Appealing to American myths, traditions, and concepts

[GPDP]

This was talked about briefly on the health care thread in Politics, but I'd like to get a more in-depth discussion going.

Is appealing to common American themes desirable in building consciousness and winning people to our side, the revolutionary left?

To clarify, I basically mean invoking buzzwords and talking points commonly employed by people in mainstream and not-so-marginalized debate so as to better identify with Americans. This could include pointing out progressive things some Founding Fathers may have said, appealing to agreeable sections of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution (and in the case of liberals, that we may both find particularly progressive), or even taking up the rhetoric of "liberty" and "rights" and whatever other popular words are thrown around.

Is this worth doing to get more American workers to identify with us through themes and myths they have been inculcated in since childhood? Or would this detract from and water down our own rhetoric?

[Os Cangaceiros]

It certainly wouldn't be without precedent...a good number of leftist currents have used historical figures in their own national mythology (such as Alexander Nevsky in the USSR or Zapata in EZLN-occupied Mexico).

Is it a good thing? I don't know. I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing in that the ideals we speak of as leftists (such as egalitarianism and resistance against injustice) have been around for thousands of years, and it's certainly effective to some extent to point to admired figures in U.S. history and say that those people shared some of our ideals, especially Thomas Paine and some of the lesser known rank-and-file revolutionaries like Thomas Young. It's also kind of manipulative, though, in the sense that the society that people like Thomas Jefferson wanted is a far cry from the society that we want.

[cb9's_unity]

If we can find words or ideas of the 'founding fathers' that support our arguments then I don't see any reason why we can't use them. As long as we aren't actually changing our beliefs or adopting nationalism then its fine.

One 'founding father' belief that I'd like to exploit is Thomas Jefferson's belief that a new constitution should be created every 19 years. There is a widespread cult of the constitution in America that views it as heresy to either speak against the constitution. This massive cult would absolutely fight against socialism. Thus using a very specific belief of Jefferson to battle this cult (which essentially every member of the American government belongs to or pays some sort of verbal tribute to) could help to de-radicalize to the public the idea of massive change in American government. Jefferson came to this 19 year mark using the logic that each generation shouldn't be dominated by laws of the last generation. This again could be used to show that society has significantly changed in the last several hundred years and it is time to shed the old form of government.

We have to walk a fine line though. It is equally important that we don't actually take the war for independence to be our own. We have to fight against the concept of American exceptionalism and the idea of the founding fathers as pure political saints. We have to expose that the founding fathers were in fact acting in their own class interest and the government we have now is designed to protect upper-class interests. Part of this is exposing why the founding fathers were so anti-democracy when advocating republicanism.

Right now the mainstream american view is essentially that radicals are inherently delusional. If we can attach some of our ideas to people the American public views as 'credible', then it could serve to allow our ideas to get past the initial rejection radical ideas usually receive.

In essence we have to say "it is ridiculous that we should respect Jefferson as a hero of freedom when he owned slaves until the day he died and even used some of them for his own sexual purposes", while at other times saying "however even Jefferson would have recognized that this government doesn't serves the realities of this generation". Those who are willing to become socialists will reject the vast majority Jefferson while those who continue to support constitutional capitalism will have to stand against the words of one of their hero's.

[CartCollector]

It would be helpful to point out to Americans that the Constitution was, at the time it was made, both big government and undemocratic. It was, to use the words of today, made by a bunch of back room deals in Washington (well at that time Philadelphia). Who got a say in what in to the Constitution? Did the blacks? Nope, they were too busy doing what their masters told them to. Did the Indians? No, they were too busy being killed by frontiersmen because the US said that their land was open to settlement. Did the women? Nope, they were too busy taking care of the children, the apex of their life. Did the landless poor white men? Nope, they were too busy working to make someone else richer. What about the men with farms? They got to vote, so they got a little indirect control over their politicians, but they didn't get to write one word of the Constitution. Same for the tradesmen. Now, the businessmen with large estates who held political office, they got a whole bunch of control. Now how many Americans is that? A couple hundred at most, in a country made up of tens of millions. So there you have it, America: when you stand up for the Constitution, you stand up for a document written undemocratically, for elitists, by elitists. A bunch of big government laws that they made up and told you that you wanted it. Are you going to stand for this?
You could also point out that how there was Shay's rebellion and the western Pennsylvania farmer's rebellion (forget the name) just a few years after the new nation was formed. The latter rebellion being about taxes! People sure loved the Constitution and the new American government, didn't they.

Really, most of this is covered in chapter 5 of A People's History of the United States. Read it here: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnkin5.html