The White Left is Building Cop City
Removed by mod- cross-posted to:
- marxism
Removed by mod
The White Left is Building Cop City
Removed by mod- cross-posted to:
- marxism
A critical appraisal of recent struggles in Atlanta
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this is something that happens at every level of resistance in every struggle on planet Earth.
some people blame the people fighting back against the bad thing for the bad thing happening.
it is cop shit and the authors belong in a fucking gulag.
maybe there'd be less criticism from future gulag-prisoners if the level of resistance in question wasn't dudes performing "kate bush flash mob[s]" lol.
Pretty sure there was men and women involved.
Trying to discount it by saying it’s “dudes” is the worst type of identity politics divisiveness. As if “dudes” won’t be a part of any communist struggle. Lol.
And when you risk domestic terrorism charges to fight the police state, then You can criticize. How about that?
And when you risk domestic terrorism charges to fight the police state, then You can criticize. How about that?
So you're not allowed to criticize other socialists unless you've already exposed yourself to the police state and sacrificed your entire future. Very not-fed opinion.
Uh yeah. You can’t be a back seat driver / peanut gallery.
If you’re not willing to take the same risks, at least support those who are. They have enough problems without other leftists dividing the movement and weakening their support. Divide and conquer is the fed shit.
Criticism is not excommunication. Not to mention we can honor people as martyrs for the right cause and still criticize their methods.
The first section of the article is criticizing the DSA for trying to radicalize people and then the last part is lauding the CMB for radicalizing people?
No, the first section of the article is criticizing the DSA and DARC for "trying to radicalize people" by leading them in what they knew would become a failed civic action, to show the need for more radical change. But once the civic action failed, the people who had been roped into that were demoralized rather than hungry for a more radical action, showing that strategy to be a failure.
This was of course predictable, and indeed it was predicted. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s local Steering Committee, told a reporter at an August protest outside City Hall, that DSA thought the measure would pass. “We just believe that Councilwoman Shephard isn’t actually listening to her own constituents, and she is doing what she wants to do to support the Atlanta Police Foundation’s funders.” For some organizers, the obstinance of local officials was more than just likely, it was necessary. A former member of a local organization called Defund Atlanta Police Department, Refund Communities (DARC), Jesse Pratt López, stated in a recent interview that the defeat came as no surprise. It was, in fact, the very reaction the coalition had built their strategy around. According to Pratt López, the goal was to radicalize the masses by leading them through a futile civic exercise, thereby catalyzing a more militant movement against the project. Following the vote, however, rather than picking up steam the first iteration of the movement to Stop Cop City began to fissure.
No, the first section of the article is criticizing the DSA and DARC for “trying to radicalize people” by leading them in what they knew would become a failed civic action, to show the need for more radical change. But once the civic action failed, the people who had been roped into that were demoralized rather than hungry for a more radical action, showing that strategy to be a failure.
Damn, it turns out most people don't like joining orgs that loses all the time. Something something defeat is an orphan.
How is this distinct from CMB's strategy? Is it just that the DSA is more transparent that the masses aren't organized or militant enough to actually fight this?
From the relevant part of the article
**CMB is based in a neighborhood known as Pittsburgh, where the APF is currently building three homes under the auspices of its “Secure Neighborhoods” program. ** The group is loosely modeled on the Black Panther Party’s community outreach programs. They teach adult literacy and political education classes, organize community gardens, host lectures on various topics and otherwise defend the community’s interests. As the struggle against Cop City has progressed, CMB’s involvement has increasingly become showing up to do media damage control for the latest mess their white “comrades” have made. They have done an admirable job of this, somehow managing to not directly criticize their “allies” in public. This says a lot, both about their organizational discipline and the quality of the help they’ve had in the fight.
So CMB is doing political education, adult literacy, and other programs in the neighborhoods being occupied by police. That's quite distinct from the DSA strategy in major ways.
But rather than regimenting security given the clear threat of police violence, they left fundamental things such as scouting and keeping watch to be taken up by anyone on a spontaneous, voluntary basis, for reasons which were purely ideological.
