I’m well aware the exploitation is not equal and that the plunder of imperialism is tied, in some part, to what people have in the US. I feel like I need to circle back here. My disagreement with you was originally based on you saying the following:
Many self described leftists especially settlers will never be comfortable putting their lives on the line because they could always live a comfortable life if they so choose
Which is, at best, stretching the meaning of comfort a hell of a lot and ends up sounding like any issues people have who don’t belong to the most exploited groups are just “first world problem” inconveniences, rather than “real suffering.”
I had a recollection that we’ve talked about something similar in the past. This is what I could find on it:
I don’t believe the settler population ought to be twiddling their thumbs, but they need to be led by the proletarian vanguard
This seems to be the crux of your problems with PSL (correct me if I’m misrepresenting you). That you believe it’s not doing that and therefore is a failure, fait accompli. It’s all a little too oversimplified for me, like we can summarize it all into neat little boxes and say what will come of it as a result. Certainly, don’t put your time into a party like that if you don’t think it’s going to advance the goals of the most exploited. But this phenomenon of online US “leftists” summing an entire party effort with a few vague posts and then saying it’s a dud, end of story, drives me up the wall. It feels like a bad game of telephone and is embarrassing for proper dissection of what is actually going on, on a granular level. Some of which I would expect will not be granular public knowledge for opsec reasons, but the least people can do is say less about things they don’t have detailed backing for and get used to the idea of not having all the answers. And that’s a criticism I take on myself as well.
I do somewhat mean that those in America experience very different problems with capitalism and that these “first world problems” have Americans seeking to change the system to one that benefits them, which usually entails pivoting further into fascism instead of abolishing the system as a whole. Our left doesn’t have the class conciousness that sees the emancipation from capitalism as our solution but rather sees their struggle as their “right to the American dream”, which was never sustainable or possible.
This is the crux of my argument: nearly every settler colonial state has had an attempted communist party, and each one has had deep issues that are due to the settler base of said party. It is not in their class conciousness to abolish their own privlidge. Maki, CPUSA, SACP, all struggle from the same problem of labor aristocracy class conciousness and are doing their own version of labor zionism. In South Africa it’s been shown the answer is in the EFF, and in Palestine Hamas/PFLP. We need our own decolonial communist party made up of those who’s class have a true interest in completely abolishing capitalism, and settlers/labor aristocracy wishing to fight the good fight subjegated to their leadership.
PSL is a far cry from this and has the same labor zionist problems that the CPUSA has, as said in their socialist reconstruction book they wish to subjegate native nations under “working class leadership” which has been called out countless times by many indigenous people, and by not listening they’re continually pushing away those that wish for true emancipation in favor of a very yt base that cannot tell this is an issue. If there was some sort of setup like DemCent that could produce change or a materialist base for revolutionary conciousness I wouldn’t be so quick as to discount the party as a whole, but as it is PSL is another DSA is another CPUSA; a labor zionist org that pushes out people trying to produce needed change now in favor of those attached to a neverending long-range politics that focuses more on the white working class than anything else.
I’m well aware the exploitation is not equal and that the plunder of imperialism is tied, in some part, to what people have in the US. I feel like I need to circle back here. My disagreement with you was originally based on you saying the following:
Which is, at best, stretching the meaning of comfort a hell of a lot and ends up sounding like any issues people have who don’t belong to the most exploited groups are just “first world problem” inconveniences, rather than “real suffering.”
I had a recollection that we’ve talked about something similar in the past. This is what I could find on it:
source for context: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6154815/5451636
This seems to be the crux of your problems with PSL (correct me if I’m misrepresenting you). That you believe it’s not doing that and therefore is a failure, fait accompli. It’s all a little too oversimplified for me, like we can summarize it all into neat little boxes and say what will come of it as a result. Certainly, don’t put your time into a party like that if you don’t think it’s going to advance the goals of the most exploited. But this phenomenon of online US “leftists” summing an entire party effort with a few vague posts and then saying it’s a dud, end of story, drives me up the wall. It feels like a bad game of telephone and is embarrassing for proper dissection of what is actually going on, on a granular level. Some of which I would expect will not be granular public knowledge for opsec reasons, but the least people can do is say less about things they don’t have detailed backing for and get used to the idea of not having all the answers. And that’s a criticism I take on myself as well.
I do somewhat mean that those in America experience very different problems with capitalism and that these “first world problems” have Americans seeking to change the system to one that benefits them, which usually entails pivoting further into fascism instead of abolishing the system as a whole. Our left doesn’t have the class conciousness that sees the emancipation from capitalism as our solution but rather sees their struggle as their “right to the American dream”, which was never sustainable or possible.
This is the crux of my argument: nearly every settler colonial state has had an attempted communist party, and each one has had deep issues that are due to the settler base of said party. It is not in their class conciousness to abolish their own privlidge. Maki, CPUSA, SACP, all struggle from the same problem of labor aristocracy class conciousness and are doing their own version of labor zionism. In South Africa it’s been shown the answer is in the EFF, and in Palestine Hamas/PFLP. We need our own decolonial communist party made up of those who’s class have a true interest in completely abolishing capitalism, and settlers/labor aristocracy wishing to fight the good fight subjegated to their leadership.
PSL is a far cry from this and has the same labor zionist problems that the CPUSA has, as said in their socialist reconstruction book they wish to subjegate native nations under “working class leadership” which has been called out countless times by many indigenous people, and by not listening they’re continually pushing away those that wish for true emancipation in favor of a very yt base that cannot tell this is an issue. If there was some sort of setup like DemCent that could produce change or a materialist base for revolutionary conciousness I wouldn’t be so quick as to discount the party as a whole, but as it is PSL is another DSA is another CPUSA; a labor zionist org that pushes out people trying to produce needed change now in favor of those attached to a neverending long-range politics that focuses more on the white working class than anything else.