(1135 words, part 2 of 7)

Let’s talk about nationalism, a frequent component of fascism, which is absolutely present in the U.S.

Donald Trump has allegedly made it illegal to burn the U.S. flag in protest, after a long-settled SCOTUS ruling expressly allowing flag burning.

They made us pledge allegiance to this flag “with liberty and justice for all” every morning from ages 5-18, and then get mad when we demand liberty and justice for all. They get mad when we, or heaven forbid, politicians, refuse to make this “pledge” publicly.

Inevitably those upset raise the spectre of disrespecting veterans. Those who say veterans fought for “freedoms” need to consider that one of the freedoms they allegedly fought for is freedom of expression. One major example of this is the choice of whether to recite a nationalistic pledge with one’s peers. Or to burn a flag.

But most of all, I don’t have particular “allegiance” to the political project that is the United States, because I’m not proud of it in its current form. I *am* proud of my peers, the workers of the U.S. But as a political entity, this country is fairly trashy! It has the worst worker and consumer protections in the rich world; we have the largest wealth inequality and the poverty levels that are rising fastest; we have the largest per-capita imprisoned population. Since so much goes to our military, we get the least human services per dollar paid to taxes perhaps in the entire world. We refuse to officially acknowledge the genocide our ancestors did to natives here. Even liberal hero Barack Obama, when he visited Hiroshima, refused to apologize to its residents for our forefathers’ bombing of its civilians. We have a long history of subjugating other countries for their land and resources, and in our own lifetimes, our country has spent billions if not trillions destabilizing democracies around the world.

We are the largest anti-democracy force that has existed in the history of the world, and among historians, that’s not a debate.

We don’t have a democracy here, either; we have a dictatorship of capital. Remember the “let them eat cake” line that the French ruling class allegedly said before the revolution? That’s happening here: we are “free” to do most anything we wish, but because wealth has been siphoned upwards for 50 years now, and nearly all actions are constrained by material resources, we don’t have the actual ability to do much of anything. In “live free or die”—the motto of the state where I live (NH)—the unstated emphasis is on “die.”

Most of us can’t afford to take even two days off work to demonstrate our grievances, while it’s normal in other rich nations to have six weeks of vacation and their economies keep puttering along. Is their economy working for them? Sounds like it. On the contrary, it feels like we are working for our economy. And what is the “economy” (GDP, stock prices) if not for the measure of how well rich people are doing? Don’t cite working people’s pension funds; something like 80% of all stocks are owned by 1% or less of the population.

Most of us can’t pay for traditional higher education. Republicans in power are trying to exert control over this system and generally dismantle it, believing it to be a conduit for inculcating young minds with socialist ideas. (Audio tape from inside the Nixon and Reagan administrations makes clear this was an aim of theirs.) But the joke’s on them, as the vast majority of traditional higher education serves to advance capitalist propaganda, not socialism. If you want a socialist education, you pretty much have to educate yourself.

Almost no one can save enough to start a business that would compete with those already at the top. We hear talk of “the oligarchy.” What I’ve described is more akin to feudalism. It’s the logical outcome of the extent to which we’ve let capitalism run amok, that is, the extent of politicians’ deregulation at the behest of the ownership class.

Have you seen the graph of per-capita healthcare spending versus life expectancy? The U.S. is off in our own little world, away from all other nations, spending wild amounts and not getting life expectancy for it. What’s the difference here? A bunch of middlemen are getting high off the hog, skimming “profit” from schemes that shouldn’t have been legalized but were. I put “profit” in air quotes because that’s actually your money and mine. It’s being stolen from us. And remember, it’s not just our money: because our money is the measure of our personal freedom, and our political power.

So in skimming profit from all of us, the ruling class is also stealing our ability to leave jobs we don’t hate, and our ability to influence policy such that the playing field is kept level and the grifts don’t exponentially increase. We don’t have that any more, and as you may be able to see, the grifts are accelerating. What started under Reagan continued under every subsequent president and has reached a fever pitch under Trump: we are acting like a dying empire in that folks are looting as much as possible until collapse.

The median home right now, as a percentage of median income, is several times more expensive than housing was in the great depression. This is a measure of wealth inequality, and if it keeps accelerating, you will lose your house, one way or another, even if you own it outright today.

I don’t say the pledge of allegiance because my allegiance is to the working class, who must sell their labor to pay their bills; not to the class of people whose lifestyle is funded solely by virtue of owning things that turn them profit. The U.S. state as it exists today is bought and paid for by that second group, the ownership class. (Or “capital class,” or “ruling class.”) My allegiance is not to them and their political project, which is primarily meant to ensure they stay at the top. Your allegiance shouldn’t be, either.

I ally myself with those who’ve chosen to see the world as it is, and to oppose what I’ve described here. Maybe that opposition is substantial, like the young people who dirtied a fighter jet production clean room to stall the war machine. Or maybe it’s as simple as choosing not to make skimming excess value of labor your life’s work. That’s just… unimaginative.

The only reason I don’t kneel and hold up a fist during “the pledge” is because others watching likely haven’t yet learned the above. Those are humans who, like me for most of my life, didn’t understand these things. I don’t want to stop the potential for a conversation before it even starts.

Brandon Smith has been an elected town official and the youngest winner of the only award for independent journalism. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and In These Times.