One of the great myths of the United States is that rebellion and insurrection are among the necessary components of patriotism. Myth-making provides the U.S. a way to recycle its gory mess of violent anti-government white supremacy and white privilege into something sacred. Perhaps no nation has accumulated more myths about itself in its short 245 years of existence than America, which has used those myths to justify everything from Indigenous genocide and slavery to dropping nuclear weapons on Japanese cities at the end of World War II

This remark completely misses the point: rebellion and insurrection were the source of modern democracy, and hopefully of a socialist transition. The problem is the hopeless befuddlement of the left and the strange way that a fascist right formation can rip off the democratic transition and its rebellion. The American revolution was tragically flawed but it was also a desperation-move to attempt democracy even given the flawed start. The alternative was Kings George forever, so to speak. If the early rebs botched the standard of true democracy so did the critics on the left who took botched radical gestures to a new level of Bolshevik idiocy. In a curiously unconscious wisdom rebs took out a loan on the future to inject democracy into a sewer and as events soon revealed, succeeded if they could repay their loan--with a Civil War. The result was abolition, and then again the struggle against racism. But at least the card of democracy was dealt and played. The point is clearer in the case of ancient Athens. Should Athens have foregone democracy because of its slavery? Judge for yourself, but democracy at least has a chance for the future.

Source: America's toxic mythologies are destroying us - Alternet.org