:zizek:
it should never be easy for them to destroy us. If you start with Malcolm X and count all of the brothers who have died or been captured since, you will find that not even one of them was really prepared for a fight. No imagination or fighting style was evident in any one of the incidents. But each one that died professed to know the nature of our enemies. It should never be so easy for them. Do you understand what I'm saying? Edward V. Hanrahan, Illinois State Attorney General, sent fifteen pigs to raid the Panther headquarters and murder Hampton and Clark. Do you have any idea what would have happened to those fifteen pigs if they had run into as many Viet Cong as there were Panthers in that building. The VC are all little people with less general education than we have. The argument that they have been doing it longer has no validity at all, because they were doing it just as well when they started as they are now. It's very contradictory for a man to teach about the murder in corporate capitalism, to isolate and expose the murderes behind it, to instruct that these madmen are completely without stops, are licentious, totally depraved — and then not make adquate preparations to defend himself from the madman's attack. Either they don't really believe their own spiel or they harbor some sort of subconscious death wish.
George Jackson, in a letter to Angela Davis
edit: all these mfers in here upvoting the GJ quote while being liberals about the forest defenders. What do you think he means here by saying that the BPP wasn't sufficiently concerned about security and should have been more like the Viet Cong? What do you think he would have said about Tort's murder given what we know about the camp? Do you think he might have had some idea about how better to direct their energies?
That comic of the liberal pleading for mercy because he thought he could be leader of the poem workshop at the commune, but the communist is telling him to get back to his guard station or get shot
many of these community organizations pulled out because they didn’t want to be associated with adventurists.
Not to defend adventurists or ultras, but this also seems like the wrong action for community orgs to take.
trust me, we're on the verge of revolution, now just stop acting all weird and radical and scaring everyone off from my demcent party
How, after approximately 100 years of this, has the "organized left" not managed to brace people for the fact that "opportunists" will get violent.
Its a fucking joke. Alll the orgs in the USA are non-serious posturing lead by a few grifters trying to cash in at the end and not let the project get too radical as to be unmarketable.
The true opportunists are the ones using the most predictable telegraphed action possible (everyone knew the anarchists were in Antlanta for months) to back out of attempting to do anything.
I am very stridently against opportunism and adventurism, but if we keep jettisoning people when they are doing those actions we will never get anywhere. The cops protect their own, so should we.
sorry, criticism of cosplaying losers is sectarianism. i insist you refrain from posting until the mods ban you.
At the 1999 WTO protests the socdems were protesting in agreement with the "white anarchists" knowing full well they will be in bloc and they will be there to break shit. This is not an excuse.
In many reports, the forest defenders describe themselves as a “decentralized, autonomous movement [where] nobody is in charge, and nobody is responsible for anybody else’s actions,”
The camp was in a state of perpetual flux, with people constantly coming and going, but reports indicate that somewhere between 40-100 activists were ensconced in the trees throughout 2022. They practiced yoga, planted gardens, held religious ceremonies, and of course engaged in minor vandalism of construction equipment.
I’m sorry. I know this is a serious topic but this shit is just really fucking funny. You’d think that after the scams in the ‘decentralized’ crypto world, and how little the ‘decentralized’ hacktivists under Anonymous or CHAZ occupiers have achieved, that people would start to understand there needs to be delegation and leadership
From the comments
I’m surprised this micro-sect spends so much energy criticizing others about “discipline” while too scared to touch the central issue: ecoterrorism isn’t a viable political strategy, and the violent escalations of adventurist anarchists have isolated the movement from any forces strong enough to bring the coalition to victory.
But the authors literally do that. The entire first half of the article is dedicated to dunking on anarchists and adventurists
What forces strong enough to bring the coalition to victory? Who do they have on the back burner who wants to stop cop city but not if some crust punks threw a few molotovs?
how little they achieved? they achieved way more than any other leftists ever have since the destruction of the labor movement.
and if you don't see what those results are or think that they do not exist, you are falling for capitalist propaganda which tries to minimize the impact and effect radical action has.
Nothing is a switch that happens instantly. Every reversal of power results from a buildup. If you were to apply the same rubric to conditions a year before various revolutions, you'd probably call them failures too.
It's not "the contradictions of capitalism" that suddenly give people the initiative to change things. It's a long process of strengthening that makes this initiative possible, no matter whether it looks like "adventurism". It might come in waves, but each wave advances and supports the subsequent one, and you don't get anywhere if you don't start making waves.
so much shit: OWS effectively gave a platform to creat the bernie sanders runs for president, cancelled millions of dollars in debts, fed thousands of people, reclaimed foreclosed homes for people to live in, liberated spaces in cities for people to be safe from everyday police harassment, forced changes in plans by power is thousands of way. pay more attention because those victories are rarely mentioned, let alone ever celebrated, in the capitalist media. but they are there. and it is a part of radical practice to celebrate them.
