It certainly isn't radical in any Leninist since.
There is nothing radical about what dude did.
You took Trump at his word about NATO. Do you also believe he is anti-war? You gonna block me?
He is a Zionist and engages in partisan discourse within zionism. He is only critical of who is empowering the Zionist state. He still supports the project, and you agree he does. Being accepting of it absolutely makes him a Zionist. Isreal does not have the right to exist.
Bernie is a Zionist.
I think it is fair to say that it has not been properly conceptualized or theorized. However, solidarity with the global south and well articulated anti imperial politics will be vital.
I think of how unionization is having an upturn in the US. For example, Starbucks now has a union. Generally, this is a good thing for Starbucks workers. However, as revolutionaries we have to think globally and ask ourselves what does it all mean for solidarity with coffee farmers. Is there a way to include more workers in our movements? Is there a way to link labor movements with anti-imperialist political movements? There would almost certainly be legal barriers, but still we must answer this.
There also needs to be a reckoning for metropolitan workers, laboring settlers, and white people. We must understand our social relations and we must face up to the fact that we have not always been helpful in building and maintaining solidarity and this is largely because we have played a key role in empire building. Perhaps then we can correct our course.
I also think there is a tendency for anti imperialism to only organize around the low hanging fruit. It is good that we support Palestine in official capacity, or in the streets, or online. However, we never ask how we can support anti imperialism at the bargaining table, with our labor, or by withholding our labor. Further, we are even less willing to take risks for banana farmers, than we are for Palestinians resisting genocide, but both are important.
We have to be willing to potentially ignore our own needs and take risks that show real solidarity. If we stand against land grabs, unequal exchange, dependency, and imperial aggression, we have to recognize that we are likely disqualifing ourselves from healthcare reforms in the near future. Maybe it won't necessarily actually mean such dire risks in reality, but we must be prepared for them. Instead, I'm afraid much of the left has gone that way because they believe it should be a simple matter of correcting wealth distribution. If we can problematize our reliance on imperial spoils (which the relevant thesis effectively does) we may be able to shift our collective consciousness toward something better, for our own sake and for others. Reliance on slavery is no real form of dignified sovereignty if you ask me. Maybe others can agree.
Finally, since there is rarely a willingness to take a risk or go further than leftist profile building, I feel that we are exploiting the Palestinian cause to build and solidify coalitions at home which will only help ourselves at the end of the day. I think this is a faux anti-imperialism, a fake solidarity, that must be addressed as well.
I have on more than one occasion seen westerns outright say that they don’t want to fight against imperialism because they benefit from it. I think that’s how a lot of westerners justify supporting imperialism. This kind of narrative ironically cements the power of imperialism.
This is evidence that the thesis is correct. Revolutionary movements are unlikely because of the relationship with imperialism, whether conscious or not. If admitting this works against us, then there is no project to build. We MUST admit this if we are to eventually succeed where others have failed. If the problem with the thesis is that it makes things harder to articulate with our routine rhetoric, then the problem is denial.
Sometimes Indigenous groups were better armed than colonizers.
Half of them were too up their own asses to see the racism in their own families and used it as an outlet to express their "shock" so as to not face up to the fact that their upbringing needs to be critically examined instead of romanticized. These people, just like their QAnon family, are not mere victims and have their fair share of denial themselves.
Quite disturbing to see open support for our own dispossession rationalized this way.
The two state solution isn't a "solution." If a solution legitimizes Israel it is not a solution by any standard. It is not a long term plan. It just legitimizes the status quo by leaning on the inherently problematic society of states and its lie that states have equal sovereignty. You mistake the pragmatism of the PRC as a robust form of global problem solving when it is actually just doubling down on making space for their own interests within a faulty system they have elected to participate in. The PRC is not a global savior and it does not dignify the Chinese project to treat them as all knowing problem solvers. They are trying to survive and thrive in an insanely violent geopolitical environment as many nations are, they are absolutely not an unquestionable, infallible sovereign, even if they are more interesting than other projects in the world.
The dismantlment of the occupation and its backers is the only solution to the problem and any other direction is a red herring that benifits the international order. This is not some dogmatic idealism, it is literally true. Could a 2 state reality be a first step in achieving the actual solution? Maybe if it isn't immediately frustrated by interference and if a Palestinian state can magically have the capacity for governance and defense that it needs and the IDF magically drowns itself in the dead sea (in other words, a bunch of things that will never happen and have never happened). Is it a solution in itself? Absolutely not, it is just more of the same but the international community will wash its hands of the situation and call it resolved while pretending Israel is a legitimate entity. We may as well woke-scold people for not being realistic and refusing to vote for Joe Biden.
I wonder how this compares with Patrick Bond's work.
I guess it's time to gawk at the Baptists for being caught up in their own discourse.
