Another day, another Rainer Shea L, this reads like. Disappointing. It genuinely sounds like he’s advocating for red-brown bullshit tryna ‘come together’ with these Mises Caucus motherfuckers-- and make no mistake, these are BROWNS.
“…And I included in the article an analysis of some of the dismissive and honestly condescending and paternalistic responses from some of the white leftists who condemned me for criticizing the politics of the LP, even as I pointed out that if these people gain any more political power than they already have in some states (LP members have won local elections across the country, and are even backing Republicans in some races where they have a better chance of the GOP winning than a relatively unknown LP candidate) as a result of the support and legitimacy the left would give them in participating in this rally, that would mean violence and further marginalization for Black, queer, trans, and other marginalized people. That didn’t matter to the white anti-war folks who told me that I was sowing division, that I was an agent of the state - these people actually said I was a COINTELPRO agent because I pointed out the very public bigotry of a political party - and that I was ridiculous for making these claims.”
It ain’t just me side-eying y’all anymore. Like… The way this Shea blog(bc I’m honestly not calling this admonishing, frankly paternalistic screed an ‘article’) reads, he doesn’t get how this looks from the outside. It honestly vindicates the vibe I get when I see a settler-led ‘left’ organization-- that “these people aren’t interested in liberation, they’re only out for self and for kin.”
I am still not convinced that concepts like Haywood’s Black Belt Republic aren’t the direction my folk should be going in-- because frankly? If Shea’s take is the take among the settler left, and if we’re really gonna have to listen to y’all pearl-clutch about “buh buh buh why won’t you make common cause with people even the old-guard libertarians call racists and phobics who definitely won’t long-knife y’all when your usefulness is through”, that tells me that your movement is predicated on anyone else’s sacrifice but your own, and leaves me considering you as deeply unserious to the point of being literally hazardous to any oppressed folk in your orbit.
“Ending nuclear war was more important than their bigotry, I was told in many different ways, and we can deal with the bigotry after we stop nuclear war from happening.”
Forgive me if I don’t believe that settler-left bigotry will ever be addressed within those spaces.
Agreed. I don’t have much to say about it as Shea has come rather dangerously close to essentializing left-critics of the LP, CPI, PCUSA and RAWM (so many fucking acronyms) as ultraleftists divorced from the masses. I appreciate that he at least acknowledges the necessity to refrain from tailing the bigots, and the DOJ/state department targeting poor black people and activists shouldn’t ever be lauded…
but
why mention the accusations against PCUSA which are apparently entirely disproven without even grazing the CPI’s past and present issues with sexual misconduct and cult-like behavior? The lukewarm defense of Black Hammer, another middling pseudo-Maoist cult rife with sexual abuse, robbery of its cadre, and seemingly genuine Hitlerite sympathies is not great either. I do not understand why time and energy is being wasted here. The most advanced of the masses were not being sponsored by the LP, CPI or Black Hammer, they were out in force on March 18. I feel Rainer may be falling into a trap of worker fetishism, or abstraction of “Workers” from “Communists” or the left anti-imperialist movement. Those comrades are the most advanced section of the working class.
At risk of sounding liquidationist or sectarian or whatever, the people in CPI and Black Hammer who have been swayed into staying by charismatic sex pests probably ought to receive help leaving and be encouraged to join non-cult formations. I do not accuse CPI and Black Hammer of being cults lightly, but anyone who knows knows and I can go into detail for anyone who doesn’t.
My current take on the RAWM is basically summed up as: “great, whatever.” Allow the libertarians and the cults to pretend to be anti-imperialist and capitalize on their voice if there is political opportunity in doing so. To act like there is a genuine coalition forming… I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but you can count me out. There are organizations and coalitions that already exist that are larger, more principled, and far safer for BIPOC & LGBT anti-empire activists. I think with the state and size of the anti-empire left, Shea’s idea of an equal coalition (with Libertarians et al) or a coalition fronted by communists a la the French resistance is far and away a pipe dream, and the ideological infection he mentions in the article is an inevitability, even if he has not witnessed it yet.
