This reminds me of David Bacon's excellent letter to the New York Times
about their editorial which criticized the AFL-CIO's new policy on illegal
immigration. I wonder if this new policy is in any way connected to their
campaign to prevent China from joining the WTO. Peter
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nations are required to organize for mutual well-being for purposes that families, voluntary associations, and local governments cannot fulfill. In other words, nations are become real thru the states they construct. Nations also provide a collective memory that serves certain purposes. Obviously these functions can be flawed in all sorts of ways, from the standpoint of the working class.
But since such needs can go to fundamental values and entail high personal sacrifice, naturally the nation properly inspires emotional feeling.
Every such situation is ambiguous. Settling the U.S. entailed great tragedies and atrocities, but also great individual commitment to positive values. Rejecting or accepting it wholesale are equivalent errors, albeit opposite political postures. This ambiguity is the root of the humor in AG's poem. He wants to be a part, but he realizes there remain considerable inconsistencies in his outlook and that of mainline patriotism. It is not a rejectionist posture. You'd have to look thru AG's verse for a long time to find actual trotskyism, as opposed to affection for trotskyists.
Re: the AFL, both the immigration and China policies spring from a common interest in defending workers' interests in the U.S., which, after all, is its job. Lack of amnesty was providing no practical benefit, whereas amnesty brings workers into a regulated system and reduces the scope of non-regulated work; immigrants are also a dynamic political force in the context of unionization, a point some might remember me making some time ago. There is no contradiction w/the China position because there is no ethnic element in opposing China in the WTO. It stems solely from China's position as preeminent international cheerleader for the absence of labor standards in trade agreements.
mbs