Exactly. But the problem is that zionism isn't going to be addressed and if the Palestinian state is recognized it will likley not be properly supported, which will create neocolonial relations. Colonial relations develop this way routinely. So it must be asked, who is going to deal with zionism and when?
The two state solution per se isn't the problem, nor is a plan for phases of decolonization. Rather it is the asymmetric power being tilted to the zionists largely because of decades of international and US support. The fallacy we risk in seeing this in stages is that we imagine an ideal transition despite history showing how quickly it can just develop into neocolonialism with all options exhausted. The occupiers will inevitably be back in control of Palestine with new justifications and the international community will support it yet again.
We can't "undo" history, but we absolutely can and must undo settler-colonial relations and structures for a two state solution to even be tenable. But at that point, what really is the point of sticking to a two state solution? Other solutions may present themselves as these toxic relations are excised.
Ultimately, it not our decision what is done with those who occupy Palestinian land but it is worth noting that expelling settlers is no more a genocide than any other form of decolonization is(nt). Framing it this way only gives credibility to zionism and makes settlers out to have no agency or self awareness. If we can't stomach the thought of erasing zionist structures like the state of Isreal and the settler-colonial structures that reproduce it, then we should exit the discussion altogether.
Im not going to pull punches on this rant. I am so exhausted by this rhetoric and unfortunately it is pervasive in my personal life and online. I spend most of my productive time reviewing literature on various global issues. Namely land grab discourse, genocide studies, conservation efforts, state development policy, IFI reports etc etc.
Let me tell you something about the lives of rural and Indigenous people in the global south. They get their homes burned down and murdered in their sleep. Their lands are stolen from them with techniques perfected by colonial powers, especially from US settler colonialism.
The state will steal their lands and "preserve it" for use of private capital, for white settlers, or to create a national park or preserves that wealthy foriegners can hunt game and so they can parade to the world how "modern" they are becoming.
If they cannot steal land outright they will use other more complicated manners to incentivise rural people to be tied into market relations, such as dependence on ecotourism or even biochar and other technologies presented as liberatory or as needed due to damages colonialism has done. "A bit of colonialism will help your colonialism problem," if you will.
These relations will contradict and then corrode their lifeways and distracted from effective traditional methods because white tourists don't want to see the cattle of pastoralists when on vacation. They are also shamed by the excess wealth of tourists, and the settlers that facilitate tourism, encouraging them to become more enfranchised into modernity so their lands will either become vulnerable to direct theft or the market relations will mold them into what settlers want them to do for the benifit of their estates.
These extreme minority settlers often own like half of an entire county, while the county next door is over half conservation area. This means fewer lands for grazing and fewer water sources available for rural people. It leads to starvation and death, especially during dry periods such as the current drought in east Africa, all while the state concern trolls about food security and executes the development dance to attract aid and FDI. It also means that lands are degraded by over use because these people are being choked out of their ancestral lands. The state and white settlers then blame the pastoralists and forest dwellers and weaponize Human Rights against them, saying the rural peoples are preventing the states quest for water security as they redirect all waters to metro areas and settler estates.
All of this is the genocidal process of primative accumulation or accumulation by dispossession. It is a privilege I am able to research these situations. It is a privilege that I am able to work with organizations that work with local Tribes on the issues they are concerned about. It is a privilege I am a grad student that is paid to do this, although our union has to fight the university for a fraction of a living wage.
I am not privileged to not vote Blue. It is more like a curse of understanding. Who do you think backs these violent efforts of dispossession? USAID is never far away. The EU is never far away. The IFI are always right there. Conservation as we know it was created in North America to conquer the continent and take the land from Indigenous peoples and it has exported these methods abroad. All of this is supported by institutions and policies that democrats and republicans alike believe in and enable globally. It is supported by finance capital which is the foundation of the present democratic party
Let me tell you what people who vote blue do about this. Kenya or some other post colonial state will massacre people and burn down their homes and create a national park. Netflix will then hire Obama to narrate a docuseriese on the glorious national parks of the world. Blue voters will then consume the erasure and genocide of rural people as feel-good, green(TM) content with satisfaction that the world is becoming a better place. That's it. Then they go vote blue.
Anyone who says I am privileged to not vote blue has no clue or no care regarding how the world works and is a combination being hopelessly US centric, too focused on bourgeoisie partisanship and embarrassingly naive about the world. Voting blue is the opposite of solidarity. The people who say they are not privileged enough to not vote Blue fail to see their own privilege of living in the Disney land of the global north. What ever gains they think Democrats will give them will either never happen or will be cut from the flesh of people they are happy to sacrifice.
