• Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    …the movement’s most radical orgs and individuals. (Those orgs and individuals include Rage Against the War Machine, the PCUSA, and Scott Ritter.)

    WTF? RAWM is full of Libertarians, how could they be considered radical?

    They’re doing this because they see a truth which the radlibs refuse to recognize: that most of the U.S. population has a primary material interest not in maintaining the system, but in replacing it with workers democracy. Both the communists and the libertarians in the antiwar movement essentially know this, with the libertarians only having a different idea of what the solution to the workers’ living standards crisis should be.

    This shit got me fucked up lol, how could he say that Libertarians essentially understand the need for a worker’s democracy? They are petty bourgeois Liberals.

    In his 1983 polemic Settlers, Sakai claimed that the white population won’t develop revolutionary consciousness no matter how much their conditions deteriorate, because they had supposedly betrayed the revolutionary cause during capitalism’s last great period of crisis in the 1930s. This was a lie, told by a wrecker.

    He hasn’t read Settlers, white labor has consistently worked opportunistically to uphold the settler system, not just in 30s. Also Sakai doesn’t say White labor won’t develop into a proletariat, but that much of them will choose to die upholding the settler system when revolution comes. Rainer is obsessed with this talking point, another is where he says the American War of Independence was progressive towards Socialism. This analysis hinges on the fact that Marx considered the American independence progress in political emancipation, but as Losurdo points out:

    Losurdo: I am critical of some ideas of Marx, but not the enthusiasm with which he greeted the struggle of Lincoln or the Northern Union. In this case Marx was correct. But Marx spoke of the bourgeois revolutions as providing political emancipation. Perhaps he didn’t see the aspect of de-emancipation. We can make a comparison with the middle of the nineteenth century: the U.S. and Mexico. In Mexico, no bourgeois revolution took place. In the U.S. we must say that the American Revolution was a form of bourgeois revolution. Comparing these two countries, we see that in Mexico, slavery was abolished. In the U.S. slavery remained very strong. Why should we say that in the U.S. the political emancipation was greater than in Mexico? I don’t see why.

    This can only be considered political emancipation for the settler class, something that Rainer and Marx both failed to understand.

    The Panthers were organizing towards the state’s overthrow within the most revolutionary elements of society before neoliberalism was ever implemented. Each successive crime against the working class that neoliberalism has brought, from NAFTA to financial deregulation to the pandemic’s wage cuts, has been an opportunity for the left to renew the project of the Panthers.

    Neoliberalism’s role was activated long before the label came. Neoliberalism is just a formulation of colonization and austerity politics, it’s nothing special.

    I remain unconvinced by Rainer that the settler petty bourgeoisie will radicalize in such a way to emancipate the Black nation. People like him love to parade the Black Panthers as an example missing out that their revolution was definitely for all colors, but there’s a reason why the Black Communists were in the lead.

    Rainer spent so much energy combating MAGA Communism yet he peddles the same ideology without the overt White Supremacist aesthetics.

    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      2 years ago

      RAWM is not ideal, but with prominent communists involved in the coalition we can still gain some credit with some more normie anti-war people. It’s not the revolutionary movement Rainer claims, but we do need the opposition to the funding of Ukraine. I feel like libertarian can see some of the problems, but they don’t have the solution, and we can therefore sway them. I agree the American revolution should not be idealized and the next will not be led settlers, but it can be a useful talking point that we can actually achieve what the founding fathers falsely claimed. (Insert Stalin’s quote on freedom)

      • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        2 years ago

        I want to agree with you, but history shows us even old-guard right-libertarians(of which the Mises Caucus, the ‘new-guard’ libertarians ideologically descend from) will tokenize anyone who isn’t them until the moment they’re not useful anymore. What I fear is that Mises Caucus will go the full Long Knife when the attempts to convert come, rather than what we’re used to of the ‘old-guard’.

        • frippa
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah but most peoplethat are libertarians are young,their political ideas not fully formed,they may see problems like “big government” etc but not getting that the government is just a tool of the dictatorship of capital, obviously j don’t think we could convert mises or his old guard to Marxism Leninism but there are some elements in RAWM that, in my modest opinion, can be converted over

  • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 years ago

    I say to Rainer Shea the same thing I say to everyone who peddles ‘wrecker’ allegations: show and prove.

    • SovereignState@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I agree with Rainer that the Amerikan left (including the settler ‘left’) are capable machines for revolution so long as they/we (we as in I, a white leftist) work alongside and under the leadership of the colonized masses. I also agree that treating the masses like an enemy is a failing strategy, and that Amerikan workers are benefiting from colonialism less and less - Amerika is not an extractivist social democracy like the Scandinavian countries, superprofits benefit a smaller and smaller caste of people as capitalism continues to devour itself, etc.

