[Marxism] Leading by Example: Cuba in the Covid-19 Pandemic | Helen Yaffe | CounterPunch

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/04/leading-by-example-cuba-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] video of Oakland

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Here is a video of the last few nights of protests in Oakland.
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/06/05/video-of-oakland-protests/

-- 
*“Science and socialism go hand-in-hand.” *Felicity Dowling
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] Group linked to far-right ‘boogaloo’ movement plotted terror attacks against protesters: prosecutors

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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I find it odd that there is so much disagreement about the character of
Antifa and yet everyone seems to agree that the Boogaloo Movement is a
far-right extremist movement. According to the bellingcat article that was
posted here some time ago, many of the people in this Boogaloo movement
very aggressively oppose police brutality toward African-Americans and
believe that the U.S. government is fundamentally corrupt. It also stated
that white nationalists who were attempting to take charge of the group
felt alienated and out of place because most of the people joined it agreed
with opposing police brutality generally.

It is true, they seem to have a "race-blind" attitude (unfortunately, like
many on the Left (TM)), but that hardly puts them in the same camp as the
Nazis. And more importantly, I would be incredibly weary, especially at a
time like this, of taking statements from prosecutors for granted. This
kind of thing could have happened to ANY of the young people protesting and
engaging in these kinds of actions, including Antifa types and leftists. I
also note that the article states they are accused of wanting to attack
both George Floyd protesters and anti-lockdown protesters. That is, they
are accused of trying to attack both left-wing and right-wing protests. The
prosecutor also suggests they are trying to "hijack" the protests. So
essentially, they are also parts of the things that they are allegedly
trying to destroy, for the sake of accelerating social unrest.

Hmmm, people with questionable views on race, part of an amorphous and
incoherent internet movement that opposes state violence but has sketchy
characters, who use violence against infrastructure for the purpose of
accelerating social unrest. These men could have basically been Antifa.
There is no apparent ideological or political difference. The arguments
being made by the "experts" quoted in this article are the same as those
being used to accuse anarchist / Antifa groups of being Neo-Nazi
infiltrators.

There is a very aggressive narrative that is trying to exploit the
amorphous character of the ongoing rebellion to cast suspicion on those
take part in it in the "wrong" way. We can disagree with someone's tactics
or even parts of their ideology without jumping to the conclusion that they
are Nazi infiltrators or police agents. I caution others to be weary of
these kinds of articles and these kinds of investigations.

Amith R. Gupta


On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 3:47 PM Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/group-linked-to-far-right-boogaloo-movement-plotted-terror-attacks-against-protesters-prosecutors/
> <
> https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/group-linked-to-far-right-boogaloo-movement-plotted-terror-attacks-against-protesters-prosecutors/?utm_source=push_notifications
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[Marxism] 10 Experts on How the George Floyd Protests Fit Into History | Time

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/

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[Marxism] President Trump Tweets and Poses Instead of Leading Amid Riots - Bloomberg

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-03/president-trump-tweets-and-poses-instead-of-leading-amid-riots

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[Marxism] Group linked to far-right ‘boogaloo’ movement plotted terror attacks against protesters: prosecutors

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/group-linked-to-far-right-boogaloo-movement-plotted-terror-attacks-against-protesters-prosecutors/

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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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I am glad to hear from Daniel and Jeff saying all the Antifa groups they
met support Palestine and wish I had the same experience.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020, 10:47 AM Daniel Lindvall via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> That surprises me. Here in Sweden the antifa milieu is as good as 100 %
> strongly anti-zionist! I’ve never come across anyone associated with antifa
> who was not pro-Palestinian.
>
> >
> > Speaking from personal experience. It is of course impossible to get an
> > accurate read of every Antifa-type's personal views given the nature of
> > their non-organizatiom, but apologetics for Israel and suspicion of the
> > Palestinian cause is fairly normal and I've come across it more than
> > occasionally.
> >
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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You do realize that that's not the same a coherent movement position, don't
you?   I mean you could cite something I wrote as presenting the Trotskyist
position on such-and-such, but it still wouldn't be that.  It's just be my
position.
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[Marxism] Antifa

[Richard Modiano via Marxism]

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Based on my experiences here in Los Angeles, the people who identify
themselves as antifa are largely under 30, mostly Latinx, and are not
organized along any lines that I can see. Their sentiments are
anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-cop. I have the impression that
many people who are part of Cop Watch join antifa groups at demonstrations.

