CPUSA and DSA have consistently been used to funnel leftists into the democrat party. There have been efforts to radicalize these orgs from the ground up but because of routine liquidations and undemocratic election of leadership they have failed and any attempt at using their resources for good fall flat. The general makeup of these orgs are also very liberal, with the occasional exception to the rule. I recall CPUSA liquidating a chapter through accusations of “black nationalism” and following the black panther playbook, the continual normalization of zionism within the DSA and gutting of anti-zionist resolutions, and the clockwork endorsement and aiding of the democratic party for both (as well as the pool of up and coming democrat “leftists” that DSA serves as). The way these orgs are setup, their connection to the state and the democratic party, it all reads as controlled opposition to me.
ACP is a bit of a different beast, but they have such a strange amount of money and Jackson Hinkle showing up on Chinese television, giving Maduro a brief interview on Venezualan TV, the speech he gave to the houthis, the day 1 ACP meeting with the CPRF, it’s all incredibly sus. I can’t help but see it as an attempt to make sure communist curious white men become fanatic yankee chauvinists, building this “anti-woke” communism that will be used to give communism a horrible face that plays into the stereotypes it already has and to bash actually existing attempts at building socialism. I could very well also see that they’re being used by the state as a means to communicate with anti-US forces as the CPUSA was back in the day. It feels like an updated version of the CPUSA, with our current day’s version of US nationalism and a (scary) youthful energy to the thing. They are the ultimate settler communist org, and I really, really hope they never become influential in any meaningful way.
Other than the CPUSA, DSA, and ACP you can’t really say for sure controlled opposition, but suspiciously funded infantile orgs that do more harm than good run rampant. Something’s definitely up with the RCP and their cult leader bob avikan and the millionaire founders of PSL are sus… these trotskyist/marcyite orgs may not be intentionally controlled opposition but they haven’t done much past newspapers and podcasts as per the tradition. The vanguard party sure hasn’t shown up yet at the very least and the prison system, drug trade, and surveillance state has done a phenomenal job putting potential revolutionaries trying to set one up behind bars.
I’m sorry for not posting sources sooner, but you need to understand this pops up continually and PSL doesn’t get a free pass from criticism even if I’m just talking about the personal experiences from my comrades. PSL started as and has never not been a marcyist, trotskyist party that runs elections and polices protests to control revolutionary energy. Richard Becker and his wife Gloria La Riva have always had oversized control of the party failing to adhere to any sense of democratic in democratic centralism. Ben Becker and his wife Karina Garcia are also on the central committee, clearly through nepotism and/or just clear as day fed shit. And you can’t say without being an SA apolgist that they have power structures in place to prevent it from taking place. They harbor and take the side of abusers time and time again and the only reason why Im so mad about it is because ppl rather deny it happens than acknowledge it and try and be better or hold leadership accountable
Sorry I confused the transphobe with the other transphobe.
You can’t say PSL didn’t post a “masking is a personal choice” video during the campaign that was so unpopular they took it down. You can’t say claudia wears a mask at events. You can’t say PSL isn’t an unsafe space for disabled people for this exact reason, I’m sick of the constant “nuh uh” reasoning to excuse this shit. Own up to it, say it’s a problem or say that you care more about PSL than disabled people. Condemn transphobic comments and work to make it a better org. It’s just constant denial
The link they posted was broken, Im assuming they meant the piece in there that is an appeal to the US government to allow more soverignty for the natives through the following and amending of treaties. This is similar as to when hamas advocates for two state, it’s not because it is the basis for their liberation, but by advocating for it and always ready to be working for it the hypocrisy and the untenable situation they are in becomes clear.
Socialist reconstruction is not an appeal to US imperialism and I judge to a different standard
By settlers I mean those with an explotative relationship with the land, receiving those goodies from imperialism and the other tendrils of white supremacist America, their existence legal and protected within our law. It’s a spectrum, but importantly not ghettoized black people, not non-citizens, not natives. I’m talking about Brian Becker, his kid who he put on the top committee, Im talking about that TERF anti-masker claudia de la cruz.
The EFF is a great example of what we could have here, an organization advocating for and making active steps towards decolonization and land back in a socialist framework. Yes, settlers can join, and no, they are not the majority of the organization nor in great leadership positions.
?? An appeal to the US government is extremely different than the plan for a revolutionary government to take its place. Why do white people think they can speak like this?
No. I am not a populist or a tailist, I recognize communism is extremely unpopular in america and will not be in the nations popular interest unless the vast majority of lazy white america one day feels like working the fields for the rest of their lives is a good idea as to give their grandchildren a life worth living. Until we smash imperialism these revolutionary circumstances will not arise, and as such I am a revolutionary defeatist in our context. We need to create the conditions.
