(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
Nobody is perfect
True, that’s why I think the six downvotes are funny. I imagine them saying “no, MWM is perfect!”
Yes this article seems to summarize the Midwestern Marx group’s schtik.
Tactically for the movement as a whole it is good to have Americans be more anti imperialist and unionizing in order to undermine the power of empire and funnel people to a more marxist lenninist way of thinking. I don’t think they want the disaster of unions for whites.
MWM doesn’t say much about marginalized people other than say that they are not revolutionary subjects for their minority status, but by their status as workers. They are very much in favor of AES countries. There is the linguistic criticism that Americans can be proud of the historical workers struggles without opposing their American identity. It seems that it is a linguistic strategy to not trigger barriers to conversion.
Is the criticism that they post very long winded stuff and still don’t mention how the secondary contradictions of ablism, anti LGBTQ, and white supremecy are superstructural elements that support the base of capitalism?
From an ideological funnel perspective I don’t think that they are bad, but useful to the socialist cause. If there were an actual party with power and they were doing what they are doing now, I’d say that they serve the forces of reaction because their kind of discourse isn’t necessary when a communist party with effective power exists. In that situation that party would need to push against our old superstructure even further with a cultural revolution.
For those that can be radicalized with compassion, use one kind of rhetoric. For those that can be radicalized with self interest use another. The core of the party must though be those that are compassionate either initially or eventually.
It is sus platforming Haz or Maupin though.
Unless you are a third worldist that thinks that the USA needs to be militarily destroyed by the periphery nations, I don’t think they are inherently opposed to the building of the socialist movement in the United States. Tell me where I am wrong.
The US will be destroyed by the fourth worlders. I’ve posted elsewhere in this thread why American Communists absolutely need to be decolonial revolutionaries. MWM meeting white supremacists halfway leads them away from the decolonial movement, let’s them keep their reactionary views, and puts them into opposition to our liberation. Instead of platforming indigenous and Black revolutionary voices they party with white supremacists like Haz and Hinkle.
Supporting indigenous people’s liberation is certainly morally correct. The way about linguistically supporting it must appeal to the interests of the people you are trying to convince though. We can talk about how we can use indigenous knowledge to have a healthier relationship with the land and live happier and healthier lives. We can utilize the treaties as a means to an end to give rental properties on their land back to the tribes as a means to undo the exploititative rent of corporations like black rock.
What does being “destroyed by fourth worlders” mean exactly? They are locked out of power to destroy the country without help from colonizers thus proclaiming such a strategy is immaterial.
If we see all workers as workers regardless of background and organize in such a manner, but listen to the marginalized about the ways that the capitalist superstructure is perpetuated within our new organizations in order to take actions to meet their needs.
Who they platform is sus though.
I think the core issue is that the working class in the USA is having trouble conceptualizing how to actually achieve power.
The thing is that the majority of the working class in the US and the white sections of the working class in particular simply aren’t revolutionary classes due to their material conditions. They all benefit from imperialist superprofits from abroad (not just by higher wages but also by cheap goods, commodities, services, and things like entertainment, etc.) and the whites also benefit from the greater exploitation and oppression of minorities within the US. Not all workers in the US are the same, some are much more oppressed than others. These are key points to analyze when considering the revolutionary potential in any country.
You can see examples in the US historically of large sections of white workers being opposed to or at best indifferent towards indigenous or black revolutionary liberation movements. These examples exist because of the material conditions causing differences in interests between these groups. The white settler population will not give up its position without significant pressure both internal and external. Not necessarily military defeat (although that’s a likely road due to current imperialist politics) but certainly economically by breaking enough of the chains of imperialism externally (by the third world liberating itself) causing more exploitation internally which will push larger sections of the population to revolutionary action the first among which will again be the minorities.
When the whites exclude marginalized people from unions, that always makes the unions less effective. Yes I agree. China liberating the the third world will make things worse for people in the first world and I suspect that will increase both the revolutionary potential and the forces of reaction. The previously colonized world sanctioning the USA would be an effective tactic for bringing a socialist world into being.
