Does Land Back view white people as settlers? If so why? is it that they’re descendants of settlers so them existing is a remnant of that, or only those who uphold the ideas that “America” and “Canada” exist, or something else entirely?

White people are settlers, yes. Its not just this simple tho, because of a lot of reasons I cannot afford the time too but It is true materially and culturally that white people are settlers. Many white people own land that goes back to land grabs and handouts during conquest and allotment. Land that was directly stolen and occasionally even has sacred sites. This is ongoing. There are still examples of land being stolen from Native children and other crimes.

It should be noted that this is not meant as a moral statement. I am a settler, although I have no land of my own, my family does, and they certainly taught me settler politics and thinking.

Now is Land Back a movement for ALL of the land to be returned to the different indigenous nations? If the notion is white people are intrinsically settlers, what do they want to do with them? If the notion is that it is just the STATE that’s a settler state, does the majority of white people in these nations dillude them being Indigenous?

Land Back is a platitude. Its not some robust, well defined goal. This is both a strength and a weakness. Allow me to explain.

Land Back has different meanings for different Tribes, individuals, times, and places. Usually, it starts with Treaty Lands which were established via treaty in the 19th century. Native Nations have a legal right to this land according to settler constitutional law, but the settler state has historically not held up its own laws on this or outright failed to ratify the treaty in DC while Indigenous peoples were forced into concentration camps. So there are legal battles about Treaties that make up a big part of Land Back. This is a huge can of worms itself because it means that it is legally true than some entire major cities are on Native land yet Native institutions have no say in what goes on. Corporate lawyers that work for Exxon for example, end up arguing on behalf of the state that it would cause chaos to recognize constitutional legal processes and sometimes it works but there have been examples of legal jurisdictions being changed due to these court battles over treaties.

Sacred sites are also a part of it. Usually, Tribes are unable to get these sites protected unless they try to protect them from an environmental perspective, or if they can purchase them outright.

At the end of the day I think Land Back points toward the death of Amerika. It is not merely about sacred sites and treaties, it is an eternal political struggle against an occupier that has destroyed the landscape and has caused such damage to the global ecosystem that extinction is looming. Land Back is about the survival of Indigenous people first and foremost. But it can only lead to full decolonization if successful. So yes, all land back.

Now back to white people. Ive never heard anyone sincerely say white people have to be expelled. In fact it is usually detractors that say this. Of course there will be some violence. Bill Gates and Ted Turner own a fucking shit ton of Native land and frankly I dont care if they lose every single acre. Same for other fat cats and reactionaries. But remember, Land Back is about survival, not about evoking a deadly reaction from powerful settlers, vigilantes, or the state, so its very political ad it is driven by contradiction.

Personally, I think that undermining the settler state and the conditions of colonialism will end up abolishing whiteness and settler sensibilities over time. Indigenaity and the settler quality are a unity and struggle of opposites that is born of colonialism, so challenging colonial foundations is what I find to be an intuitive way forward.

There is a lot of trauma around the “am I Indigenous” question among Indigenous people due to colonial violence, so of course having a ton of white settlers around is confusing from an identity stand point. But there are plenty of Tribal institutions with members and maintained history and culture. The question to me is more how should us white communists fighting for decolonization see ourselves. I see myself based on a future id like to see, one without the American colonial project holding together a global empire. Not on some sense of shared history among settlers which imo PatSocs utilize. This, along with self criticism and centering Tribal leadership can undermine the superstructural parts of whiteness too. We need to build a system that can reproduce itself as it builds towards communism and so we cant rely on settler sensibilities, naratives or structures. Basically, North America needs to again be indigenized on the terms of Indigenous people and institutions in order to escape colonial development and discourse, and enter a situation where contradictions lead towards classless society instead of fascist reactions.

Now when “America” and “Canada” first colonized there wasn’t a proletariat, and it was all settlers. Now as throughout time, the majority of the populations, are wage earners.

The proletariat is that wretched underclass of workers that is inherently revolutionary due to internal contradictions within capitalism. You can be a wage earning worker and not have revolutionary quality and this is typically the case in the US and Europe. There has always been a working class of settlers and slaves. But which are revolutionary? Not the settlers. There are material reasons for this. It is not a mere moral statement.

