I’ve seen this word said a lot, specifically for Americans. I understand the basic throughline, that Americans benefit from imperialism and thus are complicit in its crimes.
But…what would be the difference in action if they weren’t?
There is land back, but that doesn’t include what happened in Africa and the middle east. If the average American is complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, what do you do about it? Is it just supposed to guilttrip them? Is it reparations? Is it a mass trial of a couple hundred million people…?
I think it means whatever someone meant, but often that isn’t elaborated, so often I don’t really know.
I think sometimes they mean that we benefit from imperialism, while other times they mean that we’re jointly and severally guilty of it and/or responsible for it.
I think that many—perhaps most—people think in a moral framework, while others don’t.
I’d say that most of us benefit from it and ought to struggle against it, but I wouldn’t say that each and every one of us is “guilty” of it. Bourgeois democracy is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Not every Russian peasant was guilty of the Tsarist empire’s crimes.
The reparations question I feel is above my pay grade, and the answers probably depend on the material conditions post-dissolution/revolution, and I can’t see that far ahead.
I think all Amerikkkans share some level of guilt, while the average amerikkkan has a large amount of fault.
When I was growing up it felt like everyone had a family member in the military.
Even then, a perfect example of our guilt would be something as simple as buying bananas. It seems innocent enough to buy a bushel of bananas for $1.50, but how much suffering was enacted to ensure the price of those banana?
We can say the same about our gas prices, cheap phones, chocolate, coffee, the list can go on forever if we’re being honest.
A lot of amerikkkans seem to forget just how much privilege we have in regard to the abundance of cheap goods at our disposal.
When my parents travel overseas they make sure to fill an entire checked bag with OTC medicine, chocolates, even clothes. My mom even buys phones and other electronics for my relatives before she goes lol.
People are under the impression that the goods cannot be underpriced because of the ramp-up in rentier extraction. I think this mostly just hardens Americans against any course of action that isn’t just making more dealz for the superprofits