cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5285874
Hi, I’m here to announce that everyone pushing the standard Hexbear party line on the protest movement is a loser and wrong. I already know the weak-ass arguments you’re gonna make and every single one of them reveals your disconnection from any actual organizing. Let’s go through them one by one. If you have another that you think Marx Failed to Consider, please bring it up and I will explain how you are wrong in that way as well.
This was funded by the Waltons
No, one Walton bought an ad in the NYT. Who fucking cares? It has no material bearing on the movement whatsoever. There’s no organization money is being funneled to other than the Democratic Party and Indivisble, which is not different in any way. The on-the-ground organizers in most cities and towns are not receiving a penny from the left’s George Soros conspiracy. They’re just normal people (and, to the next point, lots of leftists).
The Democrats are using this to steal the leftist energy of the masses
The Democrats certainly want to do that, but on the ground reports indicate they are losing all over the country. That’s because leftists (especially
) are not leaving this space uncontested. I have spent an enormous amount of time putting in the work to earn the trust and legitimacy necessary to place a bunch of literal revolutionary communists in the leadership of the local movement. Not in some sneaky, behind the scenes way, but out in the open, succeeding specifically because we are literal revolutionary communists who never shut up about it. The Democrats, by my accounting, are losing the struggle in more places than not. If you refuse to engage because you’re afraid the Dems will suck your leftist soul, you’re just conceding the struggle and granting them victory. They don’t co-opt by pressing a button, they co-opt because they have the resources to take leadership and then defuse. So far they have failed to do so specifically because the space is not empty and the communists are fighting harder to reach the masses (since we actually have an appealing program).
The attendees are all Kamala-loving liberals who just want to go back to brunch
If you had ever bothered to go to one of these events and talk politics to people, you’ll discover a very broad array of political perspectives, including a strong trend towards explicit support for socialism. Yes, of course, the PMC bug-eating libs are there - who cares? They are by no means the only attendees. Maybe you’re just Too Cool to be around someone who reminds you of your mom, but the rest of us are finding deep political discontent and activating it. When one of my comrades gets on the mic and says “we need to break from the democrats and do a literal socialist revolution”, the crowd response, by and large, is incredibly positive. The retired dentists and accountants in the crowd grumble and whine, but they are a minority - and they don’t leave. They stay and listen to the arguments we make. They say things like “you’re right, I just don’t think it’s possible”. They very, very rarely say “you’re going too far”.
This is a disorganized mess that’s going to fizzle out
50501 and other decentralized spontaneous protest movements never last, but they do give an opportunity for dedicated political organizers to intervene on a stage where thousands of disaffected liberals and Democrat voters are asking “what is to be done?”. If you decide not to show up and answer that question, the Democrat machine will coordinate the demobilization of this movement. If you do show up and you deliver the political argument you believe in. If you show up with the AV equipment, safety marshalls, march route, signs, and speaker list - the bare minimum for a halfway serious organizer - then you don’t just hand out flyers and talk at a table but set the entire political line of the event. And in doing so, you demonstrate the leadership of the socialist movement and win a lot of those attendees to your side. If you can plug them into actual organizing work, you can bring them into permanent political motion. Does it matter if 95% of these people just go home and never bother to do anything besides another protest? If those 5% join the movement in a meaningful way, that’s half a million new comrades.
Mao says: “All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.”
Stop thinking about what you want to do and achieve and start thinking about the fact that we needs tens of millions of people to support revolutionary socialism in the US in order to get anything done. They are out in the streets begging for you to explain this to them.
These are just peaceful protests that won’t achieve anything because they aren’t revolutionary.
Lenin says: “What grounds are there for assuming that the “great, victorious, world” revolution can and must employ only revolutionary methods? There are none at all. The assumption is a pure fallacy; this can be proved by purely theoretical propositions if we stick to Marxism. The experience of our revolution also shows that it is a fallacy. From the theoretical point of view—foolish things are done in time of revolution just as at any other time, said Engels, and he was right. We must try to do as few foolish things as possible, and rectify those that are done as quickly as possible, and we must, as soberly as we can, estimate which problems can be solved by revolutionary methods at any given time and which cannot.”
You’re doing the ultra-leftism of conflating tactics with strategy. Our tactic in this moment is to intervene in these protests to convince people of the necessity of a revolutionary socialist political organization as the only solution to our sick society. Right now, mass revolutionary socialist consciousness and organization does not exist in the USA. Therefore, it is impossible to carry out open revolutionary militancy. If the current crop of people who are in some way directly involved in revolutionary socialist organizing (certainly a lower bar than revolutionary guerrilla warfare or sabotage) turned today to armed struggle, all ~100,000 of them would lose. The broader periphery of people who semi-passively support that objective through attendance at events and monetary contribution is probably a few million. The masses who would passively support probably number in the tens of millions, but that passive support is not particularly useful. And the number of people who would simply sit by and watch it happen is probably over 100 million. Every one of those groups needs to be elevated to the next stage - observer to passive supporter, passive supporter to semi-passive periphery, semi-passive periphery to revolutionary organizer, revolutionary organizer to doing the literal revolution. Each of these layers of the movement have a symbiotic relationship with the others that strengthen the entire struggle.