It seems that antifa in the US is is hard to grasp as of now, so I
personally would not hazard any generalizations.

Richard Modiano
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Jeffrey Masko via Marxism]

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" As is usual with people who have not chosen to identify themselves or
formulate a more coherent position among themselves, serious attempts at an
analysis are going to break down."

I disagree...here's some evidence to the contrary in the forms of books by
Rob Carley:

2019 *Culture & Tactics: Gramsci, Race, and the Politics of Practice*, in
the series *Praxis: Theory in Action*. Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press.

2019 *Autonomy, Refusal, and The Black Bloc: Positioning Class Analysis in
Critical and Radical Theory*, in the series *Radical Subjects in
International Politics: Action and Activism*. London, UK: Rowman and
Littlefield International.

There are of course many other scholarly articles and books on the subject
in Rob's bibliography that can help folks on the subject
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Daniel Lindvall via Marxism]

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That surprises me. Here in Sweden the antifa milieu is as good as 100 % 
strongly anti-zionist! I’ve never come across anyone associated with antifa who 
was not pro-Palestinian.

> 
> Speaking from personal experience. It is of course impossible to get an
> accurate read of every Antifa-type's personal views given the nature of
> their non-organizatiom, but apologetics for Israel and suspicion of the
> Palestinian cause is fairly normal and I've come across it more than
> occasionally.
> 


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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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As is usual with people who have not chosen to identify themselves or
formulate a more coherent position among themselves, serious attempts at an
analysis are going to break down.

Follow people in masks who won't share their identity with you has
historically been a good way to wind up following Special Officer Friendly
. . . or worse.
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Speaking from personal experience. It is of course impossible to get an
accurate read of every Antifa-type's personal views given the nature of
their non-organizatiom, but apologetics for Israel and suspicion of the
Palestinian cause is fairly normal and I've come across it more than
occasionally.

Re: systemic racism, I've definitely heard them *say* they see it as a
problem, but their street-fighting adventures appear to focus entirely on
the fringe.

I am 31, I hope I'm not the Old Guard yet.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020, 9:48 AM Jeffrey Masko via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
>  "Antifa groups (with the sole exception of Antifa groups in Israel)
> support Zionism outright or simply have shitty views on the topic
> altogether. In my experience they have equally asinine views about
> anti-black racism, believing it to be a problem with individuals rather
> than a problem with the institutions that govern society, which they
> confuse with hate groups."
>
> I have no idea where you came up with this as these claims are 100%
> incorrect and it astonishing to see smears like this on this list. I don't
> know of any U.S. based groups that are Zionist and none that don't see
> racism as systemic. I don't know whose blog you read, but anyone who
> actually knows these folks or work with them know that is completely
> insane. "Kids" from the antifa subculture may not be as educated as some of
> you on this list and may not understand the consequences of their actions
> beyond the short term, but misrepresentations of them either willfully or
> through ignorance will not get them to listen to the "old guard," which is
> what I suspect annoys most of the haters.
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Jeffrey Masko via Marxism]

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 "Antifa groups (with the sole exception of Antifa groups in Israel)
support Zionism outright or simply have shitty views on the topic
altogether. In my experience they have equally asinine views about
anti-black racism, believing it to be a problem with individuals rather
than a problem with the institutions that govern society, which they
confuse with hate groups."

I have no idea where you came up with this as these claims are 100%
incorrect and it astonishing to see smears like this on this list. I don't
know of any U.S. based groups that are Zionist and none that don't see
racism as systemic. I don't know whose blog you read, but anyone who
actually knows these folks or work with them know that is completely
insane. "Kids" from the antifa subculture may not be as educated as some of
you on this list and may not understand the consequences of their actions
beyond the short term, but misrepresentations of them either willfully or
through ignorance will not get them to listen to the "old guard," which is
what I suspect annoys most of the haters.
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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[Greg McDonald via Marxism]

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https://www.ibtimes.com/george-floyd-protests-despite-trumps-claims-fbi-finds-no-intel-linking-antifa-riots-2987021
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[Marxism] How Microbes Write History

