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Resignation
Statement From Former Rhode Island branch of Socialist
Alternative. September 2017.
The
Rhode Island branch of Socialist Alternative has been in existence since 2014. The
branch experienced the majority of its growth in 2015 and 2016. Over this time,
we have consistently tried to work within the larger national organization, but
recently, that has become more and more difficult. The following members of Socialist
Alternative Rhode Island have decided to resign from the organization. The reasons
for our resignation center around SA’s decision to endorse Bernie Sanders in the
2016 election, SA’s approach to the Democratic Party and DSA, the approach to identity
politics and special oppression, international issues, and serious problems within
SA’s leadership.
Bernie Sanders,
The Democrats, and DSA
One
issue that the members of the Rhode Island branch have always had strong disagreements
over with the leadership of Socialist Alternative is the organization's orientation
towards Bernie Sanders. While it was certainly understandable to try and recruit
new members from Sanders's base, there were ways to do this without directly supporting
his campaign for presidency. Claiming to be "revolutionary Marxists" while
wholeheartedly supporting reformist, anti-communist campaigns doesn't attract many
new members, it just confuses people. While Socialist Alternative did experience
growth, it came more from Trump's election than Sanders's campaign. The largest
consequence from supporting Sanders was, in fact, the loss of a great number of
experienced cadre. SA wouldn't need to focus so much on building more cadre if the
cadre you had to begin with didn't leave due to opportunism around the Sanders campaign,
amongst other things.
Continued
support for Sanders is even more embarrassing: he clearly will not form a new party.
It is not in his interest. Even if he did form a new party and became the leader
of it, Socialist Alternative would then be supporting a western chauvinist imperialist
who voted for sanctions on Russia and would have continued Obama's secretive drone
program. Even with that aside, however, why are we so certain that Sanders wouldn't
form a new party? One only has to investigate his history, as good Marxists should.
Bernie
Sanders arguably did begin his political career as a socialist. In the 1970s, he
was in favor of the CIA being abolished, and in the 1980s, as mayor, he vocally
opposed US imperialist action in Nicaragua. Even during this time, however, he was
beginning to succumb to opportunism. For example, he supported Walter Mondale's
presidential campaign in 1984, and Michael Dukakis's general election campaign in
1988. This slide was not fully complete, however, until he was elected to Congress
in 1991. In order to stay elected, Sanders agreed to caucus with the Democrats and
not attempt to form any third party. He didn't only not form a third party himself,
he even obstructed local independent efforts like those in the Progressive
Party, which he was formerly allied with. He voted against the Gulf War once, but
his record on foreign
affairs has been spotty at best since then, and even the Gulf War vote wasn't without
its share of political dealings. He alienated many of his former allies, including
some of his staff, by voting to bomb Serbia in 1999 and then arresting protesters
who performed a sit-in at his office after the fact (http://www.libertyunionparty.org/?page_id=363 ). While he voted against the Iraq War in 2002, he
voted for the War in Afghanistan, voted for the new AUMF language that allowed the
Iraq War to happen in the first place, and voted to continue the Iraq War on various
occasions.
As senator,
his record has even been wishy-washy on domestic issues. When the 15 dollar
minimum wage was gaining popularity as a movement issue, Sanders was only willing
to support a 10 dollar minimum wage. It was only due to pressure from Socialist
Alternative and others that he relented. More recently, he has watered down his
old call for "Medicare for All”, first by focusing only on ACA reform, then
by writing a “single-payer” healthcare bill that keeps copays (http://www.pnhp.org/docs/SandersLetter_2017.pdf)
and is endorsed by Kamala Harris, a centrist Democrat.
From
his recent positions to his more distant past, it should be clear to Marxists upon
honest analysis that Bernie Sanders is a careerist coward at best and a blatant
opportunist at worst. Trusting him to do what's best for the working class - to
the point where you are willing to spend 20,000 dollars hosting town halls and calling
for petitions about the subject - is a sorely misplaced trust. 20,000 dollars is
a lot of money, a sum that could be spent on resources that could truly help your
organization and the communities it is situated in, instead of wasted on a wild
goose chase.
