But at what price?

“Uniting The Country” is the generic phrase which permeates the national campaigns this year…

But I wonder if I (or ’we’) want to BE ’unified’. I’m realllllly ambivalent about it…

Unified around what? GWOT/TWOD? Persecuting ’illegal’ immgration? Health INSURANCE for all? Homophobia? Racialism?

Well, yeah, I could unite against those things. But to ’unify’ the country as a whole, wouldn’t we on the left have to be prepared to accept some part of that hateful, fascist agenda in the name of “unity?”

I could unify/find solidarity with OPPOSITION to the agenda of the global expansion of militarism and ’free trade,” etc…

Sher a lot of folks who could get behind that. But it wouldn’t unify the country, cuz there’s enormous shit-pots of money to be made by NOT unifying around opposition to corpoRat metastacization. The people who stand to get their hands on all that money won’t ’unify’ with the people who won’t get any of it.

Opposition to increased civilian surveillance? Sure; but how do you “unite” with folks who want MORE surveillance, less free speech, less dissent, less heterodoxy in the public sphere?

I have no desire at all to compromise principle in the name of spruious, specious “unity.”

It strikes me that the folks extolling the merits of “unity” just wanna make sure the status quo ante survives and is strengthened, and with it (not coincidentally) their power and influence…I don’t want to ’unify’—I WON’T ’UNIFY’—with the people who wish me dead or imprisoned for my opinions.

That’d just be stupid.