How do you expect a bourgeoisie with this many nukes to allow that to happen? I’ve pointed out in this thread the US increasing internal Imperialism to massively expand oil production to maintain dollar imperialism. It’s frankly a Trot opinion to think America will die from external causes. Block America’s access to internal wealth and you can choke Imperialism from within. I don’t know how much protesting Ukraine aid is gonna hurt Imperialism, but the no DAPL protests certainly did. The Cop City protests prevent international states from studying urban occupation.
Our Bourgeoisie thinks they can survive a nuclear war. They can’t survive one if we are sieging their neighborhoods. Necessarily we owe it to the world to end America, we don’t have the privilege to sit it out.
You mention that America’s imperialist contradictions will increase revolutionary potential and reaction. Which direction do you think will work best in our favor? Bending to reaction at the expense of the colonized peoples, or guiding them towards the decolonial movement?
External factors will contribute to the fall of western capital, not the only factor. Domestically building a means to support people in a socialist manner when that system falls is an important goal. Protesting the movements of capital are defensive but necessary.
I guess my point is that we should focus our energy on building socialism rather than destroying capitalism. I also think that the decolonization should be done in a socialist manner, not in the liberal essentialist manner.
What Liberalism advocates Decolonization at all. Liberal Decolonization is the propertied nation giving nominal rights to their colonies, i.e. neo-colonialism. Any system that gives the settlers political or economic supremacy is going to maintain settler Colonialism.
I’m uninterested in what the settlers deem socialist, because they don’t even understand their own settler relationship to the colonized peoples. They are overwhelmingly illiterate in the history of how we became colonized.
Building socialism necessarily includes black and indigenous sovereignty, not something given to us afterwards. It is the path towards Socialism. Our Bourgeoisie is nothing without their ongoing colonization of Indigenous land and their comprador settler workers who labor those resources. Ideally the American workers’ movements wake up to this contradiction and exercises it, otherwise the fight against Colonialism will take other, less ideal forms.
It’s nothing to do with morals. It’s ending the colonial relationship to land and depriving the settlers of landed property rights. The struggle for indigenous sovereignty won’t end until this happens so it doesn’t matter if white Americans build their national socialism they’ll have to fight off attempts of the indigenous and Black nations asserting their sovereignty.
Frankly we are soon heading towards the settler nation abandoning large swathes of territory due to their own economic practices. California was settled by the refugees of the self imposed Dust Bowls who were given Californian farms managed by Japanese migrants who were interned by the settler states during WW2. There is no new West to bail them out of their contradictions. It’s not listening to indigenous, it’s working for them. The decolonial government will take sovereignty over the lands out of the hands of the colonizer class. Political supremacy of the settlers is a continuation of white supremacy. I have no interest in respectability politics if the audience is settler nationalist, we do not politic for the settlers, this is not their liberation (nor was American Liberty calling for the emancipation of slaves). There will be millions of Americans who will follow us, I’m sure of it, but we are right to select them ourselves, and set standards for working together.
We are not trying to convince reactionaries of our cause, we will work with those who are not. Those who’d rather be approachable to the reactionaries than work with colonized revolutionaries are preparing themselves for the dustbin of history.
Someone recently said something like (paraphrased): Many of us Communists will end up going to prison. For you White Communists, you will be forced to chose between the White gangs and the Communists/Brown folks. If you think there is tactics in pretending to be a white supremacist to save yourself, you are not a Communist, you are an enemy.
I’m talking about now. I agree with you about the future.
Yes and you misunderstand. The indigenous people are not marginalized groups of Americans. They are not Americans, they are their own nations, their own political and cultural bodies. Black Liberation comes in the form of becoming an independent nation and indigenous liberation comes in the form of total sovereignty over stolen land. We literally cannot wait for settlers and white supremacists to change their minds and treat us better, we will fight for sovereignty with or without them. Asking us to be subjugated into a settler socialism is assimilation and genocide. We will have white allies, not white saviors.
Anarchism and herrenvolk democracy cannot guarantee our safety and emancipation.