But they do not agitate for this. They say they will “give” them autonomy, but they don’t fight for their autonomy. They use minimal language when talking about reperations, settling for the demand that native communities ask for because it shows the clear disregard colonizers have for anything including their own law as long as natives can be oppressed. In practice, they continually push out native ppl and native orgs like the red nation have cut ties with them over this systemic issue. Brian becker’s white ass doesn’t get to just say he supports native liberation and get off the hook, no settler does. It’s about the work and its about having native people write that theory.
And hey listen, I don’t know the work you do or your branch. I have a problem with systemic issues in the org and the settler family business style of leadership they have. That doesn’t mean you and your comrades arent doing good work in black communities, but that doesnt also mean that the many many people i know who left the org because of anti-blackness are just wrong, or misrepresenting the org. It doesn’t mean the sexual assault that does happen in PSL isn’t covered up, it doesn’t mean that Brian Becker isnt a millionaire that puts him and his white family in leadership positions. These are all legit problems and the fact it always gets dismissed as exclusively online criticism or fed jacketed doesn’t help PSL beat the cult allegations
Theyre all organizations headed by settlers that put our statements saying settler colonialism was not the principle contradiction of american society. They’re all organizations that have had liquidations of or mass resignation by native and black people that they say they represent. I’m saying the way they treat America is the same way Maki treats Israel re: palestinians and israeli working class unite. Even the ACP knows thats impossible politics, yet as if cut from the same cloth takes the same settler chauvinist line when it comes to america.
The conditions are different, but not entirely dissimilar. The thing is now citizenship is a measure of whiteness aside from the ghettoized, so we have an iraqi, burmese, euro-american, etc etc labor aristocracy that do jobs handling the resources gained overseas at a fraction of what we’re paid. The united states is constantly displacing ghettoized and homeless people to build gentrified areas and will violently displace natives if their concentration camp happens to be on top of some uranium. Like sure Israelis are less lazy fascists with healthcare and more domestically deployed bombs but americans are still fascists doing the same god damned shit
Hard to say, not really many orgs I can recommend with a national presence. Chunka Luta is great. Think of your local struggles, lots of black defence groups in the black belt, national soverignty struggles in Hawaii and Alaska, local community care orgs, socialist/john brown gun clubs. Make a book club with your friends if you can, radicalize your communities and never stop learning.
Stalin’s stance on Israel was horrible and one of his biggest mistakes, he was a good theorist for his country but not settler colonialism and I am not so dogmatic to see him as unfalliable. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a fuckin hero and symbol of justice
I’m not saying they’re directly saying it (although they often do) I’m saying that it’s what they do in practice. If a communist organization prioritizes labor politics in a settler colonialist structure they end up with incorrect theory – “Israeli and Palestinian working class unite!”. CPUSA, PSL, FRSO doesn’t make distinctions between the white labor aristocracy and the black proletariat, or black labor aristocracy for that matter. A ghettoized black person works a permanent underclass, doing the dirty work at hyper-exploited wages, experiencing near apartheid in every sense in every institution to keep them there or in jail otherwise. A white working class person will be excused from much of this barbarity at their expense, allowed to work IT while black people clean the toilets. These interests are different and the distinction is vital and necessary to be made, or else we end up with incorrect and hell you could even call crypto-trotskyist theory. These orgs always end up becoming majority white as a result, continually trying to unite the oppressed with the oppressor (with the oppressed always being “at fault” for not participating).
For the second example I could bring up so much, I’ll start with this red nation article but what comes to mind is their Socialist Reconstruction book where they advocate for the liberation of native peoples under “working class leadership” of the whole of America. I could also mention the numerous times they’ve mentioned “honoring treaties” as a solution, a red flag we should be treating as if people advocated for a “two state solution”.
It’s a good article, my experience with US communist parties/orgs has been largely about too much centralism and not enough democracy. Tailist lines but more importantly tactics, a never ending building of “revolutionary consciousness” that entails bashing anyone that doesn’t want to play controlled opposition for the democrats an adventurist. I have to clarify – building revolutionary consciousness is the goal, but it’s done through building dual power, not before. By limiting their organizing tactics to police sanctioned parades and attempting to build revolutionary consciousness among systemically reactionary groups, they’re continually doomed to fail and thus function to forever condemn anyone looking to build a functional movement or even do a functional action.
Another aspect in the USA is the labor aristocracy. These orgs fail to see this as an integral part of organizing in the USA due to the fact that many of them are labor aristocracy, forever prioritizing the “white working class” and not building a base among the non-settler classes and then reaching out for settlers to work under non-settler leadership. As it is we have continual issues of organizations headed by white people saying they represent the liberation of black and indigenous people, having those same people abused or even sexually assaulted in the organizations on a systemic basis, and when they call the organizations out they get fed-jacketed. I legitimately think these orgs would have a better shot doing revolutionary work if they admitted their labor aristocracy base, put forth theories of transcending whiteness and committing class suicide, and put themselves at service to the revolutionaries around the world and at home instead of considering themselves vanguards to a cause that isn’t in their class interest. No more shit like PSL creating theories of indigenous liberation that just recreate the colonial relationship that exists today, because as long as that kind of thing keeps happening the actual revolutionary classes of america will never have anything to gain from them.