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(Charles Mann is the author of "1491: New Revelations of the Americas 
Before Columbus" a book based on an Atlantic Monthly article that 
described indigenous life as superior to that of the Europeans who 
invaded and then destroyed their society. It's a must read article: 
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/)


Atlantic Monthly, June 2020
HOW MICROBES WRITE HISTORY
by Charles Mann

In 2008 a young economist named Craig Garthwaite went looking for sick 
people. He found them in the National Health Interview Survey. Conducted 
annually by the U.S. Census Bureau since 1957, the NHIS is the oldest 
and biggest continuing effort to track Americans' health. The survey 
asks a large sample of the citizenry whether it has a variety of 
ailments, including diabetes, kidney disorders, and several types of 
heart disease. Garth- waite sought out a particular subset of 
respondents: people born between October 1918 and June 1919.


Those months were the height and immediate aftermath of the world's 
worst-ever influenza pandemic. Although medical data from the time are 
too scant to be definitive, its first attack is generally said to have 
occurred in Kansas in March 1918, as the U.S. was stepping up its 
involvement in the First World War. In a flurry of wartime propaganda, 
American and European governments downplayed the epidemic, which helped 
it spread. Estimates of the final death toll range from 17 million to 
100 million, depending on assumptions about the number of uncounted 
victims. Almost 700,000 people are thought to have died in the United 
States—as a proportion of the population, equivalent to more than 2 
million people today.


Remarkably, the calamity left few visible traces in American culture. 
Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Dos Passos saw its terrible effects 
firsthand, but almost never mentioned it in their work. Nor did the flu 
affect U.S. policies—Congress didn't even allocate extra money for flu 
research afterward.


Just a few decades after the pandemic, American- history textbooks by 
the distinguished likes of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Richard 
Hofstadter, Henry Steele Com- mager, and Samuel Eliot Mori- son said not 
a word about it. The first history of the 1918 flu wasn't published 
until 1976—I drew some of the above from it. Written by the late Alfred 
W. Crosby, the book is called America's Forgotten Pandemic.


Americans may have forgotten the 1918 pandemic, but it did not forget 
them. Garthwaite matched NHIS respondents' health conditions to the 
dates when their mothers were probably exposed to the flu. Mothers who 
got sick in the first months of pregnancy, he discovered, had babies 
who, 60 or 70 years later, were unusually likely to have diabetes; 
mothers afflicted at the end of pregnancy tended to bear children prone 
to kidney disease. The middle months were associated with heart disease.


Other studies showed different consequences. Children born during the 
pandemic grew into shorter, poorer, less educated adults with higher 
rates of physical disability than one would expect. Chances are that 
none of Garthwaite's flu babies ever knew about the shadow the pandemic 
cast over their lives. But they were living testaments to a brutal 
truth: Pandemics—even forgotten ones—have long-term, powerful aftereffects.


The distinguished historians can be forgiven for passing over this 
truth. Most modern people assume that our species controls its own 
destiny. Were in charge! we think. After all, isn't this the 
Anthropocene? Being modern people, historians have had trouble, as a 
profession, truly accepting that brainless packets of RNA and DNA can 
capsize the human enterprise in a few weeks or months.


The convulsive social changes of the 1920s—the frenzy of financial 
speculation, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, the explosion of 
Dionysian popular culture (jazz, flappers, speakeasies)—were easily 
attributed to the war, an initiative directed and conducted by humans, 
rather than to the blind actions of microorganisms. But the 
microorganisms likely killed more people than the war did. And their 
effects weren't confined to European battlefields, but spread across the 
globe, emptying city streets and filling cemeteries on six continents.


Unlike the war, the flu was incomprehensible—the influenza virus wasn't 
even identified until 1931. It inspired fear of immigrants and 
foreigners, and anger toward the politicians who played down the virus. 
Like the war, influenza (and tuberculosis, which subsequently hit many 
flu suflerers) killed more men than women, skewing sex ratios for years 
afterward. Can one be 

[Marxism] Lundi Matin, Heirs of the Situationist International, on the US Protests.