Related
to your mistaken views and approach on Bernie Sanders is your approach to the
Democratic Party. For the longest time, Socialist Alternative officially rejected
working within the two-party system, and rightfully recognized the Democratic Party
as an organ dedicated to perpetuating bourgeois interests while paying mere lip
service to social and labor justice. Ever since the Sanders campaign, however, Socialist
Alternative's stance on the Democratic Party has gotten more ambiguous. While Member's
Bulletins and newspapers still recognize that there are at least some reactionary
elements in the Democratic Party, your publications also commonly mention a "Sanders
wing" or a "Sanders/Warren wing" within the party (https://www.socialistalternative.org/2017/07/13/democrats-divisions-deepen/).
With this rhetoric, you assume that Sanders and Warren and the “wing” of the Democrats
that they supposedly lead is in any way to the “left” in any way that matters. This
is decidedly false. Sanders, Warren, and even Democrats to their “left” (for example,
Raul Grijalva), are still a part of a party that upholds the interests of the bourgeoisie
when push comes to shove, and are easily reigned in by a center-right leadership.
Hoping these Democrats would create a coherent faction within the party that could
accomplish anything beyond showboating is wishful thinking at best.
Furthermore,
the suggestion that was made in Member's Bulletin 86 that "forcing" "left"
Democratic politicians to endorse and speak at Socialist Alternative events will
draw in new "layers" (an obnoxious, overused bit of jargon) of workers
and youth is also misleading. Revolutionary socialist parties should not try to
make liberal politicians look redeeming. Instead, it should be our job to point
out the strong contradictions that naturally arise from liberal politics and lead
newly radicalizing people away from Democrats as much as we can.
Lastly,
it is our belief that Socialist Alternative's view of the Democratic Socialists
of America is a bit too optimistic. DSA was founded by Michael Harrington to be
an anti-communist alternative to other socialist parties, and from its inception
it has focused on trying to influence the Democratic Party with little success.
It is certainly true that the character of DSA has shifted a bit due to the massive
influx of young new members, but we have to keep our heads about us. For one thing,
the way DSA counts its membership is different from Socialist Alternative's. As
you know, SA only counts people as members if they pay regular dues AND attend branch
meetings. DSA's practice, on the other hand, counts people as members from dues-paying
status alone. Therefore, it is far more difficult to say how many actual ACTIVE
members DSA has at any given time. Related to this is the fact that DSA is a decentralized
organization. While this makes it easier for specific chapters to become more radical,
it also makes it a lot harder for those chapters to hold influence over the organization
at large, or for problems within the organization to get resolved. For example,
recently, a man named Danny Fetonte was elected to DSA's National Political Committee
by withholding information about his work in CLEAT, a police union. When rank-and-file
discovered this lie of omission, many of them were upset and called upon Fetonte
to resign ( https://twitter.com/DSA_SF/status/898629195634425856 ).
These
calls, however, are from individual chapters and not a unified movement. The decentralized
structure of the organization makes it difficult for such unified actions to come
together and succeed. It also makes it easier for people like Fetonte to slip through
the cracks: if DSA were a centralized organization with better vetting and security
procedures, it's likely Fetonte's lie of omission would have been caught far earlier
than it was. While similar issues of abused power dynamics have occurred in Socialist
Alternative, this has been due more from lack of internal democracy instead of a
lack of centralist structure.
What
should the proper approach to DSA be, then, with all this in mind? It is our view
that working with DSA chapters in united front actions, especially if the chapters
in mind are of the more radical vein, is a smart and perfectly acceptable tactic.