I won’t accuse Shea of this because this article, although I disagree heavily with it, seems to be made in good faith – an attempt at education or convincing people, and he seemingly believes principled anti-imperialists have the power to defend themselves from the bourgeois-reactionary elements of the RAWM, but demanding that the colonized submit themselves to the political whims of more powerful political groups who benefit from and even gloat about colonization… no. ANSWER, CodePink, Black Alliance for Peace, PSL – all anti-imperialist formations far more worthwhile than tailing the Libertarians. Even if Shea thinks that that won’t happen, I disagree.
I do not represent the PSL anymore unfortunately. Hopefully as soon as I am in a position to be able to. I will say that they, and I, support black sovereignty up to and including the right to secede and achieve full autonomy via the construction of a genuine black republic in Amerika, if there is a demand for it. I don’t necessarily like the idea of even voluntary segregation as such, but it has been proven time and again that a majority settler-led state in Amerika cannot properly represent the interests of colonized Afrikans and indigenous groups and it is far beyond time that black people everywhere achieve true political autonomy. I do not think tailing the LP is a great way to achieve this goal.
I guess I did have a bit to say lol. Agreed, this is an L.
edit: Russia is indeed the major artificial enemy at the moment and the state is gonna go even more hogwild accusing black activists of being Russian trolls, something they’ve been doing since the first red scare. China is next on the chopping block, though, and our allegedly anti-imperialist temporary allies may shake our hands, but they only do so with a knife behind their back. If this is to be done, the communists involved would have to be principled beyond measure for Amerikan formations. I do not believe they are, not even close.
The lukewarm defense of Black Hammer, another middling pseudo-Maoist cult rife with sexual abuse, robbery of its cadre, and seemingly genuine Hitlerite sympathies is not great either. I do not understand why time and energy is being wasted here.
Man, the last time I even heard about Black Hammer, they were popping off at the mouth about ‘Anne Frank is a colonizer’-flavored mess and I thought we had them sussed out from there as little more than an R. Kelly situation gone grift-political. Fully agreed about offering the swayed membership their outs, but why are we acting like the organizations as entities are somehow ‘allies to the cause’ is my question w/rt the blogpost.
My current take on the RAWM is basically summed up as: “great, whatever.” Allow the libertarians and the cults to pretend to be anti-imperialist and capitalize on their voice if there is political opportunity in doing so. To act like there is a genuine coalition forming…
This whole Rage Against The War Machine thing frankly reeks of kayfabe to me; and for so-called ‘principled communists’ to lend such a kayfabe legitimacy-- it reeks to me. This can only come back to bite us; the only winning move where Mises Caucus is concerned is not to play. So there too, I’m right there with you-- count me out. If I’m still alive by the time it happens, I’ll be saying ‘I told y’all so’ when y’all’s “new white man”(rip John Witherspoon) starts coming out with the cutlery.
Plenty of these right-wing “anti-imperialists” are against US involvement in Ukraine because they support Russia as a capitalist, socially conservative project that they truly believe is allied with the American conservative movement. They see contemporary Russia as a model to emulate. When the US state abandons the Russian front and attempts to aim the totality of their resources at China, these right-wing coalitions are gonna buy 100% into it and abandon any of the anti-imperial politics that they’ve pretended to have. Anticommunism and racism will be their open objective and settler-leftists calling for allyship with them will have helped build their platform. If we ally with these fucks, all we’re gonna have is a more legitimized AmeriNazi movement.
Browns combined the right and the left into a political leadership over the country, Shea is speaking of bolstering the anti-war movement’s numbers and thus power with the right instead.
“that “these people aren’t interested in liberation, they’re only out for self and for kin.””
This is not how he comes off to me but you are entitled to your opinion.
“I am still not convinced that concepts like Haywood’s Black Belt Republic aren’t the direction my folk should be going in”
Black Americans do not have the numbers to accomplish such a task as a Black Republic and hold it without the US bourgeois state along with the Canadian lapdog seizing the land back. This just isn’t realistic. If you want your people to be free, socialism is the best way to achieve such goals because it takes into account the interests of all workers equally. It does not cater only to the needs of black workers, no, however this is not something Marxism aims to do.
“definitely won’t long-knife y’all when your usefulness is through”, that tells me that your movement is predicated on anyone else’s sacrifice but your own, and leaves me considering you as deeply unserious to the point of being literally hazardous to any oppressed folk in your orbit.”
I understand your distrust however I remind you that even utilizing race relations analytics defensively is still viewing the world on terms of race. Marx shows us that method of analysis is useless, it is one which serves to create and then re-enforce capitalism.