[andrew coates via Marxism]

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"Lundi Matin cites Robert 
Hurley, a respected 
American translator of Foucault, Deleuze, 
Bataille (hard to summarise, 
see link) Clastres (radical anthropologist) and Tiqqun, the journal forerunner 
of the Invisible 
Committee.

This is what philosophers call an aporia, that is to say an insoluble problem 
in a given framework. One of these aporias is that the “white and western” 
framework in which we operate has been built around a vacuum created by the 
exclusion of entire parts of humanity. In this specific case, it is black. So 
when black people “go into action”, it is this very void that is revealed. I 
believe that is why the situation is considered to be “revolutionary”. What is 
incredible in this sequence is that it is not the only void, not the only 
nothingness that emerges, insofar as we manage to conceive different types of 
void.

The current situation certainly looks a lot like the previous uprisings and 
waves of riots. We obviously think of the reactions that followed the beating 
of Rodney King. What seems to me different today, however, is that there is no 
longer any liberal consensus linked to the idea of ​​social progress associated 
with it. As I said, the participants operate in the middle of a sort of void, 
no one believes that repairing it is possible. This as such produces massive 
anger. We see hundreds of potential killers amongst  the police attacking us on 
the streets and so even if “justice” were obtained for George Floyd, it would 
only represent a brief respite that would last only a day or so a week at most. 
The intensity of the situation probably also owes a lot to the management of 
covid19 and the pathetic prospect of the next elections.

https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/lundi-matin-heirs-of-the-situationist-international-on-the-us-protests/
[https://statics.lesinrocks.com/content/thumbs/uploads/2016/10/width-1125-height-612/une-lundi-matin.jpg]
Lundi Matin, Heirs of the Situationist International, on the US Protests. | 
Tendance 
Coatesy
With a background in situationism, and council communism, not to mention a 
claim to the traditions of Socialisme ou Barbarie, the review is keen to stress 
the difference between long-term organised political activists (‘integrated’ 
into the ‘system’) and youth in revolt, ” militants minoritaires mais 
“responsables” à la masse jeune et énergique qui impulse la révolte.” and ...
tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com

Andrew Coates
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[Marxism] In ‘Surviving Autocracy,’ Masha Gessen Tells Us to Face the Facts

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 3, 2020
In ‘Surviving Autocracy,’ Masha Gessen Tells Us to Face the Facts
By Jennifer Szalai

Surviving Autocracy
By Masha Gessen
270 pages. Riverhead Books. $26.

I would hazard a guess that when Masha Gessen began working on 
“Surviving Autocracy,” the title was meant more figuratively than 
literally. In the November 2016 essay that gave rise to this book, 
Gessen offered a set of numbered rules for “salvaging your sanity and 
self-respect” during a time of political upheaval. Physical survival 
didn’t look like it was going to be the hard part. As a country like 
Viktor Orban’s Hungary shows, autocracy can thrive on corruption and 
soft oppression: Don’t speak up; just eat the bread and watch the 
circuses, and chances are you’ll get by.


“Most Americans in the age of Trump are not, like the subjects of a 
totalitarian regime, subjected to state terror,” Gessen writes in the 
new book. But the last few months have shown what can happen when a 
president’s contempt for expert knowledge collides with a dire need for 
it: “We could have imagined, but we could not have predicted, that a 
pandemic would render his arrogant ignorance lethal.”


Gessen was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States 
as a teenager, returning to Russia in 1991 to work as a journalist and 
document “the death of a Russian democracy that had never really come to 
be.” Gessen moved back to the United States in 2013 and eventually 
became a staff writer for The New Yorker — not to mention one of this 
country’s most exacting critics of Vladimir Putin and his ruthless 
consolidation of power. As a gay parent, Gessen had confronted a Russian 
regime that threatened to remove children from same-sex families. When 
Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.


In “Surviving Autocracy,” Gessen suggests that the United States has 
been terribly unprepared for a figure like Donald Trump. Not because he 
came out of nowhere; if anything, he took advantage of a political 
system that was ripe for a demagogue, swollen already by money and the 
powers concentrated in the executive branch. But too many Americans have 
maintained a stubborn hope that their vaunted institutions can save 
them. Establishment politicians like Barack Obama exhorted Americans to 
operate from “a presumption of good faith.” (Gessen quotes at length 
from a soaring speech that Obama gave the day after the 2016 election; 
reading it now might make you wince.) Even the most seasoned 
journalists, Gessen says, couldn’t bring themselves to assimilate the 
unthinkable.