Trying to become more appealing to DSA members by focusing more on Bernie Sanders
and sliding to the right, however, is a total mistake. DSA and SA are separate organizations
with separate aims. A democratic socialist and a revolutionary socialist will ultimately
have different goals, and thus, different preferred strategies and tactics. These
differences should be recognized. While it is understandable to worry about the
disparity between SA's membership numbers versus DSA's, it is our opinion that having
valuable,
dedicated members and cadre is far more important than having a huge amount of
paper members that signed a form once. Further, trying to be more like DSA will
not bring SA those numbers anyway. SA should remember its revolutionary socialist
past, bring it into its present, and focus on pointing out the differences between
revolutionary and democratic socialist tactics and aims. Confusing potential new
members or letting them grow complacent in left-liberalism is not the way forward.
We can't just meet people where they're at: we have to guide them to the right conclusions.
Socialist Alternative, however, has only focused on the former, while paying far
too little attention to the latter. This, along with your approach to the
Sanders campaign and the Democratic Party, amounts to an irreconcilable difference
in how we view and interact with bourgeois politics.
Race and
Racism
Another significant source of dissent from the Rhode Island branch stems from
Socialist Alternative's position on racism. Regarding white supremacy and anti-blackness,
it is the opinion of the undersigned that the national organization's perspective
is incompatible with goals of racial justice. Until Socialist Alternative re-calibrates
its register of discourse on racism, its liberatory praxis will be severely compromised
and ethically suspect.
While the national organization has made an effort to become involved in the
struggle for racial justice, there is a widespread failure to grapple with the structures
of white supremacy and anti-blackness. To verify this claim, we need to look no
further than the Marxism and the Fight for Black
Freedom pamphlet circulated several months ago. This text was critiqued by
a large number of comrades in an internal document, so it is not our goal to belabor
the point. Our comrades raised brilliant points in their dissenting letter - only
to be ceremoniously dismissed. We must announce that a handful of devoted Rhode
Island members signed that criticism - only to have our names omitted from the final
record. In an effort to combat this disenfranchisement, we submit our criticisms
of the pamphlet, it's dumpster-fire of a sequel in Members Bulletin
#87 , and Socialist Alternative's politics more generally.
Socialist Alternative's perspective on racism can best be described as class
reductivism. At every turn, white supremacy and anti-blackness are subordinated
to an analysis of class as mere derivatives. The standard refrain is as follows:
racism is a tool utilized by the ruling class to divide and conquer working people.
From this vantage point, white supremacy and anti-blackness are theorized as the
most odious defense mechanisms of the bourgeoisie in the name of profit. The conclusion,
then, is that fighting classism is the best - and indeed the only way
- to eradicate racism.
We do not wish to debate the "origins" of racism. We grant leverage
to Eric Williams, C.L.R. James and the countless other prominent scholars who contend
that class exploitation gave birth to racism. We take issue, however, with the genetic
fallacy inherent in this line of reasoning. It is illogical to draw a conclusion
based solely on the origin of the phenomena in question, as opposed to its
current meaning. Stating that racism has class origins does not foreclose
upon the possibility that it became unhinged from its "base." Irrespective
of racism's roots, white supremacy and anti-blackness are now organizing
principles in and of themselves. Racism cannot be reduced to a reflex of capital
- it is a structure with material consequences. The tendency of describing anti-blackness
as "ideological" or "individual" in nature demonstrates a
failure to grapple with structural racism, that, in the final analysis, exposes
a racist worldview.
There comes a time where one needs to realize that the profit motive lacks explanatory
power in the face of anti-blackness. Socialist Alternative routinely makes the intellectually
facile argument that seizing the means of production is the panacea for a civilization
steeped in racism. But this is absurd - as it presupposes that violence against
people of color is always, or mostly, motivated by a running ledger. Violence against
people of color is often counterproductive from the perspective of capital. Other
variables are operating beneath the surface - those which can only be described
as the sadistic desires to inflict torture and re-organize one's being. The problem
is also existential and ontological in orientation. Making alterations to the political
economy without re-organizing the symbolic economy of humanity is not a revolution
at all. It is, rather, a guarantee that anti-blackness will remain under communism.
Socialist Alternative still theorizes in the tradition of unraced and unsexed
positionality. The terms "working class" and "labor" are offered
as inherently objective, as if they are automatically free from racial and/or sexual
bias. Upon further analysis, this perspective is a problematic continuation of oppression.
