I don’t have it in front of me but I remember a Stalin quote saying something quite different in the case of supporting anti-imperialism in West Asia despite the social conservatism. I haven’t suggested supporting conservatives as you claim, just that the MAGA communists trying to appeal to conservatives to bring them to the left (their stated goals) doesn’t seem like the building of a reactionary army or adding momentum to fascism. It is at worse changing nothing about the current political landscape and at best introducing otherwise politically undeveloped workers who default into an inherited ideology to some new ideas which aren’t all bad on their surface.
Then why support them to begin with? Do you not care for trans people (as I am), or feminists (as I am), or black people? All of whom are oppressed because Conservatives don’t want us to have rights? I ask again, do you not want us to have rights?
I’ve never suggested supporting these groups, but you respond as if I have and then question my character which has nothing to do with an analysis of the topic at hand. Surely you aren’t suggesting that marginalized people don’t have rights because MAGA communists are trying to appeal to settler workers, and I haven’t in my cursory overview of them seen anyone calling for such things. Accusing other people of wanting to deny marginalized people rights for trying to have a discussion around the characteristics of a fringe political movement is inflammatory at best and unhinged at worst. The other person in this thread communicates without all the hubris while still having the exact same positions you have, I’d recommend looking to their writing for some examples of how to communicate in a way that is actually effective at getting your points across.
What identity should communists appeal to? The US identity is born out of a white settler identity. That is a fact which most settlers refuse to understand. Just making white settlers support Russia or China isn’t enough to rid themselves of their reactionary nature. Conservatives (and Liberals too) need to understand that they live on Stolen land and thus they need to support decolonisation in full. For a US communist working for a decade, this is shocking to hear. Instead of paralleling communist ideas, convincing the masses that socialism is superior to them, you instead compromise your position with conservatives. There shouldn’t be any compromises when your own ideology is at risk with such compromise.
You are editorializing what I said in order to fit in into your already predesignated conceptions of what this topic contains and what people who are participating in it without unquestionably adopting your view points must believe. I didn’t claim that conservatives will suddenly be cleansed of their reactionary nature by adopting stances that don’t promote war against China or Russia. I’m asking why some MLs here are so scared of what they claim is an irrelevant fringe group for trying to appeal to people that have the same identities as they do to take anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist positions. Wouldn’t that be better than them having imperialist and capitalist positions? Would it be any worse for the US political landscape for them to try?
I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe anyone at our stage of political development should spend time organizing with or for those positions, groups or people, I’m just confused about why you all seem to be so afraid of them to the point that you say they are nobodies but also put a lot of energy into making sure everyone knows how much you hate them. In a country full of actual volunteer feds in every workplace and community regardless of demographic, I don’t see why these guys are getting you all riled up. It’s not MAGA communists spreading anti-China propaganda from the left, its Anarchists and Maoists and DemSocs. It’s not MAGA communists calling to kill “tankies,” and bar them from organizing spaces it’s Anarchists and Maoists and DemSocs. I’ve never met a MAGA communist but I’ve seen a lot of Anarchist and Maoist and DemSoc wreckers co-opt movements and struggles and turn them into popularity contests, social clubs and cults of personality. I don’t think MAGA communists are the most correct group in the US left, but as far as incorrect left groups go, they are certainly not doing nearly the amount of harm I see Anarchists, Maoists, and DemSocs doing to the political landscape and conversations in the US. They barely seem to be relevant to the left or organizing spaces at all, and instead are just spreading positions that mostly align with our positions to people who we would never take the time to try and educate or political develop.
