(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
Isn’t saying that you don’t think Americans can battle our own imperialism kind of the same as you saying that we shouldn’t worship Sakai-like book worship and that people are often more than their apparent material conditions, and we shouldn’t be revolutionary defeatists? If we don’t try addressing internal imperialism, that makes it harder on the rest of the proletariat around the globe. Maybe not the exact same, but its the same general idea.
His reasoning is that even in times of crisis and with little options, the Bolsheviks (yes, the material conditions between then and now aren’t anywhere near the same) would work alongside reactionary trade-unions, if and when they had no choice. I don’t think that is necessary for the moment though.
After re-reading your third paragraph, I think you have some good points.
I will say he rightfully decries liberals, but as you say, his tacit support for Rage Against the War Machine can definitely be a case of actions speaking louder than words.
Sakai isn’t the only nor even close to the best analyst of settler Colonialism, but he’s the boogyman for settlers.
Revolutionary defeatism for Americans means bringing about the destruction of the American settler colony.
I’m saying we should address internal Imperialism, by focusing on working for the internal decolonial movement lead by the colonized nations. I said the Americans have never defeated their outward Imperialism. It has always been defeated by their victims themselves. This begs the question of why they are ineffective at defeating external imperialism? Because they fail to analyze their own inward imperialism as society that enables the outward Imperialism.
Think about how the US sanctions have been targeted at oil states like Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, and Libya, our internal colonization of oil extraction was accelerated by Bush and Obama which allowed us assault these nations. Which is more effective? RAWM like protests or the struggle by the internal colonies against the extractive industries? Dollar dominance from controlling oil prices allows the US to keep developing countries in a dependency trap. America’s wealth is here, extracted here. Pull the weed by the roots.
RAWM does nothing and half of that “movement” was made of China Hawks. It’s good to advance such positions, but most effective when tied to anti-colonial solutions which can actually solve the problem.
Learn what wars subjugated the tribes that inhabited your home town. Learn how they were removed and how the American workers were involved. Learn where they are now and what they have to say about the current environment. Even if they are not Marxists, they know more about American Imperialism than you do. They live it every day. Their natural inclinations are closer to reality than the average settler Communist’s theories, who doesn’t even know their name.
Yes, and I think this point is very important. This is true pretty much anywhere that imperialism has been defeated, even temporarily, and we shouldn’t expect it to happen the other way around. In fact, the US being a settler colony makes this already unrealistic scenario even more unrealistic. The people of Imperial core nations simply benefit too much. That’s where revolutionary defeatism comes in. In cases where an imperialist/colonialist nation was defeated militarily (e.g. in a world war), the colonies of those nations that won independence still had to fight for it. It wasn’t ever just given. And cases where it might seem like it was, are cases where imperialist ties still persisted and the formerly colonized nations were still exploited through imperialism.
I think the fact that some people don’t understand this and push basically a white savior narrative in which settlers in the US have a revolution or do something to free all the lands the US extracts wealth from is a symptom of the prevalent and baked in white supremacy of these settler states. There is a dialectical relationship between the colonized and the colonizer classes that also needs to be resolved in order to actually build towards communism and that resolution will not come from the class in power just stepping down. I’m not a settler myself so I guess it’s easier to see this more clearly from the outside, but our comrades that are settlers need to do this analysis and self-crit accordingly. No one is saying that white communists in the US can’t support these indigenous and black movements, in fact they have to support them against the mass of settlers but they cannot replace them.