisis — written by yours truly, Kyle Borland.
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“What comes next?” is not a question the Left answers well.
We are talented at tearing things down, but not nearly as good at building something in the empty space we create. Take the Fourth of July.
Over the weekend, there was a lot of discussion about the futile and hypocritical nature of “Independence Day” for an imperial project like the United States. Yes, it is the day a group of largely slave-owning planters declared independence from Great Britain, but the “liberty” they earned was limited and exclusive from the jump.
I have no issue with this argument. It makes sense on its face. Let’s change it.
So, what comes next?
What do we do with the millions of people who set off fireworks and gather together, not only in North America but all around the world? How do we maintain the spirit of revolution and the bacchanalia without relinquishing the Truth or the release of Jubilee? Should we change America’s Fourth of July to a global “Revolutions Day,” celebrating the humanity-spanning fight for liberty and self-determination? Are we prepared to reconcile whatever we create will be yet another form of empire?
What’s the plan for the day after we get what we want?
The lack of answers to this question and one’s parallel to it are my biggest frustrations as a Leftist. The two sides of my brain – imperial vs revolutionary – are constantly pushing back against one another. The former craving a plan, or at least a narrative, and the latter praying desperately for this unsalvagable civilization to consume itself, caring only to see the ashes.
What do you put in the American Empire’s place? Will we be 50 separate countries or schism into regional blocs? Will the hard-fought rights and protections of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ people be guaranteed in this fantastical new system? What happens if/when states go to war with one another? Who gets the nukes and the UNSC seat? How do we check autocracy and imperialism from China and Russia? Will the Euro or Renminbi replace the Dollar as the global reserve currency?
I’m not optimistic the Left has satisfactory answers to these questions. Nor will there be a collective response any time soon. When presented with potential Russian bounties on American troops, the majority of circles on the Left didn’t bat an eye. In some strange mental calculus, we’ve determined all’s fair in love and imperialism? Sure, there is an argument to be made that we shouldn’t be stuck in Afghanistan in the first place (you’ll find no disagreement here), but that doesn’t provide cover for despots to put a price on human beings of any nationality. American, British, or otherwise.
We’re so busy on the Left degrading American Empire that we didn’t pay any attention to the Right ceding its stranglehold on what defines “patriotism.” Trump outright denied the existence of the Russian bounty program – despite that we know for a fact he was briefed about this in writing during one of his daily briefings in late February – and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo didn’t mention the bounties during a call with the Taliban. The White House doesn’t even intend to take any immediate action against Russia because the president does not deem the intelligence “actionable.”
Instead of seizing this moment, the Left is wasting time trying to make symbols of the American Empire smaller when we need to internationalize. Decentering and demystifying the Founding Fathers is an important step, but we need myths and norms and experiences to go in their place. On the Left, we know there is no single state solution to realizing our goals. It’s not possible. Therefore, how do we free the nation that within itself holds all others?
What comes next?
Stay safe and healthy, beautiful people. And, thanks for reading.
xoxo,
Kyle (@kgborland)
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“Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.”
– W. H. Auden in “Masque”
American Empire & Other Wars
$700 million – The US Treasury acquired 29.6 percent of YRC Worldwide, a trucking firm that ships military equipment, in exchange for a $700M loan. Typically, the US government does not take an ownership stake in companies for loans but Congress provided permission to do so to safeguard the taxpayer’s money in the $17 billion loan program that requires equity for program access.
$740.5 billion – The House passed the defense authorization bill providing a three percent raise for troops, limiting the president’s ability to withdraw troops from Europe and Afghanistan, and forcing the military to change Confederate symbols on its bases. Trump has threatened to veto the bill over the base names.
2020 Election – Lakota treaty defenders protested Trump’s imperialist rally at The Black Hills, the region where Mount Rushmore is carved, which is unceded territory in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 later acknowledged by a 1980 Supreme Court ruling in the United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians. | Hundreds of Bush administration officials will endorse Biden. | Uncle Joe ($141M) beat Trump ($131M) in fundraising for the second month in a row. However, Trump 2020 is sitting on $295 million in cash vs Biden’s last reported $130 million. | Chief Justice Roberts is the latest target of Trump’s blame game (for his recent liberal rulings) as the president bleeds Evangelical support. | Trump regrets listening to Jared Kushner and doing any criminal justice reform — even though it’s a policy win he promotes everywhere — and says he won’t listen to Jared ever again. He knows he won’t win the Black vote and sees it, ultimately, as wasted time and political capital. Instead, his gut says go with racism…which explains the blatant Nazi symbolism on the Trump campaign's newest t-shirt.