Here’s the key lesson: WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO WIN VIOLENT STRUGGLE AND YOU NEED TO GO WHERE THE MASSES ARE TO RALLY THEM TO OUR CAUSE.
Amerikkkans will never do a revolution because they are labor aristokkkrauts
Ok, thank you for you contribution, you can resume sitting in a hole since your prescription is inactivity.
Please tell me your other weak-ass reasons why you’re correct to sit on your ass.
Just to briefly add on: it is our duty this time around to inject the anti war movement into the anti trump movement. There are so many open ears at these things and we need to make sure we connect Palestine, Venezuela, Iran and Cuba. Despite what some say, there are so many people at these things just begging for more solutions and open to socialism. Some of the most successful events my socialist org has had have come after doing outreach and agitation at No Kings.
I don’t like the No Kings lib shits but I agree with this post.
I didn’t like Occupy either back in the day, but it was certainly part of a series of events of radicalisation and maturation of what the left is today, and these protests will be part of the same, generating an even larger left.
Use them. These are the moments where communists should be working the hardest.
Unfortunately, the majority of the people organizing my city’s event are rich white liberals that are highly transphobic and racist but completely unaware of it because no one has ever challenged them on their bullshit before. They think saying “trans rights” is enough while still seeing trans people as fucked up weirdos deserving of pity, at best. Which is to say: my local people suck but some of us are trying to change that and you should, too. There are a ton of people sick of self-important rich white libs. Get in there and take the reins away from them, never allow allow these losers to control a mass movement.
The attendees are all Kamala-loving liberals who just want to go back to brunch
If you had ever bothered to go to one of these events and talk politics to people, you’ll discover a very broad array of political perspectives, including a strong trend towards explicit support for socialism. Yes, of course, the PMC bug-eating libs are there - who cares? They are by no means the only attendees. Maybe you’re just Too Cool to be around someone who reminds you of your mom, but the rest of us are finding deep political discontent and activating it. When one of my comrades gets on the mic and says “we need to break from the democrats and do a literal socialist revolution”, the crowd response, by and large, is incredibly positive. The retired dentists and accountants in the crowd grumble and whine, but they are a minority - and they don’t leave. They stay and listen to the arguments we make. They say things like “you’re right, I just don’t think it’s possible”. They very, very rarely say “you’re going too far”.
The Ones Who Walk Away From
OmelasOmelets
GOOD post
I can’t take them seriously as protests and after going to a shit protest back in 2021…idk it fucking broke me driving around a empty building (state capital on the weekend) and no one was there or cared. It felt like such a waste of time.
I’m disabled and also am a recovering agoraphobic (and the most recent body fuckery has not helped). So I have to choose what I use my spoons on.
I helped to created a org that actually does boots on the ground work. And thankfully there are people in there who are willing to go to these things and poach people to us.
I don’t think the people doing the local no kings are bad people. I’ve worked with one personally on a very important local problem with the libraries funding. We succeed, thank god. I just don’t have the energy for performative shit and honestly I have a tendency to run my mouth. Not in a “fuck you liberal” way but Ill say something I think is obvious like “Well yeah ICE is bad but also the cops are working with them that proves that cops are our enemy” and I’ll piss someone off. Hell not even that something like “Oh people addicted to drugs are not evil”.
Like I just do not know how to talk to a certain level of liberal at some point. Ive tried. I’ve done all my tricks in my autism book and nothing.
I definitely recommend using these things to connect with people if you can. Cause we have gotten people who have wanted to do more then just stand around and do nothing. You can’t really complain about America if you are not doing something to counter act it and build/do something better.
Deleting my other comment because you said it better and less nitpicky
If Trotsky is not in the streets in 1905 he isn’t gaining civilian trust in 1917
Pictured: A man sitting on his ass and not working with the masses. And look what happened to him next.
Agitate and educate unless you want
Yes, of course, the PMC bug-eating libs are there
feel like a grain short of a heap without them
You know, I don’t really miss xiaohongshu and their doomer opinion about the American left
XHS was easily one of the most reasonable and informed people on the site.
Except on their opinion of on the ground leftist politics in the U.S., they were consistently and decisively incorrect on that. For god’s sake, they believed that Biden was a political mastermind.
