rayrena wrote:
> It most certainly is. When you offer support for,
> say, Hezbollah or the Iraqi insurgency or the NLF
> against U.S. imperialism, you are endorsing a
> nationalist solution to a problem.
Does anybody on this list actually speak in terms of offering "support" for this or that nation-state or aspiring national liberation group? Carrol's repeated statements on this list that there is no such thing as a "left" in the United States in any meaningful sense also implies that such statements of support are equally meaningless, since there is also no collective subject capable of effectively (i.e. materially) realizing such support.
Even Dennis R. and Wojtek, those two great admirers of Frontex, "humanitarian" intervention, Hartz IV, and other nice stuff, state their liking of European capital in terms of personal preferences, not any sort of programmatic orientation.
> More nationalism.
Nonsense. The fact that "real abstractions" such as capital, state, and nation are ultimately socially constructed does not make their material force any less real. It is incumbent upon any left worthy of the name in the "advanced" capitalist countries to work for the dissolution of these real abstractions. Open borders is a demand that does so.
Open borders isn't some programmatic point to be negotiated the way Social Democrats negotiate questions like whether the old-age pension should be effective at age 65 or 67. It is a fundamental position for any anti-capitalist left, like a woman's right to an abortion, or the necessity of expropriating owners of capital.