If you believe that a Vanguard can lead a revolution then you must understand that the political beginnings of a Vanguard confederation of decolonial states is a much more realistic and material goal than performing a cultural revolution on American settlers while still under bourgeois rule. How could we ever know if a white supremacists has changed their views? Is it their views that matter or their ability to exercise bigotry through access and adjacency to power?
This is news to you? Midwestern have always been patsocs, and Liger even recommended Maupin’s book as well as admitting to doing a collab with InfraHaz.
the 3 ppl who downvoted me are patsocs :p
Looks like you shamed one of them successfully lol
probably true, but tbh why are you checking upvote down vote totals? I don’t really care about whether I’m upvoted/downvoted or not, as long as it’s not being spam downvoted by wisconcom bots lol
Tbf as others have said, they’re mostly crypto-patsocs. I’ve primarily seen the good takes on China and Venezuela and assumed they’re alright. When I watched the purity fetish interview there were some dog whistles, but I brushed them off. Only recently was I told of the “in defense of patriotism” article (from Marx madness), and I only happened upon this thread because I finally found Zikato’s Twitter.
That whole thread by Roderic is great and really digs into the problems with midwesternmarx and this book.
They’ve been flirting with patsocs for a while, but it looks like when pressed about it now they are doubling down. Recently they had some friendly interactions with Haz even.
Nick from RBN invited Eddie and Haz on after Eddie debated Vaush. Nick b talking to LaRouchites on his show so at this point I’m not surprised. These guys are all grifters.
I don’t know about the other two but I wouldn’t call Nick a grifter
He’s a journalist/podcaster that relies on audience donations to stay in business. He may not be a grifter in intentions but he relies on grifters to grow his platform. He’s ultimately a tailist, but what’s the qualitative difference between a tailist and a grifter?
In what sense is he a tailist? As far as I know, relying on donations is fairly common for independent journalists and political activists, and he isn’t exactly making a lot of money
His content sits almost entirely within the corporate media landscape, as in he’s either siding with one or reacting to it.
He’s outside of the democrats now but still limits himself to discussions within that space.
There is certainly plenty of content discussing that, but it’s far from everything they cover. Unless you’ve heard some unacceptable stance of his (regarding landback or something similarly important) that I haven’t, I don’t see the reasoning for him being a tailist or a grifter, assuming you don’t have this view of more or less any Marxist who’s primarily a journalist or pundit
Uncritical platforming of Haz is the most recent example. He called everyone who criticized him for that Liberals. Haz is anti-Land Back and a settler nationalist.
And look, I overall have a positive view of RBN, but Nick is the one I’m most worried about. It’s coming to the point where he’s either in it for clout or fails to differentiate clout from correctness.
On another note, Roderick Day is an excellent writer and theorist and has tons of great pieces on red sails
MWM (Eddie) and Rainer Shea are crypto patsocs. They don’t believe in Land Back and Black Liberation, they believe Settler Colonialism in the US is over and thus the decolonial movement doesn’t apply.
They are dogmatists who refuse to do any historical research of North America, and are class reductionists (who ignore that racism and colonialism are class systems in the first place).
A decolonial vanguard government cannot be ruled by the colonizer class, end of. White supremacy needs to be destroyed in its political-economic form, landed property, and the developing white proletariat needs to shed it or it will be consumed by history.
Unity slogan for the colonized masses is asking us to work for our colonizers. America will be destroyed. The Americans will no longer have sovereignty over the land, but they will have use-rights.
I want to point out that the trend of Imperialism being the primary contradiction over Settler Colonialism, so we should form unity around anti-Imperialism, is ignoring the huge flaw that Settler Colonialism is what gives the US the ability to maintain global dominance. The US achieved energy independence and reasserted dollar supremacy under Bush and Obama by massively increasing resource extraction on indigenous and stolen lands. The indigenous nations were at the forefront of trying to stop the expansion in environmental exploitation, DAPL, KXL, etc. Just a few months ago Biden approved a massive project in Alaska on indigenous territory where the people there don’t even have running water or electricity, this was just so the US could replace the gulf states’ oil output to depress prices enough to harm Russia. (Also want to mention Cop City in Atlanta, where an ancient indigenous forest is being razed to build a mock city for states all over the world to practice occupying urban centers. An indigenous protestor was murdered by police there while trying to block construction.)