I understand your distrust however I remind you that even utilizing race relations analytics defensively is still viewing the world on terms of race. Marx shows us that method of analysis is useless, it is one which serves to create and then re-enforce capitalism.
I keep coming back to this point because y’all keep doing it: lifting hundred-year old theory with no brushup on what your actual material conditions are. In Marx’s time, there was no understanding of the two Amerikas. He looked at it as a singular beast as though we were just another England or France; but that is not the case. In my Amerika, in the Amerika anyone who looks like me is relegated to, we don’t get the luxury to not analyze things on a racial line, because that is how the state and how the society both punish us for not staying in our perceived place, never fuckin mind assimilation.
Like, do you realize that when there’s only one or two Black folk in a room full of crackers, those Black folk immediately know two things: that they’re now ‘the fly in the milk’ as far as this gathering is concerned, and that the odds of one of those hypothetical white people getting buck and calling cops on us, regardless of what the function says it’s for, has skyrocketed? In an age where you’ve got white cops-- and shit, sometimes Tom-assed Sunken Place’d Black cops blowing us away, we don’t get that luxury. We have to know what the danger is, where the danger is, know where the exit is, and have a plan to get there before anything; and right now, I’m seeing all the warning signs of needing an exit.
You might as well ask a fireman to divest himself of PPE before tending to a five-alarm call.
Thank you for sharing this. Black Americans are forced down the race rabbit hole because the settler whites (MAGA, the middle class, the racist pigs, etc…) drag you down it. I understand you see things as race for survival. Do you recognize that the slavery economic mode of production from which their terror originates has passed and we are in the capitalist mode of production and with it capitalist relations to the means of production?
This means that the only escape from this terrorism this racist tyranny, is through a working class revolution. America has never had a feudal mode of production. It is likely that if we were to go the way of barbarism here at the point of capitalist crisis instead of socialism, we could very well see slavery come back. This being the backfoot of the bourgeoisie is likely how these settlers still persist similar to how the remnants of the Russian Empire (White Army) persisted in Soviet Russia.
I cannot simply waive my mouse and like magic this contradiction of needing the non-black working class and not trusting the non-black working class will be resolved. I simply as that you listen to the points I’ve made. The rest is a matter of struggle and solidarity within our class.
Do you recognize that the slavery economic mode of production from which their terror originates has passed and we are in the capitalist mode of production and with it capitalist relations to the means of production?
The slavery economic mode never passed on; due to the thirteenth amendment, corporations all over Amerika profit off the backs of prison slaves. Who were often pipelined into those cages, given mandatory minimums far beyond what they actually did, mandated to ‘work’(read: slave) at the end of a baton, or at the end of deliberate coercive tactics, and then left in a place where their likelihood of recidivism is so high that they’ll be right back in clink within six months. The economic mode did not change, it just put on a layer of camouflage that you’ve fallen for. Because you’re not in community with those who’ve been there.
And y’all don’t get in the way one bit. Never have I ever seen a white person interpose themselves between a cop and their soon-to-be victim. What ‘working class revolution’ can I count on out of y’all when I can’t even count on y’all to stop a pig? Speaking of, how am I supposed to believe the collective you would be abolitionists in the event of the return of mask-off, societal chattel slavery in these circumstances where y’all don’t even stop pigs? Your analysis just is not there.
Never have I ever seen a white person interpose themselves between a cop and their soon-to-be victim.
Hey, I’m wading into an old discussion that’s totally out of my depth here, but I just wanted to post a counter-example to what you said. This doesn’t invalidate what you said and that’s not my intention, as this is obviously a rare exception, but I just wanted you to know that it has happened. Perhaps it will give you a glimmer of hope.
This article would probably stir up a lot of shit on hexbear. The RAWM rally barely had anyone talking about it on lemmygrad, but the struggle session on hexbear was large even by their standards.
I was pretty surprised about it, on reddit it was also pretty hot topic.
Though i seriously don’t see what’s hot in it, no ML here probably sees them as anything other that they are, but we should also support or at least not attack antiwar movements in the imperialist states.
It is an “anti war” movement funded by Peter Theil and backed by a Libertarian party that wants the “Civil Rights Act” removed. It is a op and absolutely no ML should seriously support it.