So is it fair to call white people settlers in a STATE apparatus formed centuries ago, that enslaves them?

Yes. They are not slaves. They are paid more than their counterparts throught the exploitation of the global proletariat and the theft of land.

There is class conflict in colonial discourse but it is the petite bourgeoisie/labir aristocracy (settlers) vs the huate bourgeoisie (finance, MIC, oil). Of course the haute bourgeoisie is primarily calling the shots and this sometimes pisses off the petite bourgeoisie but historically they have used settlers as an army/occupation force and this has always given settlers political power within the state. People will say this is changing and that things are getting worse for the settlers. They usually leave out its getting worse for most of the periphery too. The huate bourgeoisie need a labor aristocracy for their empire to stand. Labor aristocracy and settler quality is a feature of imperialism that isnt dying out just because this generation cant afford a house as easily as their dad did.

Is it Anti Marxist to return to the way things were, discounting the new conditions formed for all working people? Is there any historical example of decolonizing a Settler State? If white people are born on native land, are they apart of that indigenous nation? Is this an issues of Nationhood and borders in general, or the specific parts of a settler state?

My answer is that I think its dialectical. Sublation of the current arrangement is the way forward. But this is not a matter of policy, it is a matter of contradictions developing the course of history. We should not imagine some ideal and then dogmaticly try to work towards that. We should embrace contradiction. That being said, much of settler sensibility is counter revolutionary, so something has to give on that front. And people doubling down on settler notions is toxic to the development of communism. There needs to be a process of existential death and rebirth alongside undermining capitalism itself.

I do think that by seeking to “return to the way things were” does have some merrit tho. Because we need to develop from a plave that is not baked in colonialism. This has a lot of implications, but basically, Id rather push towards classless society from within the contradictions of Native class systems and lifeways. This is why i typically say America needs two revolutions in other posts.

White people are not part of the Indigenous nation, definitely not just by location. Its not as simple as borders. Indigenous communities are defined by relations. This is a difficult topic to get into because im white and I dont really want to speak to how any Indigenous nation defines itself and I am very uncomfortable saying that white people of today should pursue joining a Tribe or something. White people already do this and it is destructive.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful in explaining myself but it is a lot to answer.

Keep in mind that when saying “descendents of settlers”, you are essentially invoking the “finders keepers” rule. You can do anything, even genocide hundreds of tribes, then wait long enough, and it becomes okay.

Does Land Back view white people as settlers?

Not just. It views EVERYONE that came to the Americas through European conquest as settlers. That includes slaves and subsequent waves of immigrants.

If so why?

“Decolonization is not a Metaphor” gives a strong analysis of why. https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck and Yang 2012 Decolonization is not a metaphor.pdf

In summary, it’s because settler colonialism is not a historical event, it is a living system that at its core is a system with the function of oppressing indigenous people through physical, economic, political, social, cultural, religious, and other means. Each non-white person that owns a house or rents from a landlord is participating in the settler colony, whether they want to or not, because their survival interests rely on it. Settler colonies convert land into property as part of their processes. While property exists, settlerism exists, while non-indigenous people own and interact with property, they are settlers active participating in the settler system.

Now is Land Back a movement for ALL of the land to be returned to the different indigenous nations?

Land Back is a movement to invert the power hierarchy and provide sovereignty of all colonized land to the indigenous people who are today oppressed. The indigenous peoples will use that sovereignty as they see fit. Inevitably, all settlers will experience at minimum transitional oppression as they will lose their way of life in part or in full. Land Back is not predicated on settlers feeling comfortable with whatever the outcomes are.

If the notion is white people are intrinsically settlers, what do they want to do with them?

This is idealism and not part of the Land Back analysis. White people don’t exist.

If the notion is that it is just the STATE that’s a settler state, does the majority of white people in these nations dillude them being Indigenous?

It’s not the state, it’s the society. If the state were to change its form, it would still be a settler state. It can be nothing but. The state cannot become indigenous. The state can only cede sovereignty.