It is important to understand the mechanisms of the power structures we seek to
destroy. The idea of race, and by extension, the process of racialization, was created
by Europeans to label those who were deemed 'other.' This means that whiteness was
established as the baseline and norm for humanity, while simultaneously rendering
it invisible. In keeping with the Enlightenment's principle of objectivity, whiteness
is the identity that denies itself as an identity . Racial identities
belong only to others . Whiteness is a deeply biased position that
masquerades as a universal fact in the best interest of everyone.
Socialist Alternative is yet to take inventory of the racial or sexual demographics
of its favorite scholars. The Mount Rushmore of Marxists - Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Trotsky - were all white men from Europe. None of these individuals suffered racial
or sexual oppression, and many of their writings on the topics reflect as much.
Exploitation was their sole axis of suffering, so of course, it was easy to conclude
that the political economy was the engine of society. We are not saying that a Marxist
analysis applies only to Europe and European societies, rather we are saying that Marxism done correctly must marry itself to intersectionality if
we are to unite the working class against capitalist exploitation. Socialist Alternative
is populated predominantly by white men who are cheer-leading for the colorblind
position that race must take a backseat in the socialist revolution. One fact is
overlooked: the working class is an identity. Socialist Alternative’s position
on “identity politics” is vacuous. The working class does not simply float
adrift from language, meaning, or social reality - it is produced and reproduced
by racialized and sexualized beings. The notion that the working class can be unraced
and/or unsexed is racist and sexist. Arguing that the working class can transcend
race and/or sex (i.e. "multiculturalism", "gender diversity")
are not-so-subtle ways of advancing anti-blackness and transphobia by way of crowding
out those at the bottom. The world is, and has been, dominated by white males.
Subordinating racism and heteropatriarchy as merely superstructural side effects
of class exploitation ensures that the revolution will be led by white males
and create a new world for white males.
In Members Bulletin #87 , the authors argue that calling
people out is counterproductive because it uses "guilt and shame" as a
form of politics. Considering the fact that Socialist Alternative views race as
additive as opposed to constitutive of their analysis, this passage is to be viewed
in a different light. The real concern for the writers is that white males
will be decentered by those who are suppressed the most by white orthodox Marxism:
black women . The policing of black women, especially those who are
trans, is the animating force behind the document and Socialist Alternative's approach
to organizing. For these brief reasons outlined above, we no longer view our political
relationship with Socialist Alternative as reconcilable.
Israel/Palestine
Unless you are a hardened Zionist or otherwise misinformed on the issue, the
only way to view the Nakba of 1948 is as an act of aggression, carried out with
the blessing of the United States and Britain, that left 750,000 Palestinians displaced
and established a settler-colonial state with a separate set of rights for its indigenous
Palestinian population and its (largely white) Jewish population. Further land grabs
starting in 1967 and continuing to today, as well as the continued repression of
of the Gaza, has shown just what the Zionist project is all about: apartheid
.
In 2005, due to the oppressive measures of the Israeli government, representatives
of Palestinian Civil Society put out a call for “international civil societies and
people of conscience all over the world” to “impose broad boycotts and implement
divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in
the apartheid era” until Israel ends “its occupation and colonization of all Arab
lands”, dismantles the Wall in the West Bank, recognizes “the fundamental rights
of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality”, and respects,
protects, and promotes “the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes
and properties” as stipulated by the UN ( https://bdsmovement.net/call ). This call has
been taken up internationally by many different kinds of organizations, including,
most recently, the DSA, yet Socialist Alternative and the CWI have not done so.
Surely this is an oversight?
Judy Beishon, a member of CWI in Britain, writes “...it needs to be taken into
account that boycott campaigns can assist the propaganda of the Israeli government
domestically, and can create a barrier between workers in Israel and internationally,
negative consequences that need to be weighed up against the advantages”. She also
cites that BDS will alienate and impact the Israeli working class: but what are
they being alienated from? Jewish Israelis, from rich to poor, have political rights
and privileges that Palestinians do not, and if there were a large-scale
resistance to that in the Israeli working class, it stands to reason that they would
take the lead from the call from Palestinian Civil Society to support BDS.