And they were not doomer, that is a gross misunderstanding of their position. They believed that if you are no in a position to perform revolution, you have to perform electoral mitigation. Basically, you have to vote Dem, to stall in order to prepare for when the Republican gets back in. This is nonsense, leftist organizations in the U.S. grow fundamentally weaker with a center-right presidency. The Democrats are very good at their only real job, which is containing the left. Now we have a chance to actually push an agenda, it just means we have to be careful about it, and avoid the news, which means that people like XHS will not even know it is happening.
I will say again, and say it repeatedly. XHS was only correct in terms of the idea that ‘Nothing ever happens.’ They had several great theories as to why that is, however, we had no actual way of know they were correct, just that the result, nothing happening, was true.
We are now in a period where ‘Something might happen’ and XHS is nowhere to be seen, likely because of work or school imo, but idk. And if something does happen, that will kill most of their theories, especially in terms of how domestic U.S. politics affects foreign policies.
XHS was only correct in terms of the idea that ‘Nothing ever happens.’
Fully admitting that XHS had erroneous conclusions on domestic US affairs, this still seems to me like an absurd characterization because XHS mostly talked about China.
XHS is nowhere to be seen, likely because of work or school imo
Being banned (repeatedly?) seems to clearly be a factor
Correct, and XHS basically said that without an active financial de-dollarization movement spurred from China, nothing will ever happen, and everything is according to plan from the U.S. perspective. Which I don’t even necessarily disagree with, but the problem was how they thought this could be addressed. China is less likely to act independently if there is a Democrat in office, ergo wanting American leftists to vote for a Democrat makes no sense. Unless it was more about gaining more time to rally the Chinese population around the ejection of neo-liberalism, but that was never the argument.
Their financial stuff was sound, but understanding of the international political dialectic was… questionable. My point is that this view is clearly not true, unless of course we want to make the supposition that the Chinese have somehow forced our hand into open conflict with Iran, and/or our conflict with Iran is going well. Which, remains to be seen either way, but making any of those assumptions requires evidence that I have not seen yet. Who knows, perhaps XHS-thought will be validated, but again, that is because XHS-thought can be summarized as “Without active de-dollarization and an expansion of the internal consumer market within China, nothing will ever happen.” Which, if those don’t happen, and nothing actually happens, remains true!
Fair point! That said XHS was banned before and it never stopped them from posting afterwards unless the ban was actually permanent this time. I can’t be bothered keep track of who all was banned when, for what reason and for how long. Might as well become a mod at that point, and I really cannot do that.
That said XHS was banned before and it never stopped them from posting afterwards unless the ban was actually permanent this time.
XHS has been permanently banned for months and what I think was an alt was also banned (besides XHS2, which was supposedly an impersonator). I’d really love to hear what XHS would have to say about all of this, but the website clearly made its decision.
Why was XHS banned?
I don’t know, modlog doesn’t seem to say
Ah, super unfortunate. As much as I tended to disagree with them, that doesn’t mean their commentary wasn’t valued.
Not regarding on the ground organizing on the left in the US.
Sure, but that wasn’t my argument
It’s fine to criticize this tactic or that, but defeatism on the scale of “there is no way to build socialism in the U.S.” is worse than useless.
Even if you’re right, there is no harm in others trying. Sit it out if you think it’s hopeless. Actively speaking up to say “you’re wasting your time, it’s impossible” is indistinguishable from what a fed would do.
And you might be wrong! We’re in uncharted territory to a large extent – what we’d like to see in the U.S. has no historical precedent, especially considering the post-industrial nature of the U.S. economy. Success might come from a place no one here expects.
Part of it for me is that even if they are right and I concede they might be:
I don’t want to hear it.
I’m not interested. I’ve chosen my course and I will continue to work towards building a movement. I don’t care if I don’t live to see it and I don’t care if it fizzles out because whatever reason it might.
What worked in China might work in the US. It might not. But it is our path to navigate including all of the suffering that will happen to us.
So I don’t want to hear it. I understand that we’re cowards, that we’re not serious enough about theory or vanguardism or organizing or whatever. We’re doing what we can with what we have in the imperial core against the most horrifically funded military, police and propaganda in the history of those concepts.
What if instead of xiaohongshu it was xiao-honk-shoo and it was just for sleepy heads
Little Red Pillow
No Alarms!
Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail."
The Vanguard has isolated themselves from you. As per Mao’s directive. They shall return when you are ready.
Have you seen how much gas costs now? You’re better off just giving the money that you blew on gas and parking to Palestinian gofundmes. Protests are only good for networking and finding an org with a nearby branch that is close to where you live so you don’t have to waste money on gas.