“No powerful political actor had set out to destroy the American 
political system itself — until, that is, Trump won the Republican 
nomination,” Gessen writes. “He was probably the first major party 
nominee who ran not for president but for autocrat.”


Gessen isn’t part of the typical #Resist crowd, fixated on the Mueller 
report. If anything, Gessen says, “the excruciatingly slow, 
tantalizingly complicated, deliciously dirty story of Russian 
interference in the 2016 election” served as yet another distraction 
from the undeniable facts at hand. By the time the special counsel 
informed the public that the president had ordered a White House lawyer 
to lie, “the president had been lying to the public daily for two and a 
half years,” Gessen writes.


The words “lie” and “lying” and “liar” appear a lot in this book. So do 
“meaning” and “meaningless.” Gessen’s writing style is methodical and 
direct, relying on pointed observations instead of baroque hyperbole. 
The loose use of language, Gessen says, has been a problem on both sides 
of the American political divide — though it would take a fanatical 
attachment to both-sidesism not to point out that one party is the more 
flagrant and egregious offender. Trump’s critics may be inordinately 
fond of words like “coup” and “treason,” Gessen writes, but none of that 
compares to the president’s mangling of meaning and basic syntax — what 
Gessen calls his “word piles.”


To combat nonsense, Gessen counsels making sense, deliberately and with 
precision, including the reclamation of “politics” and “political” — 
words that have come to denote empty bombast and wily maneuvering when 
they should call to mind something more substantive: “the vital project 
of negotiating how we live together as a city, a state or a country; of 
working across difference; of acting collectively.” The common 
hypocritical politician infuriates people by preaching one thing and 
doing another; compare this to the uncommon, non-hypocritical Trump, who 
doesn’t bother even to preach anything lofty in the first place. At 
least 

[Marxism] Goliath Is Not Invincible: The Twenty-Third Newsletter (2020).

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://mailchi.mp/thetricontinental.org/goliath-is-not-invincible-the-twenty-third-newsletter-2020?e=77bd6c9887

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[Marxism] Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 3, 2020
Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim
By John Eligon and Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura

MINNEAPOLIS — In the sea of hundreds of protesters who gathered one 
evening this week near the intersection where George Floyd was killed, a 
lone voice rose from the crowd.


“Everybody sit down,” it urgently ordered.

Others chimed in — “Sit down! Sit down!” — scolding those, even 
journalists, who were slow to comply.


A few minutes later, Tony Clark, wearing a black face mask and an 
earring with the inscription “Not today Satan,” bounded toward the 
center of the circle of seated bodies and took the megaphone.


“Everybody stand up,” he commanded, contradicting the earlier speaker’s 
instructions.


The crowd rose.

“The moment y’all sit down, the moment they’re going to step on y’all,” 
Mr. Clark, 27, said to rousing applause. But a half-hour later, he 
reversed his stance and told everyone to sit down again.


“Stop barking orders,” said Davi Young, a Marine veteran, twisting his 
face. “You’re not the police.”


Welcome to 21st-century activism, where spontaneous and leaderless 
movements have been defined by their organic births and guided on the 
fly by people whose preferences, motivations and ideas may not always align.


But the absence of organized leadership does not mean the movements — 
from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter — are 
rudderless.


Leveraging technology that was unavailable to earlier generations, the 
activists of today have a digital playbook. Often, it begins with an 
injustice captured on video and posted to social media. Demonstrations 
are hastily arranged, hashtags are created and before long, thousands 
have joined the cause.


“This is much more than an organization. This is much more than an 
individual,” said Nejah Ibrahim, 26, sitting on the pavement at the 
intersection where Mr. Floyd was arrested, sporadically leading chants 
or delivering messages from a megaphone.


“This is collective people who came together,” he continued, “to stand 
against a systematic oppression that we have endured for so long.”


But leaderless movements have their challenges.

It can be difficult to keep protests from spilling out of control, and 
difficult to maintain a clear and focused message. Disputes over the 
best strategies can easily emerge.