Now when “America” and “Canada” first colonized there wasn’t a proletariat, and it was all settlers. Now as throughout time, the majority of the populations, are wage earners.

So is it fair to call white people settlers in a STATE apparatus formed centuries ago, that enslaves them?

We’re not talking about ideals like fairness. We’re talking about the material analysis of society. It does not matter that peasants became proletarians. What matters is that the interests of the peasants and the proletarians are incommensurable with the interests of the indigenous people who are oppressed by the society that is perpetuated by the peasants and the proles. It’s not the state that is oppressive, the state is merely a component of the violently oppressive society that every day harms the indigenous people of Turtle Island. That the people are enslaved to the system makes no difference because returning sovereignty to the indigenous people harms those who are enslaved as much as it harms those who are not enslaved.

Is it Anti Marxist to return to the way things were

Not inherently, no. You’d have to make the case.

discounting the new conditions formed for all working people

This statement erases the indigenous peoples completely. It is the single most clarion example of the problem. 8% of indigenous people in the US can speak their own language. They are living through their own genocide. The new conditions that you speak of forming are new conditions only for the settlers. The conditions that formed for the indigenous are those of mass slaughter, destruction of autonomy, destruction land. It is disingenuous to call the slaughter of every single buffalo on the plains a “new condition formed for all working people”. It is disingenuous to call the destruction of clean water for the creation of oil pipelines a “new condition formed for all working people”.

Is there any historical example of decolonizing a Settler State?

Not that I’m aware of.

If white people are born on native land, are they apart of that indigenous nation?

It could be said that I’ve answered this above. Read Tuck and Yang (above). They go into detail about how many of the white people that claim “we all have Indian blood in us from some ancestor somewhere” is quite literally the claim to innocence based on the fact that indigenous women were raped and their children were forcibly taken from them and integrated into settler society.

Is this an issues of Nationhood and borders in general, or the specific parts of a settler state?

It is an issue of contradictions inherent in systems of oppression. The idea of nationhood and borders arises from understanding the contradiction inherent in a society founded on a systemic form of genocide, mass murder, destruction of land, destruction of biodiversity, and oppression that is intrinsic in the system’s functioning, that cohabitates the same historical processes that the society inhabits, and continues every moment that the society exists.

Right, hell this could be a launchpad where we write off PatSocs entirely and look for deeper understanding of the path forward in North American political development. Or we could decide on what PatSocs are and agree entirely, either way it’s a spot we need to pay attention to on Lemmy. Of course with civility. Glad we have something to do other than shitpost.

Edit: skipped a sentence, lol

USSR was not an imperial core country, it was mostly feudal. GDR is an interesting case, because its the only case in history of a capitalist -> socialist transition. But it only went through that because of its proximity to the USSR, and because the USSR forced through de-nazification.

The thing with the us flag is that most people dont relate it with what it actually means. My country flag has the same problem, its related to the old royal flag, and the lies of the republic, but most people just think of it as an simbol of our gold, our sea and our forests. Lots of people say we reapropriated the flag, maybe its true, but i still think that using a flag without knowing what it trully represents is a bit ignorant, or idealist. Also both the US and our flag are soooo ugly, we can keep the colours but please throw the design on the garbage.

I don’t think the flag is really that important of a symbol to alienate potentially several allies in the working class. Is it worth losing out on support just because of a piece of cloth?

I think Maupin is a very import figure right now for the North American left, but I don’t quite understand why he calls himself an “American Patriot” and that “he loves his country” even though positions seem to contradict that.

My fascist family uses the same lines when they run for office to convince old timer democrats to vote republican. This is an example of someone trying to manipulate colonial discourse into their favor.

Maupin’s error is assuming that all class consciousness is good, that it all leads to proletarian revolutionary consciousness. He is incorrect.

If you tell people whoes livlihood depends on maintaining the wealth they recieved during the Homestead Act of 1862, or from super profits that are recycled into super wages for the Global North’s working class, that they have nothing to lose but their chains and that America deserves better, they will not hear the same thing a Haitian, or otherwise imperialized/colonized person hears. They will hear a call for fascism, for another round of colonial conquest and extraction, so they can get theirs once again.

