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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.
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.
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.
In Shea’s defence, PCUSA and CPI (with all of it’s flaws) are 2 of the only genuinely anti-imperialist parties in the states. And it’s no surprise they are attacked as such. Although personally I would keep CPI at an arms distance with a gun trained on them at all times. Maupin has extremely troubling views, however like MAGA in terms of the Russia war, they can be counted on to oppose ukrainian nazism which makes them beneficial to an anti-war movement so long as it is within the Russian front stage.