☀️ Starshine: Burning an american flag is just a way to signal edginess and unseriousness at building any kind of movement

Burning an american flag is just a way to signal edginess and unseriousness at building any kind of movement

counter point: it makes the right people big mad

That’s fair and youre so real for upsetting them

sometimes you can just do things for fun

I see it as a litmus test in a way. It’s usually just some poser “look how cool I am” shit on an individual level, but when governments crack down on it I get nervous It’s the same way I think that horror movie about “what if Winnie the Pooh was evil” looked bad, but also fuck copyright law

nah

i think it's fine and cathartic to do in a lot of contexts but it's also good to keep the optics in mind lol

I think domestically it's just static noise but in other countries it has more value as part of a larger protest

Yeah i was meant domestically, i’m sure its got persuasive power in other places, i thought it was implicit being the 4th of july but i should have made that explicit

oh yeah i meant i think it's fine to do it in the us too tbh just like don't if you're representative of a political org or smth bc that's really unwise

Fair! Americans doing it is just edgelord shit

What if the very thing you are fighting against is the nationalistic fervor that has led to so much suffering in the world?

Sometimes a statement whose only purpose is to shock and offend is the right move.

Who is being persuaded by that act?

Actions like this oppose the normalization of uncritical support of the government. Burning a flag gives permission to others to raise their voices in whatever ways they choose. And: people who get offended at symbolic actions will never be reliable allies in any case.

i do not think it normalizes anything, if the act had persuasive power in the us i wouldn’t be against it but theres a reason that hostile media runs with these images and effective at using them to turn away from support

Turn away support*

It's about undercutting the normalization of uncritical patriotism. It's been going on for decades, and it does have a positive effect, just not on the people that you are talking about. To me it's the same as Dems always triangulating to the "center", I don't see it as a winning strategy.

I'd argue that those folks who are turned away, likely never would have supported us. The burning flag is another excuse in their list.

I don't know about that last part. It's very rare to find a person for whom truly nothing is sacred.

Yes, as a blanket statement it's overly broad. But if people are so easily swayed by symbolic protest I can't see them as being in it for the long haul.

People who have misgivings about their reactionary friends and family and see them react with disproportionate outrage?

But also, sometimes it's important for people whose worldview rests on everyone else being quietly uncomfortable to have to sit with some negative feelings they get when someone else asserts a perspective they don't like. Kid gloves don't always help.

This is not an argument against radical action! Its an argument for not doing ineffective radical action for ingroup signaling

How many americans do you think this resonates with? Like i hate how many leftists think theres something more than a million socialists in this country there isn’t persuasion matters!

There aren't a million socialists, but there are millions of people who are unhappy with things and haven't developed the skills needed to analyze and articulate why or how.

Discourse speedrun any%

Now time to take a big nap and come back to a bunch of normal quotes

Braver than the troops

I mean sure, it's a symbol of oppression to many people around the world and domestically; maybe it represents the genocide of your people and culture; but burning it is just "edgy".

Burning the constitution has a long history as well!!

It makes for really remarkable discourse though. And a lot of easy blocks.

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