I’ve been an active political dissident for over 53 years. I don’t do armchair dissidence. My commitment is that if you see something wrong, you should try to do something to change it. I am hardly what one could call a patriot but I don’t hate my country. I love & respect my fellow Americans as much as I do every other people on the face of the earth. We are not special nor certainly more civilized. As someone who cares about human life more than anything else, I do detest US capitalism & what it has done & is doing to Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, refugees, Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Somalis, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, & so many others.
The distinction between the US government & US citizens is an important one because it is the latter who have the will & capacity to end the violence of US foreign & domestic policies. Those who continue to harbor delusions about the capacity of the US government to end wars, occupations, genocides cannot be faulted for ignorance so much as credulity–a credulity that the oppressed in the US cannot afford & that those in other countries being bombed cannot tolerate.