Conservatives and Liberals already understand that they live on stolen land, and they also know that the people they stole it from make up less than 3% of the population, so they already have accepted that it makes no sense to turn over control of the state to such a minority of people, even if they are the victims of settler colonialism. You are saying that you think a bunch of settler labor aristocracy must be convinced by communists to become supporters of decolonialism which really shows an idealist take, “the people MUST be convinced to believe what I believe because it is correct,” which flatly ignores the material conditions of those very people. Just because it is the right position doesn’t mean it will ever take hold in this country, and while I still organize in groups that promote it, I don’t see any clear way that these groups are going to gain traction amongst a population of people who already think the concept is totally illogical nonsense. I personally promote the sovereignty of Indigenous people and New Afrikans but that doesn’t mean I see any way we will ever get there at this point, nor have I seen anyone suggest doing anything except what we’ve already been doing which hasn’t really proven to be effective. The best avenue I can imagine is that if Indgenous and New Afrikan groups are incredibly organized and well armed when the inevitable collapse in the US happens, they might be able to carve out some small enclaves to wage a protracted war from, but that has nothing to do with convincing settlers to get behind decolonialism at all.
Next I see you wallow in your defeatism with: “It’s not like we are actually going to organize revolution in the next few years”, “honestly I don’t see anything else really working very well in this country yet”. What is it are you doing then? You see the troubles within your very country yet you don’t fight back? What have you been doing for a whole decade to let yourself wallow in this?
there is a LARPy privilege in your tone which I see some online leftists do and I just don’t get it. feels like they are trying to channel Lenin or something, real weird to me.
purporting that a sincere communist who has spent thousands of hours organizing in streets and workplaces with the masses is somehow wrong for having a sober analysis of the conditions of this nation, and that instead we must blindly commit ourselves to the idea that somehow the non-existent left in the settler-colonial labor aristocracy of the imperial core is going to manufacture a revolution before the process of dedollarization and shift towards a multi-polar world forces a collapse of the US economy which results in some sort of fascist take over and/or civil war scenario can only come from a place of privilege that I have never had and can not relate to. I am a materialist, and if you think acknowledging in the reality of the conditions I live in is somehow wrong, I would say that is a form of liberalism that needs to be thoroughly investigated.
It seems as if you are suggesting that somehow me and others like me not “fighting back” hard enough is the reason why the left is failing in the US as if there are any examples of capitalist or colonial nations having a successful workers revolution. I think it is really foolish to assert that fighting back in and of itself means success is assured. If the conditions are not ripe for these ideas to spread, there needs to be another phase of development first. The CPC did not have a socialist revolution before they led a New Democratic revolution, for example. Meeting people where they are at and guiding them towards socialism is different than standing at the end of the road screaming “THIS IS WHERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE” to a bunch of people so far away that they don’t even recognize your existence.
Are they truly going to blame the billionaires? No they will blame the so-called woke left which is what we are. They argue that ideas like transgenderism are bourgeois, and yet you seem totally quiet about this. With anti-LGBT and racist sentiment, you don’t care as long as it is “progressive”.
they do blame the billionaires from what I have seen. I haven’t seen any of the other things you’ve claimed here and have acknowledged this is new content to me but again will point out that your consistent editorializing and knee-jerk presumptions about my positions “you don’t care about this, you want that, etc” just undermine your entire argument and present as anti-social. No one wants to be spoken to like that and if you are actually a sincere communist I don’t know why your default stance is to be inflammatory and vitriolic instead of being amicable and pleasant to interact with. Saying “you, you, you,” especially when making up really outlandish positions that you are projecting onto the other person is just not it.
I think the main idea is that the colonial state is going to wither away on its own because zionists are already leaving due to how unsafe it is for them to be there, and by the time a two state solution would be implemented, this will have already reached a point where those people will not return and anyone like them who remains will want to leave even more because they have had their colonial project taken away. This will lead to an inevitable one state for Palestine because all the euros will flee and Palestine will have a majority and keep gaining power in the area, while the colony is fully weakened, loses a lot of population, and by then maybe even a lot of external funding.
China having this position makes sense because they are trying to be taken seriously as a mediator and the two state solution is the closest thing to a good deal for Palestinians that is actually being considered at the moment, but the average communist position should absolutely be an end to the zionist state entirely. If China adopted a one state policy in favor of Palestine, they wouldn’t be included in any serious negotiating because that is obviously not something one of the parties in the negotiation wants to accept at the moment.