We found out from a former member of Socialist Alternative that SA’s views on
Israel/Palestine differ from the positions of the Israel/Palestine section of the
CWI. The demands put forth by our international comrades call for the eviction of
all settlements formed after 1967, and make explicit calls to end all occupation
and settlements. The demands of comrades from different sections of a coherent international
should not be watered down to appease soft Zionists.
The Jewish people have had unimaginable horrors perpetrated against them throughout
history; none of us denies that. However, the CWI position invoking the right of
self-determination for oppressed nations and applying it to Israel forgets that
the history of Zionism from Hertzl to Balfour has been a history of seeking collaboration
with imperialism to displace and oppress the people who previously lived in historic
Palestine. Furthermore, Israel is not just a junior partner of U.S. imperialism,
but an oppressor nation itself. The only principled, socialist position is to
both oppose anti-semitism and to support a secular, free Palestine.
Leadership and Structure
Among
the most serious issues we have with Socialist Alternative revolve around the actions
of its leadership. During the time that Margaret Collins was in the process of being
suspended from the organization, the Rhode Island branch wrote a document in her
defense. We submitted it to be published in the next Member’s Bulletin, but it was
left out. Member’s Bulletins are supposed to be open to submissions from rank-and-file
members of the organization, and we felt it was highly irregular and undemocratic
for our document to be rejected in such a manner. Later on, many members of the
Rhode Island branch chose to sign a letter which criticized the political level
and content of the Marxism and the Fight for Black
Freedom pamphlet. While that letter was eventually published in a
Member’s Bulletin, every single Rhode Island comrade’s name was omitted from the
list of signatures. This erasure of our names marked the second time the Rhode Island
branch had been involved in submitting material for a Members Bulletin, and the
second time we were censored.
Socialist
Alternative also lacks an objective standard for moving branches from “associate
branches” to “full status branches”. The Rhode Island branch has been around for
several years, has more members than some other branches, does plenty of political
education and activity, and yet was still not made a full status branch in the organization.
A well-developed branch should be made a full status branch in order to have voting
and decision making rights within Socialist Alternative.
During
a contact meeting, our Branch Organizer was describing to this contact, at her request,
the differences between SA and other left groups, such as the DSA. The conversation
was overheard by a member of the Providence chapter of the DSA, and he later posted
an extremely exaggerated account of what was said online, which subsequently went
viral among the DSA’s social media and their followers. The Branch Organizer was
then contacted by a member of SA leadership, who urged him not to openly criticize
DSA or their leadership. Things have already been said about SA’s new orientation
to the DSA above, but it is highly inappropriate for the leadership of what is supposed
to be a revolutionary socialist organization to attempt to curb criticism of a social
democratic group like DSA, who consistently eschew revolutionary politics in favor
of class collaboration with the Democratic Party: especially in light of the fact
that this was not a comment posted on an official social media page, but part of
a real-time conversation between two people.
We have
also had issues with an NC member who also used to be an observer on our Branch
Committee. He would frequently police comrades’ Facebook feeds if they posted anything
online that even slightly skewed from the SA party line. One of these occasions
lead to this NC member accusing our comrade of “race baiting” him, and almost cost
our branch the membership of an intelligent, articulate, and well-developed comrade.
This person would also frequently make farfetched accusations of the branch based
on branch meeting notes taken wildly out of context. His habit of filibustering
his way through political discussions created a negative environment for political
decision making, and did not leave sufficient time for other comrades to contribute
to the conversation and have their voices heard.
The
actions of leadership over the last few years have cost SA much of its most experienced
cadre through suspensions, expulsions, and the “freezing out” of members. Most recently
this was seen with what happened with Margaret Collins in the Queens, NYC branch,
when she disagreed with and strongly debated against some of the rightward drift
of SA positions, especially having to do with the endorsement of the Sanders campaign.
