There’s 2 questions in this post, really.

  1. I started reading J. Sakai’s Settlers the other day. I’m finding it very informative and enlightening so far. I’m about a quarter of the way through it. However I have read in various communist spaces online that its a very flawed work that smears William Z. Foster as a racist, that the author is a C.I.A. plant, that the author is a ultra/Maoist, etc. I haven’t studied the communist movement throughout American history too much so I honestly don’t know a lot about Foster but from what I gather from doing some Googling, he’s a pretty beloved figure. This is definitely a gap in my knowledge. Are any of these criticisms founded?

  2. Is the 4th of July a reactionary holiday? I feel like I’m going bonkers because (against my better judgement) I’ve been going back and forth with someone arguing whether it is or isn’t. I don’t think any principled communist should be voluntarily celebrating the holiday for reasons that I consider obvious. The holiday is about celebrating America and being uncritically patriotic. The person I’m arguing with is stating that it’s not a reactionary holiday, that America gaining independence from England led to the collapse of the British empire (even though England still has several colonies right now as I’m typing this?), and that communist leaders such as Mao and Castro understood the revolutionary war to be a positive development. Which I don’t really disagree with, I don’t think England losing a colony is a bad thing. But saying “this was one domino out of hundreds that led to slightly more favorable conditions” is different than celebrating. What is the ML take on the 4th of July? Am I completely off base?

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago
    1. Main criticisms of “Settlers” are that not only it is outdated work being rapidly devaluated by the current happenings (and of the past ones too), and that it is undialectical and therefore unmarxist (nobody argue that USA as a absolute core of capitalism is the farthest gone and have most extreme conditions, but by no means it is exceptional as in exempt and immune to marxist analysis). There’s also more like sketchy details about the author itself, but i can’t really comment on that.

    You might be interested in this:

    https://comraderene.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/settlers-by-j-sakai-un-marxist-trash/

    1. Absolutely, in current form it is commemoration of genocide, land steal and imperialism.

    USA independence not only did not caused collapse of British Empire, but strenghtened and reanimated it for the last century of its existence. American independence was progressive for a time, but only when compared with decaying european absolutism.

    • Stalinist_Dishrag@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      Thank you for your response.

      I’ll read what you linked here shortly. I’ve found so far that Settlers has explained why white Americans are the way we are (I’m white), though I disagree with Sakai that there is no such thing as a white proletariat and that America is doomed to never see revolution. I may keep reading Settlers, just with a much more critical eye. Thanks again!

  • GloriousDoubleK@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    Settlers is okay so long as you devote attention to other anticolonial revolutionaries and thinkers. The book isnt an end all be all.