This doesn’t ignore that Canada and Australia are two more settler colonies that use their own stolen resources to boost the US Empire. If we are to attack the empire from within, doesn’t it make more sense to damage its extractive capabilities rather than engage in unity politics to, what amounts to, reforming the Imperialism? Contesting land within the US is far more crippling for the glass cannon that is the US empire.
I’ve noticed a few times that decolonial points get brought up, specifically in relation to US settlers today, the comments expressing these ideas tend to get quite a few downvotes without anyone really offering a substantive critique. I find it a bit worrying but I don’t know if it’s some external brigading or if some of the users here hold these views.
In any case, like you said, the US is very much still a white-supremacist settler state. There is a very real material basis leading to differences in interests between racial groups in the US. This kind of divide makes it very difficult if not impossible to rely on a predominantly white working class to be a revolutionary force. There’s a reason that most of the theoretical development and all the revolutionary movements in the US have been led by minorities and the conditions to change that aren’t there yet. Not even close.
spoiler
Like confused men they don’t understand that the system of oppression can hurt them while still overwhelmingly benefit them
I also want to point out that many of our comrades here who disagree with our takes on Decolonization are being good party members and holding the lines that their and many parties around the world are holding, hope in the American workers. But these parties especially the ones in the settler colonies of North America have not done the necessary investigation of their settler society and land and resource theft. Many of them are petit/semi (landed) bourgeois, educated, and through this have privileged entrance into Marxist theory, me included. We know that Lenin and the colonized comrades had an uphill battle against European Chauvinism within the international Communist movement which is what crystalized Marxism Leninism in the first place.
There is no reason to abstract internal colonization as either finished or different from external colonization, even calling it internal colonization makes it seem like the solution for the colonized Africans and indigenous nations is to absorb them into the settler nation. No, the settler states exist on stolen resources that they use to dominate the rest of the world, but its connection to wealth is here, inside its borders. It needs settlers to take land and hold it for the bourgeoisie to later expropriate. It needs settler dominated unions to build and work the environmentally extractive and damaging infrastructure that only benefits the settler masses. I posted about armed indigenous resistance (backed by the Panthers) to racist fishing enclosures in the 1960s that sparked the American Indian Movement, and that post had far less traction than this one about MWM.
American comrades, find out what tribes inhabited the places you have physical connections to. Learn how they came to no longer own that territory and why you and your people now do. You will learn far more about capitalism and America than through studying other movements, because our conditions are not the same. Apply the methodologies of MLism to the history of this continent, stop importing the solutions from others.
Rainer Shea is nigh incoherent half the time. I wonder whether they are just high on their own supply of overly wordy hot takes.
Rainer Shea supports landback and Black Liberation though. Shea has stated that Amerikkka is a white supremacist prison house of nations that must be dismantled and the people of color most oppressed by the U.S. should have a large say in how that is done.
He says he does, but his focus on external imperialism forms coalitions with anti-Indian and anti-Black white supremacists. This allows settler white supremacists to dominate any “Communist” movement that forms out of the US and negates any good “intentions” towards the imprisoned nations. His actions speak much louder than his words. We are not going to allow ourselves to be locked into a system of settler political supremacy, because that is the existing system we will liberate ourselves from. Rainer hasn’t read any history about how each nation actually became imprisoned, because he calls the researchers in that space “Liberals” and “wreckers”. He pushes any potential comrade away from the decolonial voices. Whenever I mention land theft and genocide his followers pick examples of indigenous people owning slaves or warring against other tribes, or indigenous and Black people serving the military, without any Marxist analysis to contextualize these facts. As Communists in America we need to be literate in the history and processes of American Colonialism, not this book worship that Rainer and the PatSocs get into.
I will say that it makes me incredibly uncomfortable that Rainer seems to be close to PatSocs, and this is something I have discussed with him before. But when I read his facebook posts, his followers don’t seem afraid to call him out when he says something that is wrong or worth of criticism.