All Black Lives Matter – All cops are pigs. Because of that, Trump can at last truthfully boast about crowd size: the largest protests in US history. 15-26 million people participated in BLM demonstrations following George Floyd’s death. | LA’s City Council voted to develop an unarmed, community-led response to nonviolent 911 calls. | The Washington Redskins are in a “thorough review” of its brand name (aka a change is imminent). The Cleveland Indians are doing the same. | Stonewall Jackson’s statue was removed from Richmond’s Monument Avenue. General Lee’s remains despite state and city orders due to several lawsuits. | The Capitol Hill Organized Protest (formerly “autonomous zone”) was cleared out by Seattle Police. | Facebook removed 220 Facebook accounts, 106 groups, 95 Instagram accounts, and 28 Pages related to the far-right Boogaloo movement, in what it called "a strategic network disruption." | Belgium’s king wrote a letter to the people of the Congo to apologize for its colonial past in the country that led to the death of millions. | Riots work.
Army – The remains of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, was found in a shallow grave near Fort Hood, her active duty station. Guillen was being sexually harassed by Spc. Aaron David Robinson and he bludgeoned her to death when she informed him she would be filing a harassment complaint against him.
China – FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr banned Huawei and ZTE from US networks for posing a national security risk. After more than a year of no success from its anti-Huawei blitz, the US is starting to see its allies align with it on excluding the Chinese behemoth from 5G networks, including the UK and India. | 13 tons of wigs were confiscated in the US for being made through slave labor in Xinjiang, the location of China’s Uighur detention camps. | Beijing arrested more than 370 people for breaking the new national security law on its first day in law. The US House passed a law penalizing banks, like HSBC, that support the law. | Australia announced it will invest $270B in its military to counter China. | (Graphic: Axios)
COVID-19 (as of 07/05/2020) – Total Confirmed: 11,419,529; Total Deaths: 533,684; Total Recovered: 6,161,729 | US Cases: 2,982,928; US Deaths: 132,569; US Recovered: 1,289,564; US Tested: 35,512,916 | Senate Democrats introduced a permanent extension to the $600/week boost to EDD benefits, tagging the amount to individual state unemployment rates. | An antibody study showed COVID was present in NYC as early as February. | The US bought the next three-months of the global supply of remdesivir, meaning no other nation will be able to purchase the COVID recovery drug. | (Graphic: WaPo)
Cities – 11 mayors announced the launch of universal basic income pilots. The cities include Stockton, Calif., Jackson, Miss., St. Paul, Minn., Newark, N.J., Compton, Calif., Los Angeles, Shreveport, La., Oakland, Calif., Columbia, S.C., Atlanta, and Tacoma, Wash.
India – Modi’s government isn’t backing down. The Indian PM quit the Chinese social media platform Weibo and the transport minister announced India will not allow Chinese companies to participate in highway projects and will not let Chinese invest in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. | Pakistan accused India of being behind the attacks on the stock exchange in Karachi.
Iran – Iran has agreed to compensate the families of the 176 passengers killed when an Iranian missile struck a Ukrainian airliner. | Iran declared the preservation of the 2015 nuclear deal was dependent on the UN’s arms embargo on Tehran ending in October as planned, even though the UN confirmed Iran’s culpability in the 2019 Saudi Aramco attacks last week.
Israel – Netanyahu delayed his July 1 launch of West Bank annexations as he is still in negotiations with the White House over the projected plan amid global condemnation came from the UN secretary-general, the EU, and Arab countries.
LGBTQ+ Rights – Gabon decriminalized homosexuality, reversing a 2019 law that placed a penalty of up to six months in prison as well as a fine of 5 million CFA francs (£6,393) on same-sex relations.
Russia – Putin granted the ability to rule until 2036 in a landslide vote that approved a package of constitutional changes, the largest since the fall of the USSR, that included pension protections and a ban on same-sex marriage. | The EU extended sanctions on Russia for 6 months after Moscow failed to meet its commitments to its peace agreement with Ukraine to end the Donbass War.
Space Force – The Pentagon launched three commands for the Space Force, including Space Operations Command, Space Systems Command, and Space Training and Readiness Command. Sub-units will be known as “deltas.”
Tech Megacorps – CEOs from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google agreed to testify together before the House Judiciary Committee as part of its antitrust investigation in late July. It will be Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ first such testimony.
Turkey – France withdrew from Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean in (hypocritical) condemnation of Turkey’s role in Libya, Northern Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean. However, Paris has not had the same harsh words for Moscow. | F-35 production will continue through 2022 in Turkey, according to the Pentagon. 937 parts of the F-35, or $9 billion worth of contracts, are built in the country, including more than 400 that are sole-sourced from Turkey. | President Erdogan proposed restoring the more than 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia to a functioning mosque, moving away from its current role as a secular museum, and a court will determine if Erdogan can move ahead. As a key part of Orthodox Christianity, Russia blasted the attempt saying, “We can't go back to the Middle Ages now. We live in a multipolar world, we live in a multi-confessional world, and we need to respect the feelings of believers.”
US Courts – Thousands of US judges remained on the bench after breaking the law and their oath, including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of people of color over traffic fines.
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