CW: 
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-031-25399-7_82-2
Brainbroken by October 7th, Zak Cope has done a 180 on his prior work, which focused on the unequal development of nations under the global capitalist economy, to writing propaganda pieces on how the liberal global US-led economic order must be maintained to ensure “free trade”.
Having been committed to the toxic Marxist perspective for more than half my life, it ultimately proved impossible for me not to perceive the consistent and century-old pattern of far-left apologetics for every conceivable atrocity committed by avowed enemies of the West (including war crimes and genocide), these typically starting with denial, moving to excuse, and ending in justification. This was starkly highlighted in the leftist response to the bestial violence unleashed by Hamas terrorists in Israel on October 7, 2023. Laboring under Marxian fantasies for so long, following the shock of recognition in witnessing such moral and intellectual decrepitude its dissolution in my mind was precipitate.
He proceeds to argue that, “following free trade principles of comparative advantage can benefit all countries” and that US military supremacy is necessary due to Russia threatening, “the liberal international order upon which free trade is grounded.”
The link he offers to explain October 7 and why it desensitized him from the left is this one:
https://k-larevue.com/en/the-october-7th-pogrom-as-a-non-event-on-the-western-left/
This is what he cited as a good explanation of October 7 and the reason he left the left™
The structurally equivalent totalitarian ideology with communism on the left today – the contemporary opium of the intellectuals – is antizionism.
A number of times, the Palestinian leadership notoriously refused any peace agreement that would have resulted in a free Palestinian state living alongside Israel, insisting on conditions that could only be conceded at the cost of Israel itself. This was particularly true of their insistence on the absolute right of “return” for Palestinian “refugees” who left, or who were expelled, in 1948. This seems to be good evidence that their political leadership actually focuses on extinguishing the existence of a Jewish state more than on the founding of their own country. This is the most unfortunate for Israel, which has to maintain the partial occupation of the West Bank, with devastating consequences also for its own society.
Religious fundamentalism is only the most recent and extreme outgrowth of this basic moral fundamentalist appeal for “justice”. In fact, “Justice for Palestine!” is the slogan that anchors its derivative ones we are seeing today: “From the river to the sea”, “(Globalize the) Intifada!”, “Apartheid Israel”, etc. This deeply immoral moral fundamentalism has been widely accepted in the West as a “liberation movement” by wide parts of public opinion, while its religious fundamentalism and Nazi-like messianic antisemitism is still not being acknowledged.
In contrast, this thinking automatically absolves even its most inhumane and barbarian enemies who in any other context would be considered as the enemy of humanity as a whole. This is worse than Holocaust denial: this is the outright justification of all potential Holocausts.
People align with their class interests. Class traitors are exceptional.
It’s not surprising that someone with a keen understanding of the global north/south divide would do a complete full fascist 180 when they are shocked into realigning with their class (global north) interests. They understand that their entire body of work is still legit, it’s just that their class interest is to now denounce it because they are horrified by the implications.
The truth is, the global south has no reason to be kind to the global north once the tables have turned. The global south has no guarantee of becoming socialist, only the potential opportunity. The only certainty of multipolarity and global south development is that living standards in the global north will sharply decrease as the disparity balances out, and that can only really happen via counter-imperialist forces that are opposing imperial market penetration.
Competent imperialists have to understand marxist analysis too, because it’s the only lens of analysis that actually makes makes sense at different scales. That’s why, when the mask slips, the liberal platitudes morph into zero-sum conflict theory materialist assessments on how to maintain the empire. The real evil of how to dominate markets is done via materialist analysis and disguised with liberal fluff.
How does a global north third worldist stay sane in the face of what might happen, what we’ve done to others, and what might happen to us when the tables turn? I don’t know yet, it’s scary, but I’m not going to become an imperialist cheerleader.
It will be funny. But hopefully their reactions to me will be similar to the African militants during decolonization. “Let that man go! He is not white! He’s Italian.”
You stay sane by grilling
Seriously. There’s a very good chance that the global north fights to the bitter end, and no amount of internal class struggle will turn northerners against their imperial interests at the scale necessary to avoid the fascist turn. If you can’t leave, sometimes the only thing left to do is chill out, grill out, and contribute as little to the machine as possible. Simply resisting the urge to Cope, resisting the peer pressure to embrace fascism, lying flat and waiting for the inevitable victory of the international proletariat. Keep your mind sharp, organize with comrades when you can find them, and never stop posting. Other than that, just find innocent things you enjoy doing in life outside of politics and just try to keep your mind busy. An idle mind is Hitler’s plaything.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
1st worlders often go into this premature panic where they think the day of reckoning is coming for them, and that some prole living in a trailer in Appalachia is going to be executed by firing squad alongside the stockbroker in Manhattan, or the silicon valley exec, or the 4 star general, or the EU official with a nazi grandpa, and they imagine that some kind of mass Revolutionary Tribunal is going to happen against the entire 1st world and everyone living in it, regardless of class, regardless of inner colonization, when what’s far more likely to happen is a slow realignment, a slow decline of the core, a slow rise of the periphery. England still exists. Germany still exists. When the British Empire declined, when the 3rd reich collapsed, there was no “day of reckoning” against the common people there. Hell, even a lot of the explicitly guilty got away with everything they did. So I think it’s overly optimistic/pessimistic (depending on your class interests) to imagine some kind of gigachad revolutionary tribunal where every last NATO citizen is executed for their complicity or whatever. This isn’t to say that “nothing ever happens” or that everyone in the 1st world is innocent, mind you. I don’t think the average American is going to suffer 1/10th of what the average person in Gaza has suffered, even in the most optimistic third worldist outcome.
My concern is more what the impact of uncontrolled degrowth or sudden realignments of wealth and resources. The rich rarely suffer, but workers and the underclass in the global north might suffer badly if the pace of change is too fast to adapt to.
the working class in the imperial core is definitely going to suffer, but that was a given. revolts and revolutions historically have happened when the underclasses become so miserable that violence is undeniably the only remaining option. Until then, a lot of people are just tired, and have to go to work tomorrow, and are afraid to go die fighting cops and troops, and are still holding out false hope for reformism. Revolution is a bus that departs when full. Independent of imperialism, the rich in the imperial core are getting richer, and poor in the imperial core are getting poorer. Inflation in all its forms is eating away at what little purchasing power our wages give us. Things are going to get worse whether or not there is a “clash of civilizations” between the core and periphery. In a way, I think the fantasy of some kind of JDPON occupation of the imperial core is a reproduction of the ideology of the ruling class: As in “we” can’t imagine ourselves having our own revolution any more than “we” can imagine the manufacturing jobs coming back. If the jobs got outsourced to the periphery, then the revolution got outsourced too, the logic goes. The revolution “used to be our job” but then it got outsourced to the people who are more oppressed. So now they have to “do our job for us”.
I dream of the day that im executed
Could someone please execute me? Please!
Rn im trying to think of a way to say “i wqnna get executed by a revolutionary from the global south” in a way that doesnt sound racist and fetish-like
Ive been suicidal since i was 10 years old this is nothing new
wish I felt exceptional, instead of super isolated and alone