I think Maupin is a very import figure right now for the North American left, but I don’t quite understand why he calls himself an “American Patriot” and that “he loves his country” even though positions seem to contradict that.

I think Maupin is confident in the effectiveness of Marxism-Leninism and the analytical power of dialectical materialism, and I think he is likely being honest when he expresses over and over again that he cares about human rights and anti-imperialism. However, good intentions are not enough to produce structurally-sound policies, caring about “human rights” is not enough to understand what that would really entail, and I think he has unfortunately grown accustomed to automatically tuning out the kind of criticisms that would help him improve in this regard, which is going to lead him and his organization further and further away from what he says he wants (solidarity of the U.S. population with each other and with the global south).

He does receive a lot of unprincipled criticism as well as outright threats, so I get why he tends to tune it out now. It is a normal human psychological reaction to do so. Instead of listening to criticisms, he flattens his platform into “human rights” and feels that most people who press him further on this is doing so in bad-faith. This causes him to look stubborn and out-of-touch at best, foolish and inept in some cases, and makes him appear to be a disingenuous, closeted bigot at worst. It is only natural that vulnerable people would avoid a person who displays such qualities. Meanwhile, Maupin’s own confirmation bias feedback loop causes him to see the people who avoid him as misunderstanding his intentions or maligning him purposely. Because he sees his own views as reasonable and uncontroversial he has trouble understanding certain criticisms and I think it’s going to cause more and more huge gaps in his knowledge and that is going to lead to a more and more faulty analysis and practice on his part.

In short, I think his approach is flawed, and is ultimately going to fail him and the people in his organization who emulate his style and adopt his analysis, as it encourages a lack of investigation into many particularities of various contradictions and cultivates a simplistic view that flattens all issues as “human rights” and moves on from them without further analysis, entreating people to have “solidarity” and reach across the aisle to those with different social values, putting aside differences for the greater good of all, etc., while not understanding why this simple message seems so off-putting to so many people.

Now, with that out of the way, I will say why I think he goes with the “patriotism” angle.

As I said above, I think Maupin really trusts in the power of Marxism-Leninism/socialism as the way forward for humanity. Because of this, he has no fear about engaging with people and ideas from all over the place (minus what I said above about when he receives criticism from the left, which I think is a fatal oversight of his). What he sees is that there is a huge segment of U.S. society being duped into right-wing beliefs. He, as a Christian, sees this happening to tons of his fellow Christians as well. As a white person, he sees the white population being sucked into bourgeois and racist beliefs. As a Christian and as a white person, I think he is inclined to see the good side of these groups as well: to look into the wholesome values that draw people to Christianity, to see the humanity in white people and their desire to live a nice life and minimize suffering in the world.

So, he is looking at a situation: there is a huge chunk of Americans who are being drawn to reactionary beliefs that is being intertwined with their Christianity and whiteness and conservatism and patriotism. If you ask someone why they are Christian, their answer is not going to be “because I’m secretly a huge racist” they’re going to give you an answer based in morals that they supposedly hold. If you ask a conservative if they love their fellow Americans, a lot of them are going to tell you yes, and they’re even going to insist that they aren’t racist and they just want everyone to get along, and the majority of them really believe that. If you ask them if they love humanity and want world peace they are going to tell you yes, and a lot of them really believe it.

Maupin is trying to appeal to these people. And I think he does have some success with doing that. I think in his view, it’s either get on their level, stop scaring them away with liberal identity politics nitpicking, or let them get sucked into the whirlwind of bigotry, right-wing politics and right-wing conspiracy theories, and used for whatever purpose the bourgeoisie wants to use them for. I think he wants to prevent that from happening and I think that it makes total sense for him to attempt to prevent that by trying to unite them under the egalitarian and peaceful values and brotherly love that can be found in Christianity and in generic “patriotism”.