I think calling people liberals and wreckers can be a fair label, but that overuse of it can as you say, push others away.
I’m not you and I haven’t had your experiences, but I haven’t seen any of his followers picking those examples that you mention. Not denying that isn’t a possibility, just I haven’t seen it.
From Rainer’s perspective, I understand his point of view that allowing neoliberals to coopt movements rather than having marxists organize and lead can seem like communism and landback are being delegitimized, and that we must first and foremost not lose communists to democrats, so to speak, and we must take heed of those who channel criticism of capitalism into criticism of socialists. I don’t fully agree with Rainer, speaking as a POC myself, but I tend to find him in at least good faith.
He supports land back only in the nominal sense. His focus on building an anti-Imperialist coalition with liberals and white supremacists is enough proof that he is at a cul de sac in his development, and the reason why he needs to listen to colonized radicals about his legitimizing of settler nationalism.
The standard of a Communist in this country needs to be a person with deep knowledge of the historical materialism that created and developed the US settler empire.
Rainer’s protaganism is leading him into seeking validation from reactionary settlers. Americans have never defeated their own imperialism, every time their victims won for themselves. Outward Imperialism is a necessary contradiction to analyze and propagandize, but it is secondary, and fueled by the complete indifference to, erasure and exploitation of, indigenous nations. Failure to analyze the boujified nature of the Americans in the settler system leads you down the path of cultivating anti-Indigenous and anti-Black stances in your audience.
Isn’t saying that you don’t think Americans can battle our own imperialism kind of the same as you saying that we shouldn’t worship Sakai-like book worship and that people are often more than their apparent material conditions, and we shouldn’t be revolutionary defeatists? If we don’t try addressing internal imperialism, that makes it harder on the rest of the proletariat around the globe. Maybe not the exact same, but its the same general idea.
His reasoning is that even in times of crisis and with little options, the Bolsheviks (yes, the material conditions between then and now aren’t anywhere near the same) would work alongside reactionary trade-unions, if and when they had no choice. I don’t think that is necessary for the moment though.
After re-reading your third paragraph, I think you have some good points.
I will say he rightfully decries liberals, but as you say, his tacit support for Rage Against the War Machine can definitely be a case of actions speaking louder than words.
Sakai isn’t the only nor even close to the best analyst of settler Colonialism, but he’s the boogyman for settlers.
Revolutionary defeatism for Americans means bringing about the destruction of the American settler colony.
I’m saying we should address internal Imperialism, by focusing on working for the internal decolonial movement lead by the colonized nations. I said the Americans have never defeated their outward Imperialism. It has always been defeated by their victims themselves. This begs the question of why they are ineffective at defeating external imperialism? Because they fail to analyze their own inward imperialism as society that enables the outward Imperialism.
Think about how the US sanctions have been targeted at oil states like Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, and Libya, our internal colonization of oil extraction was accelerated by Bush and Obama which allowed us assault these nations. Which is more effective? RAWM like protests or the struggle by the internal colonies against the extractive industries? Dollar dominance from controlling oil prices allows the US to keep developing countries in a dependency trap. America’s wealth is here, extracted here. Pull the weed by the roots.
RAWM does nothing and half of that “movement” was made of China Hawks. It’s good to advance such positions, but most effective when tied to anti-colonial solutions which can actually solve the problem.
Learn what wars subjugated the tribes that inhabited your home town. Learn how they were removed and how the American workers were involved. Learn where they are now and what they have to say about the current environment. Even if they are not Marxists, they know more about American Imperialism than you do. They live it every day. Their natural inclinations are closer to reality than the average settler Communist’s theories, who doesn’t even know their name.
the Americans have never defeated their outward Imperialism. It has always been defeated by their victims themselves.
Yes, and I think this point is very important. This is true pretty much anywhere that imperialism has been defeated, even temporarily, and we shouldn’t expect it to happen the other way around. In fact, the US being a settler colony makes this already unrealistic scenario even more unrealistic. The people of Imperial core nations simply benefit too much. That’s where revolutionary defeatism comes in. In cases where an imperialist/colonialist nation was defeated militarily (e.g. in a world war), the colonies of those nations that won independence still had to fight for it. It wasn’t ever just given. And cases where it might seem like it was, are cases where imperialist ties still persisted and the formerly colonized nations were still exploited through imperialism.