I read their program for that action and there was nothing libertariany in it. I don’t doubt they are overally horrible people so you should count your fingers after handshake, but i would follow two significantly important Lenin advices: support the antiwar movements in the imperialist countries, something even more important now with the decaying global hegemony getting desperate than when it was first said after WW1; and second, while doing that be very careful you don’t get dragged into the bog.
“have helped the state’s aims. What the state wants is the narrative precedents required for carrying out these indictments, and all the future repression that’s been made possible by these actions.”
A shocking number of comrades fall for this fear stoking. Did the Bolsheviks hide from the might of the Czarist regime or did they go through it? One’s organizing cannot avoid the inevitable, that is idealism. Our class will respond and the bourgeois’ state will to our response and so on. That is the nature of conflict, of dialectical development. Of course no one says toss strategy aside, however using fear as a crutch simply cripples us.
“Unlike the CIA, which operates with a scary level of undemocratic impunity, the DOJ can only function as long as there’s enough popular will to support its activities, or at least enough of an absence of organized opposition.”
Not at all. The bourgeois state as a whole operates with undemocratic impunity. Do not allow yourself to become diluted with the lies of “democracy” or “freedom” under capitalism, these are methods of control. The way in which we approach the DOJ should be no different than the CIA.
“By targeting RAWM with unprincipled criticisms, then refusing to properly investigate what RAWM’s nature and purpose truly are, the sectarian elements in our movement have helped let the DOJ feel comfortable enough to carry out this attack against freedom of speech and assembly.” I can see where he is coming from however he arrives here in an interesting manner.
“But if these pro-Russian orgs are the ones that should be distrusted so intensely, why have the anti-Russian orgs been so silent on the DOJ’s actions? What’s more opportunistic than refusing to challenge the DOJ out of expediency?”
Not a great argument but yes.
“The reason why there’s such a lack of principle within the left, and within the parts of the communist movement that view “the left” as the only element of the people worth trying to reach, is that in the imperial center there’s an incentive for leftists not to prioritize winning. Most of what we in America call the left isn’t actually concerned about victory, or else the class struggle would by now at the least be in a vastly more advanced stage. What it’s primarily concerned with is engaging in “movementism,” where actors build political projects as an end in itself. Or with building platforms within the “left” discourse spaces, wherein one can only maximize one’s popularity by adhering to a set of approved ideas. Trying to fit into such an insular and toxic environment is not conducive to a serious type of Marxist analysis. At best, it allows for selectively using quotes from Marxist theorists to support one’s assertions, while ignoring the parts of this theory which vindicate stances that challenge the circle’s beliefs.”
He’s 100% correct. What the American left is infected with is ultraleft pette bourgeois-minded (immature, concerned with popularity instead of factual soundness) under-developed workers who either have not or can not developed their commitment to the cause to maturity (towards principled Marxism), instead merely dipping their toes into the revolutionary lake as it were. These workers must become more serious and dedicated to the cause, and as the contradictions sharpen they will however a spade must be called a spade.
" Lenin provided a proper perspective for what relatively small societal elements these insular spaces represent, saying the parts of the labor movement which ally with imperialism are the “privileged minority” of well-bribed workers."
Yes, the labor aristocracy. Specifically opportunistic labor aristocrats. These too infect the left and have since Lenin’s time.
“Just because somebody is on the left of the political spectrum, or purports to be the most “radical,” doesn’t mean they’re compatible with revolutionary politics. Given the insidious influence the Democratic Party has over the left, and how easy it is for the “ultra” lefts to aggressively side against anti-imperialist stances out of misplaced righteousness, these types can be among the most dangerous. We need to build connections with those who are most compatible with the pro-Russia, pro-China, and otherwise revolutionary orientations. Not with the “left” actors who will betray the class struggle as soon as they find a contradiction in one of the countries that’s fighting U.S. hegemony.”
This paragraph and the one prior to it…I would appreciate if he specified who he is suggesting we focus on. Pro-Russia one can think of conservatives, but who is pro-China or China orientated aside from us?
Overall I concur with comrade Shea, in the anti-war front, as I’ve stated before on this matter, a broad coalition benefits the cause over a sectarian one. I am more skeptical over his inclusion of those types for the revolution however that is a separate matter.
This is some excellent critique and very close to my own thoughts about all of this.
Thank you comrade