I think Maupin himself would deny that he is in favor of the status quo. Instead I think he would explain that he is adopting a pragmatic stance to attract the bulk of the American population to oppose the status quo. He would say that he supports diversity of opinion on social issues. He believes it is necessary for people to fight together to establish socialist production relations, and that we don’t need to have the same ideas about various cultural/moral issues in order to be allies in doing that. In a recent video about the abortion ruling, he invites one of the people in his organization to stand up: a Christian guy who personally opposes abortion, but who has joined Maupin’s organization; Maupin contrasts this with his own pro-abortion stance. He explains that this guy was kicked out of DSA meetings when they found out through social media that he was anti-abortion. In other words, the guy wasn’t causing trouble in meetings, but he was kicked out anyway for this moral stance. Maupin views this as an error on the part of the DSA, and basically Maupin favors an approach that brings more people to the cause of Marxism-Leninism and he says he supports ideological struggle within Marxism-Leninism. Again, I think Maupin’s reason for this is because what he sees is a gaping black hole of bourgeois propaganda that is constantly sucking white people and Christians into it, so in his view, kicking this guy out of the DSA instead of forming an alliance with him or engaging him ideologically is like funneling him straight into the right-wing anti-communist pipeline. I can see why he takes this stance and in some regards I can even endorse aspects of it, but I think Maupin’s approach to ideological difference is over-simplified and he doesn’t understand why reaching across the aisle to conservative white Christians is going to cause a sense of mortal threat to certain other groups, whose criticisms he brushes off as unreasonable and basically as poisoned by liberal identity politics and even by CIA ops (again, I can see why he would end up thinking this–but I think he is incorrect).

I think Maupin is going to continue to grow his following and organization, who carries the admirable intention of bridging ideological and cultural divides, but I think many who follow Maupin’s style are going to see a lot of failures in doing that, because I think they are attracted to Maupin because they do not understand the particulars of certain U.S. minority groups and he does not push them to, feeling that it’s sufficient to care about their human rights, and not taking time to listen to more details than that. Some may have an aversion to investigating those details, and this is going to lead to cases of them being shut out from some minority communities because they do not know how to make themselves distinct enough from the people who pose an actual threat to those communities. “I care about your human rights” is a bland statement that comes across as a blatant opportunistic lie to many of the Americans that Maupin wishes to unite, who have heard that 1000 times before from people who, insisting they really meant it, didn’t mean it, and wreaked havoc in those communities. I expect that this will hamper his organization’s progress and cause people to view it with suspicion, as many view Maupin himself.

I’m going to stop here for now because this has grown way longer than I intended it to. I’ll just add that the Land Back/decolonization issue discussed extensively in this thread is an example of one of the major things that Maupin and people who emulate his organizing are going to have to confront eventually and yet are seemingly making no preparations for and are not seriously considering. I don’t see how they can achieve the liberation of all people while side-stepping and deprioritizing something like that, no matter how well-intentioned they are. They are failing to make a scientific study of achieving liberation by not engaging with this issue and various other issues further than “human rights” and “solidarity”.

Edit: I also want to note that I personally have more criticisms, reservations, and speculations about Maupin than what I wrote here, but I think some of them lack sufficient evidence to include here. I tried to keep this post somewhat neutral and take Maupin at his word, for the purpose of providing general information about his stated positions and what I find flawed about those positions, rather than get into various other concerns and speculations I have about him but don’t feel confident I could provide evidence for at this time.

Sorry got sassy at the end, so let me restate what I mean.

We all want to have humanity under one banner and that’s not happening time soon, so it is very Non Marxist to ignore Historical and Material realities like Nations and common demographics.

there are endemic species adapt to certain environments and then there is humans and migratory species, who by nature do not know borders. the rest is all social construct by people jealous of each others fiefdoms. i do believe in federalisation of ubuntu communities, and i do accept a certain degree of localisation. But you’re not gonna get me with “blood & soil” bs… The principle and ends will be the same, the means may differ, so in the end the only barrier to you doing whatever you do somewhere else (if you so wish) would be that of language, local traditions/cuisine (and maybe local differences in communication protocols).

the rest is the same. people work. follow dreams, love, shit, eat, play, have kids, educate themselves, enjoy and suffer and hope everything will turn out fine and then eventually they die. and that is what a society of any size should be concerned with first and foremost. And it is not really much dependent of the color of the rag you associate with a given piece of soil…