Posted by Bunny.
It's good to start off a new month with a new Bunny mailbag. Today's e-mail comes from Shawna.
Hi Pinky, I've been slowly working my way backwards through your collection of videos and wanted to say that I've enjoyed them all in different ways so far. I just finished watching the Ribbon Sticker video where at the end you make your own sticker that says "Reject U.S. Imperialism". I was wondering if you could think of a more positive alternative that would basically say the same thing, much like the "Support Our Troops" ribbons are "positive" (they may be misleading but the tone is positive). I believe very strongly in positive messages! Because we can't build a social justice movement with negative slogans! I just wanted to ask you for your 2 cents! Shawna
My reply:
Hi Shawna. I'm glad you're enjoying our videos. I'm going to respond for Pinky because she's busy editing right now. But we talked about your e-mail and in the end we both decided there's no simple answer to your simple question. For example, part of the problem with a statement like "Reject U.S. Imperialism" is that it actually doesn't make sense if you really think about it. (We just went ahead and used it anyway because we wanted to keep things simple.) The reason why this doesn't make sense is, considering how the U.S. came into existence, how it developed into what it is today, and what it has to do in order for it to "maintain its shape and form", there is no way to even imagine the U.S. "without" imperialism. Actually, we think it's fair to say that the U.S. is imperialism - always has been. So how could we really say that anybody should "reject U.S. imperialism", as if the two could somehow be split apart and one side thrown away? See the problem? We still believe that the U.S. should stop stepping on people - not only all around the planet but also including people here within its political borders - but if the U.S. were to really stop doing that, we think the U.S. would literally become something so different that maybe it wouldn't even make sense to call it by the same name anymore. Anyway - that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves - we'll worry about finding a good name after we've fixed a few problems, yes?
In the meantime, how about we just get comfortable with the idea that rejecting bad things is not negative; it's positive.
-Bunny.