An overblown claim that Comrade Collins was being “uncomradely” and creating tensions
at branch meetings was used as a reason to first suspend her, then expel her, and
most recently, to uphold that expulsion. Comrades from New York have shown us evidence
that her expulsion was mostly based on political reasons, including a letter from
a former comrade, who left over the Sanders fiasco, indicating that leadership in
New York had wanted Margaret out of the way several years ago.
Recently,
another comrade in that same branch was pushed out of the organization. She was
taken off website work, had her articles and Member’s Bulletin submissions rejected,
and was treated in a foul manner by members of her branch. She took some time off
from SA work due to this harassment, and was immediately accused of “not being a
real member anymore.” The only reason she stepped back from SA work was because
of the harassment and lack of support she was dealing with in the branch. She has
since resigned.
The
low political level of the paper has been an issue for a while as well. While we
understand that the paper is partly a recruiting tool and thus is not meant to have
the same political level as internal material such as Member’s Bulletins, we believe
that the political level could be raised significantly. During the election, and
continuing to to this day, many articles are about Sanders and the supposed “left”
democrats in the party. There have also been articles of support of the Draft Bernie
movement. These point to serious political mistakes that an experienced socialist
leadership should not be making. Furthermore, each article comes out of SA’s collective
editing process sounding like it was written by the same exact person. While we
agree that articles in the paper should point towards the same politics, editing
them to the point where they lack any original voice is going too far. The paper’s
low political level has been noticed even by some of our newer comrades, who don’t
see much difference between articles in SA’s paper and articles from left-liberal
outlets already existing online. If SA is offering the working class something
different than what the liberal sectors are offering, then the paper should deliver
that message much more clearly.
These
actions indicate a leadership that wishes to grow cozy with the Democratic Party
and members of the social democratic left instead of engaging in real revolutionary
politics. This, combined with the focus on gathering donations from contacts before
they join SA (as outlined in the new Fall Building Priorities), also points to a
leadership that is more concerned with maintaining their own positions and power
within SA than in growing a Marxist, revolutionary socialist organization.
Conclusion
Due
to the above political disagreements with the national policies and international
positions of Socialist Alternative, and due to the serious issues that we have with
the leadership, the following comrades feel that it is time to resign from Socialist
Alternative. We feel that we cannot continue to work productively within an organization
whose leadership uses these tactics. We will continue our work in revolutionary
politics, and we will continue to work with our like-minded comrades who choose
to remain in Socialist Alternative. We hope to re-engage with Socialist Alternative
in the future, should the organization return to revolutionary socialist
politics.
Contact us at: RhodeIslandSocialists@gmail.com
Contact us at: RhodeIslandSocialists@gmail.com
6 comments:
Only Black women are into identity politics? Peoples politic s are determined by their skin color. Perhaps you shoukd read Barbara Fields, she describes racism as an ideology and talks about how it obscures inequality and she is not a white male. To some extent bowing down to "intersectionality and "woke" Coates esque type rhetoric is all about fitting in with liberals. I do agree that SA seems too intolerant of opposing views abd that it's also way too Eurocentric. At the same time it's not like PC intersectionality stuff is coming from the third world or oppressed nationalities really, it comes out of elite college and petit bourgeois layers in the English speaking countries.
I'm not sure why voting for sanctions on Russia counts as a bad thing. Can you explain?
Congratulations to the former Rhode Island branch of Socialist Alternative for taking this principles action.
The uncritical gushing over Bernie Sanders, a militarist and open admirer of white-spremcist Winston Churchill, has been a disgraceful act of opportunism. I will be sharing your document on Facebook.
Mike Alewitz
Red Square
New London, CT
I was a founding member of the Minneapolis SA branch in 2000. I attended a national conference in 2001 and made contributions to the internal discussion bulletin, including a resolution on membership and member rights supported by the minority block and part of the majority faction. I advocated defining a member as one who supports the party financially and though regular, personal participation (not just donors who turn up for meeting where the leadership is elected), and asserted that members have the right to criticize action of the leadership, even decisions of a national conference at any place and time and that members should not be expected to support decision with which they disagree. I borrowed the English translation of language used by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in addressing the same issues in the 1903, which was the bone of contention that produced a split. I pointed out that the SA leadership's stance on those issues was that of the Mensheviks. Immediately after the conference, a newly inducted member of the National Committee, Ty Moore organized my expulsion from the Minneapolis Branch via secret meetings with members and contacts.