I will not be extorted by bourgeoisie partisans. My moral worth and political identify is mine to create, not theirs to demand. My concern is with the fundamental machinations of capital and the devestating impact it has on people while it reproduces itself, and it is most destructive in places far from the minds of democrats regardless of issues in the US. I'm not going to be tricked into supporting a party that enables the process of accumulation by dispossession, and that stands on a foundation of genocide. They only have moral arguments but they do not have moral standing.
A ‘foreign agent’ bill reminiscent of a controversial law passed in Russia has triggered protests in Tbilisi.
My relationship with balloon is over. Airship is now my best friend.
Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.
That is all.
Furthermore we are seeing major euro chemical corps taking preservation measures that may be a signal for a death spiral for the competitiveness of European capital. We also see leaders like Macron pissed that the US is in such a good spot relatively speaking. All of this is only getting harder to watch. The US truly is cannabalizing the west.
The Biden Administration’s efforts to keep OPEC+ from cutting production once again have failed, and despite the anger in Washington, a NOPEC bill might not be productive for the U.S.
Not sure how long we have until Biden pivots towards the OILagarchs (sorry) but the fact that US troops are apparently being pulled out of the kingdom is like a dream come true. We truly live in a time of qualitative change. The world is shifting polarity faster than the US can keep up. These maneuvers by OPEC+ are such a game changer because it softens the benefits that the US is getting from the situation in Europe. Anything that infuriates the US like this has to be worth paying attention to anyway.
Just got done listening to one of their episodes. I've heard several before and had to quit because its just kind of garbage. More than just bad content that usually fails to engage with whatever it is talking about, but its actually pretty reactionary.
When I look back on how the sub for the podcast was so big and influential I just cringe.
Decided to go to a sporting event. I did my due diligence and arrived on time for the game as to avoid the screeching nightmare of people standing for the Star Spangled Banner.
However, there was no escape from imperial chuavanism because I happened to find myself at a game that celebrated US Millitary personnel the entire time, complete with pre-recorded videos of players droning on about the "sacrifice" the military makes to ensure our freedoms. Someone from each branch threw a ceremonial first pitch and got the ball signed by a player. This event was literally sponsored by Boeing, proudly. I saw from videos played on the jumbo screen that people in Boeing collared shirts were the ones that spread out the massive US flag that was present during the anthem.
Every baseball game sings God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch so i went to the bathroom to avoid that of course. But between every inning there was some gooftroop being honored for their service with the backdrop of Boeing iconography littered around the ballpark. They even had a fucking enlistment ceremony where several people swore allegiance to the US military.
Obviously, this isnt new. There is no discovery here. The Empire is who we thought it was, make no mistake. But it is always chilling to hear the cheers for the American death cult, all brought to you by the military-congressional-industrial-complex.
Wow would it be nice if a few more people would just boo at this shit like they boo 27 year olds that cant throw a strike. Like damn I might cry tears of joy if 25+ thousand people would ruin the national anthem by just booing the shit out of it. Or if these military personnel and their families could be humiliated on their special day. They are part of the problem and they deserve to receive vitriol and malice. Fuck their service and fuck their valor. They dont deserve an autographed ball they deserve one that says "baby killer."
Communists that believe "gender freedoms" are bourgeoisie decadence
So it seems to me that across many spaces there is a tendency to water down queer and gender issues into the cynical commercialism that finance capitalists have pushed for. Among communists I see this with what people in Donbas have said, what a person from the DPRK has said to a Chinese interviewer, and it is also found in the west. Also in sections of the Indigenous community oftentimes elders will claim that (ironically) white people made up Two-Spirit people, all despite evidence to the contrary.
We also see characters like Putin rallying around this idea that the west is obsessed with "gender freedoms" despite the very obvious coordinated crackdowns against these supposed "freedoms" in the west.
When I hear people make these claims I am baffled because I am certain that colonialism has damaged and (attempted to) erase Indigenous gender expressions around the world. To say that queer issues can be boiled down to liberalism is clearly false and likley has its root in colonialism. Yet communists and other forces that are otherwise opposed to the financial imperialist system are not unified on this issue.
It does seem clear that the west tries to weaponize human rights to justify war and to justify investments. It also demonizes and makes sure to show when its enemies show these sentiments. But this reactionary strain of communism has failed to explain how the bourgeoisie apparently invented trans people without simply criticising their least favorite liberal feminist or gender theorist (perhaps Judith Butler). But gender is dynamic and if it has been molded by capital in this way then it should be demonstrable beyond criticisms of a single theorist or a single field.
I myself am absolutely no expert on gender or queer theory. Im straight and grew up in a reactionary home. Im hoping people here can give insight on how to address these issues that exist among communists. I think we can tallow the west to use human rights to further colonize the world and gender issues accross the world probably manifest differently and that should be understood and respectes. Simultaneously, we cant allow this erroneous view that the western bourgeoisie is not only the protector of gender rights, but its progenitor.
Anyways, I am hoping for some discussion on this.