      The RAWM shit is silly and acting like the disproportionate support Sakai gets from the non-white left is a problem that needs to be solved… blegh. Sakai has his value, Settlers had and has its value, even if some things have changed or some bits were slightly inaccurate. Its thesis is historically important, its history needs to be internalized so that the white left does not fall into the settler socialist praxis it so often has before.

      RAWM is also astroturfed and they’re fucking proud of it. The anti-imperialist movement will not have Platinum, Gold, and Silver packages you can purchase to show your ‘level of support’, are you joking? Why the fuck should we consider RAWM the most important anti-war movement that currently exists when organizations like ANSWER, CodePink, PSL, PCUSA, Black Alliance for Peace, etc. are empirically doing far more? The media’s not reporting on it because those groups don’t buy out news rags or have the backing of Ron and Rand fucking Paul. Talk about settler socialism.

      End point, just saying you’re totally right, givin my own two cents, etc.

      https://lemmygrad.ml/post/562920

    • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      2 years ago

      I’ve yet to see any of these Sakai ultras, yet I’ve seen plenty of overt racists complain about them in Rainer’s comments.

    • frippa
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Now rainer got a scandal too? It means he got too big for the likes of da bosses

      • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        2 years ago

        I’mma keep it real with you: I don’t even believe it’s action coming from upward to Shea. No, that smells of settler discomfort to me; which I’ve learned over this past few years is not limited to just settler-amerikans.

      • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        By who and to what end? Why should I believe in the words of a white left fundamentally incapable of even recognizing the Two Amerikas philosophy, let alone mobilizing to do anything about it beyond endless platitudes of ‘class war only’?

          • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Do you know what I see when I look at Henry Winston? I see someone who turned his back on liberation to play adjacent to those who’d eventually spawn tailists. I see a proto-misleader; who bet if he didn’t wind up dead in exile? Would probably have been a member of the Congressional Black Caucus with how much co-opting the same party that CPUSA likes to align with does to our community.

            Just because a revolutionary, no matter how marginal, died in exile, does not make them a be-all, end-all. Fuck, DuBois died in exile and he’s the reason we have these “Talented Tenth”-assed Boulé-aspirants walking around.

            • Makan@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              2 years ago

              Actually, Henry Winston had the backing of the entire Soviet Union and was praised throughout the Soviet world; DuBois was also a CPUSA member.

              • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                8
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                2 years ago

                Soviet. Not Amerikan. What worked for the Soviets isn’t going to 1:1 work for us; especially not 40, 50, and 60 years removed from those conditions; and I think you’ll find I hold DuBois’s philosophies responsible for the first, second, and soon to be third generation of misleaders. You don’t listen, and I’m tired of trying to explain it to you.

              • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                The Soviets have been wrong on many issues, one of the largest being the Israel Question. Western Imperialism managed to destroy the USSR through the consequences of the Israel Question. So twice they’ve failed to recognize the conditions of a Settler Colony, apparently.

                It doesn’t matter who was in the CPSU or the CPUSA, what matters is what the party lines ended up being and what affects this has on the Socialist movement. Also the user you’ve replied to is pointing out a major flaw in DuBois, not celebrating him.

                • Makan@lemmygrad.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  5
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  That was Stalin.

                  lol

                  USSR also liberated Africa.

                  DuBois wasn’t flawed, certainly not in that way.

          • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 years ago

            Please don’t attempt to validate your theory with an an individual Black person’s opinions. Sakai wasn’t disproven because some Black person said so, it needs to be met with contrary evidence.

            Allison from Red Menace already destroyed a similar take from the CPUSA who used Angela Davis’s opinion to validate their position that Black Liberation can be solved through assimilation, it’s horseshit.

            • Makan@lemmygrad.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              2 years ago

              Sakai was disproven and is not a theorist; he has also yet to explain his credentials.

              Also, Red Menace’s takes on CPUSA have been disproven.

              • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                9
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                2 years ago

                I’ll bite, why does one need to explain their credentials? Is the information and evidence not enough?

                In what way has Red Menace been disproven? Care to share the CPUSA’s responses to them?

                • Makan@lemmygrad.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  Red Menace also doesn’t have credentials and is not a reputable source or an activist.

        • Charming Owl@lemmygrad.mlOPM
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          2 years ago

          What are your oppositions to PCUSA based on material analysis?

          I’m not trying to change your mind or make you feel a certain way for having that opinion, but I ask because it is somewhat important as a communist to be able to articulate their ideas in a way that communicates exactly why we believe the things that we believe.

          • Makan@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 years ago

            PCUSA are PatSocs; that’s why I oppose 'em.

            PatSocs are transphobic and anti-LGBTQ, not to mention anti-Indigenous.

            That’s the simplest way to put it.