Race as class is important because of the systems that kept these seperations as rigid as they were may not exist anymore, but the capitalists were never actually going to end apartheid. As was the case in America, the ending of slavery was because otherwise black people would flip the countty on its head otherwise, same with the “end” of jim crow, remove the most obvious forms of discrimination, pay off a few black people to become white supremacists, and say that racism is over. We need to remember race is a construct formed out of and to reinforce the white supremacist system, a black billionaire has a white mind and the enemy stays the same – capitalist colonialism and its super structure of white supremacy.
With the example of Pinochet’s Chile and South Korea’s fascism, this is out of their neo-colonial status and functions as fascism because it is the open violence of colonialism and complete subjegation to capitalism and the white supremacist world order. Generally in the 21st century colonialism has progressed to neo-colonialism, indoctrinating a subsect of the population into anti-communist idealogy and having them enact fascism on the population as to clean imperialism’s hand of the situation. But at the end of the day, the driving force is always capital and particularly US imperialist capital and the white supremacist order it reinforces, it is still US fascism to blame as the situation simply would not have occured otherwise.
The EFF just doesn’t fit any definition of fascism I can think of. They certainly don’t represent corporations looking to take full control of the state (Mussolini’s “Fascism might be better called corporatism”). They aren’t funded by US imperialism or any other substancial anti-communist force, nor do they partake in anti-communism. They don’t want to use white people as a permanent underclass of laborers and displace them from their native lands (nor could they even do these if they wanted), and they’d still deserve support even if they decided to take a more radical approach.
Decolonization often gets called fascist by the white people it threatens, but lets stop for a moment and look at Palestine and really ask ourselves – is there any other choice? Israelis live their lives in a relative comfort on the backs of Palestinians, and so can any Israeli “working class” really have a revolutionary class conciousness without being class suicidal? Can a revolutionary idealogy be anything but removing this explotative relationship and effectively decolonizing the lands?
However, coming from a white, upper-middle class background
The EFF is racist (mostly against white people).
My brother in christ, u just racist. White people are in the EFF and are the most advanced settler communists there because they are by necessity class suicidal and subjegate themselves to the indigenous black population who has always stewarted the land before settlers came and brought capitalism. Decolonizing is a necessity and with race as class even in a fully marxist framework we can see how expropriation of land based on race is a necessity.
I’ll keep it short because kaffe made a great post there, but this is an idealogical failure on your part. As with any settler colonial state the vanguard is always going to come from those not allowed within the settler identity and will always be some form of decolonization. I will have one more note
Surely, trying to unify the workers of all races is a more correct position than sowing this kind of ethnic division (which is, after all, a common fascist tactic)?
I generally find the best definition of fascism to mean colonialism turned inwards, so the jews being subjected to the violence normally reserved for africans, or the circumstances that settlers pose on the indigenous or enslaved in their settler colonies. The EFF recognizes this and wants to fix this, society is already drawn against racial lines with black people receiving fascism while white people live in luxury at their expense. To suggest they are the fascists in turn, especially as a white person, well… the settler communist isn’t far from the white supremacist tree. Hope the tough love helps, if not rest assured the EFF will see us a socialist south africa in our lifetimes.
Gerald Horne writes a new book every other year and they just keep getting better. He’s essential reading for American communists, not a hitler particle or liberal brainworm to be had.
CPUSA and DSA have consistently been used to funnel leftists into the democrat party. There have been efforts to radicalize these orgs from the ground up but because of routine liquidations and undemocratic election of leadership they have failed and any attempt at using their resources for good fall flat. The general makeup of these orgs are also very liberal, with the occasional exception to the rule. I recall CPUSA liquidating a chapter through accusations of “black nationalism” and following the black panther playbook, the continual normalization of zionism within the DSA and gutting of anti-zionist resolutions, and the clockwork endorsement and aiding of the democratic party for both (as well as the pool of up and coming democrat “leftists” that DSA serves as). The way these orgs are setup, their connection to the state and the democratic party, it all reads as controlled opposition to me.
ACP is a bit of a different beast, but they have such a strange amount of money and Jackson Hinkle showing up on Chinese television, giving Maduro a brief interview on Venezualan TV, the speech he gave to the houthis, the day 1 ACP meeting with the CPRF, it’s all incredibly sus. I can’t help but see it as an attempt to make sure communist curious white men become fanatic yankee chauvinists, building this “anti-woke” communism that will be used to give communism a horrible face that plays into the stereotypes it already has and to bash actually existing attempts at building socialism. I could very well also see that they’re being used by the state as a means to communicate with anti-US forces as the CPUSA was back in the day. It feels like an updated version of the CPUSA, with our current day’s version of US nationalism and a (scary) youthful energy to the thing. They are the ultimate settler communist org, and I really, really hope they never become influential in any meaningful way.