I think the fact that some people don’t understand this and push basically a white savior narrative in which settlers in the US have a revolution or do something to free all the lands the US extracts wealth from is a symptom of the prevalent and baked in white supremacy of these settler states. There is a dialectical relationship between the colonized and the colonizer classes that also needs to be resolved in order to actually build towards communism and that resolution will not come from the class in power just stepping down. I’m not a settler myself so I guess it’s easier to see this more clearly from the outside, but our comrades that are settlers need to do this analysis and self-crit accordingly. No one is saying that white communists in the US can’t support these indigenous and black movements, in fact they have to support them against the mass of settlers but they cannot replace them.
I think this is a severe misrepresentation of their position. They have each expressed support for both of the things you claim they don’t believe in. What they have criticized are liberal versions of those ideas, that is the misuse of those slogans to advance a neoliberal agenda under the guise of radlib language.
Speaking on Rainer: He criticizes “Liberal” positions on Land Back and Black Liberation while forming unity with Libertarians (actual Liberals) on anti-Imperialism while calling Black Agenda Report’s refusal to work with that crowd “wrecker” behavior. He calls Horne and Sakai “wreckers”. Centering external facing Imperialism as the primary contradiction over internal Imperialism brings you to politics such as this.
Who’s to say these folks are “Liberals”? Do we just take Rainer’s word for it since they call out that his dead end politics are resorting to working with white supremacists?
He shows no serious attempt to advance the decolonial movement, but like MWM is more than willing to work with open PatSocs. 🤷🏾
He’s willing to work with reactionaries that are unhappy with the US Imperialism and the fact that it is taking away from working class conditions. Through this these allies are platformed as “MLs” that are Settler Nationalists, anti-Indian, anti-Black, extremely transphobic, anti-“Globalist” (🐕 😙), calling people “d*generates” and white haters. They agree with Vaush far more than any MLs.
Yes he’s fairly reactionary, very much in the patsoc grift sphere. Basically at the level where I’m very comfortable gatekeeping and saying they are neither Marxist nor communist, just looking for a way to soak up disaffected cishet white Americans who might otherwise properly radicalize. Kind of like certain Tacoma-basrd sexpests, just with a different angle.
I’m out of the loop, who is MWM, who’s a patsoc in here and who’s written the book?
Midwestern Marx= Marxist publisher/think tank/content creators They’ve been known to platform patsocs. Carlos Garrido wrote the purity fetish and the crisis of western Marxism, which brushes off anti-Americanism and acknowledgement of labor aristocracy as things by puritans.
I would reply to a specific comment but there are too many to choose from - can anyone provide some links that show MWM cozying up with patsocs? I checked their youtube channel and nothing obvious jumps out at me. They recently called for the seizing of the means of production, which I don’t think patsocs do - I remember seeing a clip of one patsoc (I don’t care enough to know who’s who in the fake communist world) on Tucker Carlson claiming that communists don’t care about private property anymore.
Here’s the patsoc article i hyperlinked in the description: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/in-defense-of-us-proletarian-patriotism-a-comradely-response-to-danny-haiphongs-marxist-polemic-on-patriotic-socialism-by-kayla-popuchet Here’s the thread someone linked to of the argument with MWM: https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1665715635093897217?s=20 Here’s the RBN stream with Eddie and Haz that many have gestured toward: https://www.youtube.com/live/GMat_oxfVzo?feature=share
Thanks for putting these together! I’ll read through them
That first article makes Danny Haiphong more based than I previously thought
Some examples of them interacting with patsocs on twitter. There are also youtube comments where they praise Haz. Also this happened.
Some of their other employees also interact on twitter with patsocs and their communities seem to be tolerant of misogyny among other things. Now they just use the “purity fetish” as a conversation-ender to attack any criticism thrown at them without engaging with the substance.