Forget about protests. Like, now is the time to talk to your neighbors and local orgs and prepare, ideally alongside your neighbors and local orgs, for what’s to come. Preparation needs to be made, and it needs to be better than buying bulks of toilet paper from Cosco along with everyone else also buying bulks of toilet paper from Cosco. Summer’s approaching, and given climate change and what’s going on in WANA, I would not bet on amenities that people living in imperial core countries have taken for granted like AC and electricity.
“B-b-but you need to be in community.” Randos who commute 2 hours in the opposite direction from your 2 hour commute to a protest aren’t part of your community. Your neighbors are your community. Whatever local org that’s nearby, be it a church or a group of volunteers with vaguely progressive politics, are your community. Those are people who you need to actually care about because when the shit hits the fan, who are you going to rely on for help? Who can you help?
I agree with what you’re saying about gas and the need to prepare for when shit hits the fan soon. What you’re missing is that for the most part isn’t enough organization in the US to meaningfully respond when gas hits $10 a gallon or whatever. We need to build organization, we need to build cadre that can respond in a disciplined and organized way when the time comes. And one of the best places for recruiting radical people (at least for my local org) has been the no kings day protests. We have recruited people who were needing leadership and guidance and turned them into full blooded communists and brilliant organizers. So yes, we need to build connections with our neighbors, but we also need to grow the explicitly socialist organizations so that we can respond in an organized and disciplined way. The people are in the streets on No Kings day and unless there is a more important organizing opportunity on that day, or it is too far away to be financially feasible there is no reason not to agitate
I think the way urban infrastructure is laid out is the missing piece to “why are leftist movements in the US dominated by labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois activists and college students?” Protests centered at colleges and universities make sense because you have young people with free time living together in an environment with some semblance of walkability. It has less to do with the inherent politics of college students themselves. When protests take place less than 10 minutes from a dorm, whether a student should attend the protest or not is just whether they want to spend 10 minutes walking to the protest. They don’t have to spend hours getting stuck in traffic, and they don’t have to pay for parking.
For people who aren’t students, it’s a very particular slice of society. Where I live, it makes little financial sense for normal people to drive to the nearest urban center, pay for exorbitant parking, and drive back after the protests end. The only people who would actually go are essentially petty bourgeois progressives, people who have the means and the politics to actually attend protests.
And since college students themselves exist within the context of petty bourgeois institutions and often come from labor aristocrat or petty bourgeois class backgrounds, it should be no surprise that protests in the US are very petty bourgeois in character. Average protestors are either college students being submerged in a petty bourgeois environment or petty bourgeois progressives. Frankly, they stick out like a sore thumb if you put proles next to them.
Pin this tbh
Protests are a recruiting opportunity, and to an extent an agitation opportunity. Most organizations and self-proclaimed American leftists do not seize either opportunity. But also, those who do go to these protests often neglect those opportunities or do not think about hem strategically, going through the motions of organizing without the thought of what will be done with it.
I’m not dumping on any particular org or individuals. This is a widespread issue, not even unique to the imperial core. It is an implicit part of the communist critique of these protests in general: are they doing more than false catharsis for liberals?
The answer depends exclusively on whether there are further and ideally measurable organizing goals. Will you recruit? How will you know that worked? Are you canvassing for a follow-up event? Have you practiced one on one conversations for talking to potentially interested people at the protest? When you bring agitational materials, who is the audience and how will you know it worked? How will you control your messaging and not be subsumed into the liberal chatter (which will vastly outnumber you)? Do you have basic security training and a plan of where to meet afterwards, how you will debrief, etc?
Without this kind of approach, it is inevitable that a communist or similar leftist will not be accomplishing much more than individualistic self-actualization, participating in catharsis, or maybe having a vague impact on agitation as individuals. And so participation looks like 90% of imperial core protests: expressions if frustration, interactions with cops, some generally disorganized attempts at agitation, and then fizzling out or burnout as the “movement” fades, leaving the left organizations in the orbit eventually wondering what to do next time and whether there was really a point.
deleted by creator
Plz share appropriate agitprop flyers.
Unfortunately for you, I am the One True Leftist, so when I decide to sit on my ass and not agitate at a protest it is always the morally and pragmatically correct thing to do.
But yeah, even as pathetic and neutered these protests are in my country, I still try to do my best at them, I rarely succeed, I’m not much of a people person on a good day, and Australians are really fucking comfortable drowning in neoliberal slop. But it’s planting seeds. As things get worse people will start to look for solutions, and making sure they understand that communism isn’t a scary bad thing and that the government was not right to make it illegal to say “From the River to the Sea” it means that they will eventually come around to socialism, even if we aren’t there to see it. We provide them a start or a stepping stone on their journey, not the complete path for them.
I just wish people were easier to educate, it is exhausting combating the same tired bullshit over and over again.
