In my opinion, the people like Maupin, Jackson Hinkle, and especially the Infrared YouTube channel (people like Haz) have not engaged in the debate in good faith AT ALL.
But moreover, I do believe that patriotism, certainly “American patriotism”, has no place in the ML movement. I believe in the working-class, but I wouldn’t want to muddy the waters with cheap appeals to what would essentially be working-class conservatism and chauvinism. I won’t say much more than the fact that my comrades and I have been talking about this extensively and all agree: decolonization comes first and foremost. Landback is a must and many people, of all races and ethnicities, have been hurt by colonialism and neo-colonialism as well as imperialism both within and outside the United States, the original indigenous inhabitants being a prime example.
I hope I haven’t said anything to offend anyone, but I support Landback and decolonialism. I even originally became an ML in part due to Berta Caceres’s murder in Central America. In the CPUSA, Browder was very controversial and was fought against as he became more and more unpopular (until he was finally ousted, in huge part because of his “Americanism”). SO even then: the issue of “American patriotism” was suspect. I think that we live in a much more radical and interesting time where decolonization must take center stage now more than ever before.
That Haz would say that “indigenous peoples” or Native Americans have no place in the ML movement is folly; we should be doing more to not only comfort them but make us more available to them as a movement, not decry them or anything.
Anyways, enough Twitter drama. I took a break from most social media and I feel much better now. But I think Maupin/Haz (Infrared)/Jackson Hinkle have belittled and side-stepped the issues at stake, from what I’ve seen of their content.
It does the wider communist movement a disservice when people claiming to be CPUSA members (who obviously aren’t or can’t be traced back to in the databases) and people who certainly are CPUSA members (albeit, from what we can tell, a minority so far in the organization) try to appeal to right-wingers and sometimes even believe in their nonsense. Well, I can’t say much more about the organization other than what’s on display on Twitter, but I do think that one should be open about all this.
Welp, that’s all I have for now.
Thanks for the replies. I skimmed through them and plan to go through them after work today.
My thoughts are emphatically decolonial. Even the “patriotic” MLs of the past were over-blown; most were not that “patriotic” to begin with and used “Americanism” (same as the Black Panthers afterward with their reading of people’s constitutional rights) to either defend the few democratic rights we have or criticize America as it is materially…
Obviously, I believe in landback; I believe in decolonialism. So that’s my position, wholeheartedly. But thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone, whether I emphatically disagreed with them or not.