They sort of try to hide it/keep it away from their main stuff, but the connections are there if you look. MWM themselves have some problematic content as shown by some of their articles posted in this thread and their broad anti-decolonial takes. There is more evidence of other stuff out there, although I haven’t looked into this specifically.
To me it’s just too much clearly bad stuff to consider them a good source for things. They have had some good content about certain topics, but I’d rather not sift through the patsoc or patsoc-adjacent stuff to get to it. Not to mention that they recently seem to be going down the open patsoc line more and more. There are plenty of other Marxists online who don’t have this kind of track record.
Thanks for sharing these too, pretty disappointing. I only use youtube and listen to podcasts so I’m out of the loop when it comes to tweets. Are there good content creators you can recommend? I already sub to the Deprogram guys, Marx Madness, Breakthrough News, Positive Leftist News, Socialism 4 All, Rev Left Radio/Red Menace, Blowback, and Horror Vanguard.
I can suggest the Geopolítical economy report, Guerrilla history, Decolonized Buffalo, Turn Leftist, and also, maybe, Programmed to Chill (They’re a little too close to a red-brown alliance type TERF named Brigid from the probably cancelled podcast, but I have heard anything directly bad from Jimmy, I think he’s a Marxist, and he talks about parapolics and fascist history, if you want to listen start from the beginning).
I forgot to mention Geopolitical Economy Report, it’s great. I like when Guerrilla History has a good guest but I just can’t listen to Henry for some reason, he makes me immediately zone out. I’ll check out the others, thanks!
Sorry, can’t really recommend anyone. I don’t follow much Marxist content on youtube/in podcast form.
The book acknowledges lifting its thesis from Jones Manoel (who wrote the original essay about “Fetish for Defeat”) and Domenico Losurdo (who wrote “Class Struggle”).
But these two writers have a very different idea of what this means: they de-emphasize “workerism.”
I am confused by what exactly this guy is saying. It appears that he then quotes Losurdo here, where the writer (whoever it is) criticizes another figure, Tronti, for crassly reducing Lenin to a work-abolitionist trade-unionist with no concern for imperialism, racism, etc., and this attack of Tronti seems entirely correct. What’s the connection to this purity book?
The quote is Losurdo’s critique of Tronti’s book where Tronti imagines Lenin in modern England, but only limits himself to trade unionism without analysis of imperialism. You can find it here.
The connection is that midwesternmarx takes a similar stand in not analyzing how the working classes of the imperial core (and particularly the settlers in the US) benefit materially from imperialism. This material basis is the source of their misguided ideology which midwesternmarx ignore and instead write about “impurity” and similar concepts that don’t really explain anything.
Okay, I understand now, thank you!
A disappointing thread with little substantial criticism. I expected more from Roderic Day, i always enjoyed reading his essays. This just seems to boil down to accusing MWM of associating with “patsocs”, ironically falling into the exact same purity fetish that the book criticizes. The national question in the US is highly complex and there is a good argument to be made that for revolutionary progress to be possible the US itself as it currently exists must be dismantled. But this is not a question of moral principles, rather one of strategic necessity, expediency and viability. Is it even possible to build a revolutionary movement on the basis of the “American” settler proletariat? Or conversely, is it even possible WITHOUT it? The answers to these questions will have to be borne out by practice and active revolutionary struggle, they won’t be found in theory, essays and books.
I think there is plenty of substance in Roderic’s critique. You can check out the response MWM gave and some back and forth with Roderic here (scroll up for the full thing).
As for accusing MWM of associating with patsocs, no accusations are needed as they openly do associate with patsocs. They’ve had multiple friendly interactions with Hinkle and Haz both on twitter and on some streams/podcasts. These have been ongoing for at least a year now, if not longer.
I don’t think patsocs fall into the “purity question” at all because they are simply neither communists nor leftists of any sort.
I don’t think patsocs fall into the “purity question” at all because they are simply neither communists nor leftists of any sort.
I think you’re right about criticizing them doesn’t make you a purist, but I think at least some of them do believe in communism or leftism, though they are a severe right deviation, not understanding dialectics, material conditions or the character of nationalism.
though they are a severe right deviation, not understanding dialectics, material conditions or the character of nationalism.