Are we talking about decentralized movements? Because I find it difficult to believe they would care about Bernie sanders or managed millions of dollars without any oversight
Check out various medical debt jubilee groups. A bunch of them spun off the aftermath of Occupy and were buying batches of medical debt for pennies on the dollar then cancelling them.
But the authors literally do that. The entire first half of the article is dedicated to dunking on anarchists and adventurists
I'm finding that communities that celebrate diligence and critical reading are often full of people who don't actually read things thoroughly and engage with the argument presented.
lol crypto is the blueprint for anarchist praxis ok
It's more disillusionment with organized groups due to a combination of liberal cooption, wrecking, and police disruption. It was a big thing with Occupy 12 years ago - They can't arrest our leaders if we don't have any kind of thing, plus Occupy was totally ideologically incoherent so no one could really agree on a leader. Idk, there are a couple of manifestos about leaderless resistance floating around somewhere.
I don't think it's a particularly good strategy, but america isn't in a particularly good place for organized action right now.
I know. I think tarring anarchism by associating it with crypto is disingenuous and wrong. left libertarians and right libertarians have roughly the same relationship as state communists and fascists.
i wish there were still downvotes so i could downvote this obvious divide and conquer style cop bullshit. :fedposting:
Ah, I see we're at the "duelling google docs" stage of recriminations for why the US left's latest battle is floundering.
Seriously tho I mostly agree with this piece, except that it never says where it thinks the "disciplined, organized, working-class base" that should form the basis of the anti-cop city movement is gonna come from. We're deindustrialized, all bouncing around between precarious gigs and either super propogandized or just completely checked out from any political conciousness. Plus unions are shot to hell and the ones that exist are mostly reactionary and captured; I don't see how you coalesce a demcent vanguard party from people in those conditions in time to oppose Cop City before it gets built.
It does point to an organization doing adult literacy, political education, and other programs in a neighborhood that's actually being occupied by police. I don't know about being able to stop Cop City at this point but generally it sounds like a better, or at least more direct, strategy for building class consciousness than the DSA or forest camp strageties.
Well ok, sure, in the long term I agree, but then that's not really offering up anything helpful to answer the immediate question of "how do we stop cop city from getting built?"
Unless the author's implicit argument is that cop city is just one more hit we'll have to take on the chin. Which, yeah, it probably is.
I think the other point that they get to with quoting Kwame Ture is that we need to keep our eye on the ball of long term organization rather than short term mobilization. Yes, it probably is, but if we view that only through the lens of failed mobilization we can be defeatist instead of recognizing the need for longer term work.
We should take criticism on its own merit. If we have to take the author's bona fides as the main consideration we will be stuck in a revolutionary aesthetic contest forever. Assuming it was written in good faith (it certainly seems so) we should consider it. Criticism also doesn't need to offer a solution to be considered. Not to say that the author doesn't offer an alternative path for radical development with the CMB
For me, I think it is good faith because the only people who can benefit from criticism of tactics are the socialist and anti-racist movement themselves. The article doesn't directly say "it's all for naught, there is no way to win", which is what I would expect from a bad faith author (like a fed, a liberal, someone who wants to discourage the people etc).
I think it's fair to say that one disagrees with this or that bit of criticism w.r.t this article but I would personally disagree with stating that the author needs to be gulaged or whatever. THAT is unfair.
If I had to guess I'd say they're indirectly advocating for a strategic retreat from opposing the training center with anything more than words, towards a focus on movement (i.e., party) building through community outreach.
i'm gettin all butthurt about this blog post, but i think the points that the anarchist faction of the movement to defend the forest failed to understand and properly organize against the greater militarized forces of the state are solid. where it fails is its fidelity to the usual sectarian hypothesis that goes like "they're doing revolution wrong, and not only is it not working it's preventing us from doing revolution right." Like yeah, it's the adventurists that scare the working class away from your org. Your rhetorical habit of calling people you disagree with made up words like Kautskyite and Custeristic that are allusions to beefs with random historical figures isn't related.
