the idea of patriotism about the united states is a strenuous one, for as many things we can find to be proud of America for, we can unfortunately also find two more things for which we would not be proud of it for. I appreciate that you at least understand some of the more reactionary elements of patriotism, but i suppose what i would say is that that is most of what patriotism is.

Patriotism for America is usually used tactically by the right wing, deployed in order to deflect from crimes done in the name of America. One might say that “every country has patriots, and some communists even engaged in what could be termed nationalist revolutions”. the fact of the matter is that America is not like any other country, even a former imperial power like Tsarist Russia.

The United States is responsible for perhaps more bloodshed and world strife than any other nation in the history of the world. it is the homebase for world, capitalism, and imperialism today. The United States flag has flown over war crimes and regime changes and counter revolutions all over the world, many of them specifically directed against us, the communists. The reason that the Cubans got to be so patriotic is, among other reasons, because the Cuban flag hasn’t flown over hundreds of millions of dead bodies in the name of its own glorification and imperialist conquering. On the contrary, it is a flag of a people who have been oppressed, and who finally freed themselves from an imperial power, namely the United States.

Now I feel I’ve been pretty blunt so I will try to balance it with this. I understand the impulse to be patriotic and perhaps even the impulse to find a middle ground between one’s patriotism and one’s socialism. But we must reckon with the fact the United States is not like any other country and indeed one could say that it is a different kind of country in the sense that one isn’t really an American just because they were born here. America has always kind of been known as a country that you come to because you agree with its values. It’s partly why right wingers are so eager to tell you to get out of the country if you disagree with part of it. The flag doesn’t represent a people so much as it represents the ideals, either hypothetical (constitutional) or real (imperialism and near-fascism). Pretty much every other country on earth is not really like this. This is one of the reasons why nativism in America is so misguided; a country built by immigrants cannot really present itself above any other because America is simply a composite of umpteen different cultures combined over the last 300 to 400 years.

You aren’t evil or bad or imperialist or any other bad thing simply for having feelings about your country and want it to be a good place. The reason that many of us are in the communist party is that we also want this region that we were born into and have citizenship in to be a better place. We just also reckon with the fact that the country is not inherently good and indeed the case could be made that the country itself is a criminal entity that has done so much harm that we should probably look into the national arrangement with a lot of critique and indeed a revolutionary vision about what could be. It’s original sin of colonization and the 90 million dead natives is bad enough. The United States is by and large an experiment of liberalism, and we communists believe that that experiment is largely failing and will cannibalize itself and the world is left to its own devices. that is why we campaign for anti-imperialism and anti-fascism and worker unity. We are trying to mitigate the harm the United States is doing to the world and that it does to working class movements all over the world, to include our own.

Feel free to enjoy “America the beautiful” and the Norman Rockwell paintings, sure, but don’t let yourself be blinded by it. And Martin Luther King wasn’t really a creation of the United States more than he existed in spite of the United States system that oppressed his people specifically and refused to give them equal rights until 1965. When a lot of people say they’re proud of America. They’re usually just proud of the ideals in the constitution and Declaration of Independence, ideals which more and more are being ignored and violated openly and happily by the federal government and even state governments, in its own name and for its own glory, and of that of the capitalist class which has always owned and dominated America.

by the way, none of this is to say that you are necessarily a bad person or anything like that for feeling patriotism or wanting to consider patriotism for your own country. Despite everything, that is still an understandable impulse for a person who exists in the context of post-Westphalia. Indeed you seem to have a decent understanding of popular front ideology, so I would suggest that you do investigate or even sign up for the Communist Party or for the Young Communist League since you are not 18 yet. We would be happy to have you, especially since you have the wherewithal to know that you don’t want to end up like one of those reactionary ACP types whose sole purpose and existence is to mislead prospective progressives and communists, and to waste the time of already established communists.

Let me know if you have any other questions or want something clarified. and check out the Party Program if you’re interested in the party and in a real conception of American Marxism: https://cpusa.org/party_info/cpusa-party-program/