I agree, but at some point a deviation becomes a full disconnect. I think some of the people that end up in patsoc spaces are just misguided while actually searching for an alternative to mainstream narratives, but I don’t think that applies to the leadership. I’m constantly reminded of stories of fascist movements starting out in Europe using all sorts of leftist sounding rhetoric while obviously being reactionary. A perfect example I think is Mussolini’s story.
I know you’re not saying we shouldn’t criticize (this part is not necessarily directed at you but at everyone in general), but we must criticize the patsoc positions (and ones like MWM that are either there already or seem to be on their way). How else will we ever build a proper communist movement? Marx, Lenin and all the other great communist theorists relentlessly criticized anyone that was deviating. Of course, this didn’t stop, for instance, the Bolsheviks from forming strategic alliance with e.g. the Mensheviks, but only to achieve specific political goals, and all the while still criticizing the incorrect positions held by their temporary, strategic allies.
I don’t think there’s much, if anything, to be gained from US communists allying with patsocs. Lenin talks about compromises, their nature and how to approach them (which types of compromises are beneficial and which aren’t) in ‘“Left-wing” communism, An infantile disorder’ and I think we should take that lesson a bit more seriously.
I’m also reminded of his criticisms of the Economists in ‘What is to be done?’ while talking about the need to build a genuine Marxist movement, and not to allow the class struggle to be limited only to certain areas (in that particular example, trade unionism) and that the Party should be ahead of the spontaneous class consciousness of the proletariat so it can guide it to the correct line and not chase it’s tail (tailism). The patsocs and patsoc-adjacent positions limit class struggle in the realms of settler colonialism and corresponding land-back and decolonial movements, and in a lot of cases in the realm of struggle for LGBTQ and other minority rights.
In the imperial core in general the conditions are not ripe for revolution (and I don’t think they will be for quite some time) so I think that building a proper ML party/movement should be the main goal. A movement that is ideologically “pure” if you want to call it that, but one that will be strong internally and ready to lead the revolutionary masses when the time come. Lenin talks about keeping the correct line and thus achieving actual results for the proletariat which will itself bring more people to the movement as opposed to other, deviating movements. Doing all this is of course much easier said than done but I think more effort going in that direction is sorely needed.
The main point I would like to say about this “purity” discussion is that I think it’s framed in an entirely wrong way. The material conditions simply aren’t revolutionary in the imperial core yet and we need to be thinking about long-term plans. This talk of purity in ideology is largely useless when the majority of the western working class is benefiting from imperialism. Of course they aren’t flocking to the ML line. The material conditions guide ideology, not the other way around. (sorry for the long comment)
It seems like most people especially patsocs ignore those who actually have revolutionary potential. We should be focused on organizing the colonized, the homeless, certain sections of the lumpen proletariat, and so on.
Yes, although I think we should be skeptical of basing our movement on the lumpen. As Marx and Engels point out, the lumpen can be quite easily bribed by the ruling classes and doesn’t really form a solid revolutionary movement. But classes like colonized people and black people in the US have already historically been involved in vanguard formation (e.g. the Black Panthers), and even today we see genuine movements popping up which are led by these classes (e.g. Stop cop city, and even things like the Amazon union led by Chris Smalls). The patsocs disregard (or even attack in the case of land back) all this and instead choose to pander to reactionary white sections of the population whose revolutionary potential is non existent.
To circle back a bit to the purity discussion, today I found this great pamphlet by Lenin in which he talks about factionalism and I think that discussion nicely mirrors the purity discussion and MWM’s position (which, despite what they claim boils down to “everyone in unpure except us”).
Well I mean, we have 400 years of colonization and worker’s movements already existing to study. It’s beyond the point in time to notice the most effective attacks at the US state have come from indigenous and Black nations. American Communists are overwhelmingly illiterate in how the colonized nations of North America came to be subjugated by the settler state. Nobody says the American workers can’t advance Decolonization, but centering the movement on their struggle is counter revolutionary while they are historically illiterate to the territories they inhabit. This is why pushing potential comrades away from decolonial voices is dangerous as Rainer and MWM are doing it.