On the question of racism, I advocate government enforcement of civil rights laws, including detection and prosecution of covert discrimination as well as overt discrimination in employment, housing, and other fields. I have focused much of my attention during the past 20 years on policy-driven racial discrimination in the public schools, and have run for Minneapolis School Board many times on a platform of increased retention of probationary teacher in order to shrink the pool of new hires and thereby eliminate racial disparities in exposure of students to new, inexperienced and provisionally licensed teachers, eliminate watered down curriculum and end the segregation of students identified as having emotional-behavioral disorders who are put in separate classrooms, then enrolled in detention centers within the school district. Almost all students segregated at school sites and then placed in detention centers are African American.
"These actions indicate a leadership that wishes to grow cozy with the Democratic Party and members of the social democratic left instead of engaging in real revolutionary politics."
I do not agree with this analysis. Kshama sawant participating in the draft bernie endeavor is antagonistic to the democratic party. Yes, sanders is a social democrat that has supported imperialist actions, but dont we need to orient to meet people where they are at?
In general I laud this group's resignation statement but found some of its arguments surrounding race to "bend the stick too far in the other direction."
"Other variables are operating beneath the surface - those which can only be described as the sadistic desires to inflict torture and re-organize one's being." -- How do you criticize SA for their individualistic theory of racism and then yourselves reduce racial oppression to individuals' sadism? No doubt people's deeply-ingrained racial sadism influences their behaviors in ways that, for them, cannot be reduced to profit-maximizing activity -- but if you consider the political dimension of things it becomes clear that, in a society structured around settler-colonialism, the political dimension of racial violence has a "trump card" effect because without racism, capitalism itself is called into question in such a society. So it is actually not necessarily the case that "race has become unhinged from its base" -- rather, the politics of reproducing capitalism in certain historically-determined contexts means sometimes capitalists have to make decisions not directly motivated by profit, or the capitalist state has to discipline the the capitalist class to keep them from destroying their own system.
I think there is another possible positionality other than "whiteboy class reductivism" and "race may have class origins but is now motivated by sadism and has no political-economic purpose"
"Making alterations to the political economy without re-organizing the symbolic economy of humanity is not a revolution at all. It is, rather, a guarantee that anti-blackness will remain under communism." -- A "communist" society which reproduces oppression is not communist at all, it's a violation of what is constituent/definitive of communist social relations. Your point is well-taken but it is framed in anti-communist language which can only spread confusion about what does communism mean (ie a technical reorganization of the political economy or a society without oppression and exploitation). If you are not communists, that is well enough, but also, you left SA because it insincerely claimed to be revolutionary but in fact backed anti-communist initiatives.
"Socialist Alternative is yet to take inventory of the racial or sexual demographics of its favorite scholars. The Mount Rushmore of Marxists - Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky - were all white men from Europe. None of these individuals suffered racial or sexual oppression." That's actually not quite true. Marx was from a Jewish family and struggled his entire career with being accepted as white. An important, and poorly remembered, aspect of Bakunin's opposition to Marx is that according to Bakunin Marxism was part of a world Jewish banking conspiracy, after all. Lenin was of indigenous Siberian extraction, and Trotsky, too, was Jewish. In Europe in particular Jewish identities have a complex relationship to whiteness but suffice it to say that it is not as simple as that. Especially since Russia was not an exclusively European society.
It could be correct to say that these "Mount Rushmore" figures have been whitewashed, but it is just not as simple as that. It's like (and let's not start a debate about him, but just for example) people dismiss Mao Zedong as being "just another white man." (as opposed to the variety of reasons you might reject him and his legacy)
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