Pride, Personal Exploration, and Class Warfare.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This post started as a reply to malasadas' post on The State of White People in America incorperating elemenents of a reply I made to amazements earlier untitled post, that grew out of hand.

For the most part I find myself agreeing with malasadas' observations, but there is a critical aspect that I think many on the Right tend to gloss-over and most on th Left outright ignore. I feel that this is also the cause of the percieved discrimination against whites.

This aspect is White Pride.

Now for many people, both black and white, the image conjured by those two words is this...



My skin is pale (bordering on reflective) and my ancestery reads like a travelogue of Eastern and Contental Europe with occasional raids north into England and Scandinavia. I can claim no particular ethnic or cultural classification other than being of White/European decent.

To express any pride in this fact is to risk being labeled as one of those in the image above. But you know what? Though it is politically incorrect to admit it, I am proud.

In my admitedly biased opinion Western European Civilization is the best civilization ever. My ancestors, when they weren't too busy killing each other, conquered the known world and produced minds like Euclid, Machiavelli, Bach, Shakespere, Dostoyevsky, and Einstien. Yes there were a lot of right bastards in the mix as well, but do the Mongolians go around apologizing for Genghis Khan?

The accepted narrative of US politics is that of a class war between the oppressive white majority represented by wall street and thier political champions the GOP vs. the freedom seeking minorities, academics, and thier political champions the Democrats.

Imperialism is bad, Multi-culturalism is good, etc...

There is much to this narrative that is true and this is why it persists, but as malasadas said, it's a gross simplication and dismissive of the complicated interplays of societal trends across many different groups and individuals.

Personally, I dislike the term "Class War" as I feel that one's "Class" is most often an arbitrary designation usually assigned by someone in no position to do so. For instance, I am white and thus part of the "ruling class", I'm also a broke college student in a predominantly hispanic nieghborhood, if I'm supposed to be in charge clearly I'm doing something wrong.

This difficulty is also illustrated in my reply to amazements

It would be easy to argue that Obama's energy policies are clearly an attack on Rural Americans. Increased fuel prices lead to fewer available jobs and higher food prices. Trust me, when your job involves driving a truck or tractor $4.00 a gal adds up quick. And the push for more public transportation does little to benefit those outside major population centers. The Message Leftists have embraced seems to be "who give's a fuck about those ignorant slope-heads in the flyover states?"

Leftists like to portray the tea part as some many headed deamon that rose from the darkest depths of ignorance and racism but is it any surprise that they're angry?


Yes there is a Class War but the sides are constantly in flux and too numerous to count. The Rich left fights the poor right, The rich right exploits on the poor left, the Rural fight the Urban, and the media acts as mercenaries.

We need a new narrative.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Poland liberated? Maybe in WWI, but in WWII Stalin kept control over Poland and gave it a lot of German territory because he conquered it fair and square. I'd hardly say replacing Nazi genocide with Stalinist dictatorship is liberation, and there's not that much the democracies could have done in the first place. For that matter pre-war Poland was a military dictatorship that attacked the USSR and took the territory the Soviets took back in 1939, attacked the Weimar Republic, and attacked Czechoslovakia, retaking Teschen in 1938. Against Hitler or Stalin that's all small fries but Poland was pretty unpleasant prior to the war, and neglecting that helps create confusion about *why* the USSR wanted that part of Poland.

Muslims....the USA did that with Serbia, but not in Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, or really with the Palestinians in Israel. Instead the USA has backed evil regimes in all save Israel, which is an Old South-style siege mentality overmilitarized democracy.

South Korea I'll give you. It's the only good example.

[dark-weezing.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more the end of the Cold War with Poland, but duly noted with Stalin. I wish more was expanded on the U.S. alliance with him, frankly, so we learn and never do it again.

As for the Middle Eastern examples, fair enough. Since you're the expert, any good historical book recommandations? (An above commenter said I should read up on Iran, so I might as well add on.)

One out of three, I'll take it. Heh.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend reading about the history of the Iran-Iraq War. I'd also recommend reading about the history of the British Mandate of Palestine *before* reading about the Arab-Israeli wars. A lot of the murkiness is more understandable that way.

For that matter, when it comes to the USA's participation in World War II, I'd also recommend reading some of the post-1991 histories of the Axis-Soviet War, as they take into account the degree to which it was Imperium of Man v. the Galactic Empire while fitting it into the broader context of the war. There's no history blending that version of WWII with the history of the democratic war yet.

Another book that might do well to explain things with the US Civil War and its aftermath is Black Flag Over Dixie, which charts one side of the Civil War that tends to get less focus than others.

[dark-weezing.livejournal.com]

Looks like I have plenty to work with. Heh. My thanks and appreciation for the recommendations.