“I think it is detrimental that we lack that kind of structure, 
organization,” said Dame Jasmine Hughes, 33, standing at a makeshift 
memorial for Mr. Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer 
pinned Mr. Floyd’s neck to the ground with his left knee for nearly nine 
minutes.


The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired from the Minneapolis Police 
Department and charged with second-degree murder. Three other officers 
at the scene were charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting the killing.


“Organizations show power,” Ms. Hughes continued. “There’s power in 
clarity. There’s power in structure, especially when people are hurting.”


Though organized structure might be loose, traditional civil rights 
groups, churches and newly minted activist organizations have provided 
guidance and tactical and practical support to activists around the country.


Carmen Means, a pastor who has led a mostly online congregation since 
2015 and is the director of the Central Area Neighborhood Development 
Organization in Minneapolis, said her congregants helped set up a 
memorial for Mr. Floyd. They have received food donations and they 
turned a nearby building into a food bank, where there was recently a 
long line of residents.


And she has led discussions outside Cup Foods — the corner store near 
where the fatal encounter between Mr. Floyd and the police took place — 
where people talked about how Mr. Floyd’s death has affected them.


“They were weeping,” she said. “You could see the trauma that was in 
their eyes.”


More than emotional support, Pastor Means and her fellow activists also 
try to help strategize the demonstrators’ next moves.


She said she has convened daily meetings for “strategic thinking, 
planning because we understand that this is not a sprint. This is a 
marathon, right?”


Part of that strategy is figuring out how to channel the energy of young 
activists who are not affiliated with official organizations. They may 
have raw rage, she said, and need guidance in finding productive ways to 
express it.


“We do tell them that it is their right to protest and be angry. That’s 
something courageous,” said Shanene Herbert, a member of Pastor Means’s 
congregation who helps youth in the community.


“But we want them to understand what their 

[Marxism] Anti-fascist mobilization in Brazil

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Lessons from “The Battle of the Paulistas”
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6647 


The streets are the main site for resistance against Bolsonaro. We must reclaim 
them.
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[Marxism] How Police Became Paramilitaries | by Michael Shank | The New York Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/06/03/how-police-became-paramilitaries/

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[Marxism] The Many Worlds of American Communism - COSMONAUT

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On this episode of Cosmopod, Donald and Parker welcome Cosmonaut author 
Josh Morris on to discuss the history and historiography of the US 
Communist Party. Academic accounts of the party have largely fit in two 
camps; Josh’s upcoming book The Many Worlds of American Communism 
attempts to go beyond the standard story and rethink the scholarship for 
a post-Cold War era. Below we have included a preview of Morris’ book 
which is based on the preface.


https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/06/03/the-many-worlds-of-american-communism/

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Re: [Marxism] Re antifa

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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I am weary of drawing any conclusions about Antifa other than that they
have no ideological coherence and the individuals attempting to create such
coherence are reactionaries and imbeciles. For example, Matt Lyons who
writes for Political Research Associates (where many of these Antifa types
try to get the air of professionalism by working at an NGO) has written
extensive blog articles on what is (basically) the premise of the Antifa
worldview: that fascism is itself a revolutionary anti-capitalist ideology
in its own right, like the Left, and seeks to put forward an alternative
revolution in lieu of a socialist/communist one. As such, fascists
sometimes use revolutionary rhetoric, and the slogan that the cops and the
Klan go hand-in-hand is actually wrongheaded. Because fascists are also
revolutionaries, it is therefore reasonable to subject leftist and other
dissident groups to a ruthless witch-hunt to find anti-Semitism and Nazi
infilitration in order to prevent the rise of a fascist takeover under the
guise of leftism. The evidence of this looming threat given by Lyons and
others are terrorist attacks by far-right groups and the existence of hate
crimes.

There are, separately, Antifa types that still hold the cops-and-the-Klan
worldview, but who aren't much better. Because they also view the cops and
fascists as one in the same, they view street-fighting with Nazis as an
alternative to revolutionary activity and structural critiques of
capitalism. Why fight the cops when you can fight the traveling circus of
fringe Nazi hate groups? They end up internalizing the dominant ideologies
of capitalism because they mistake fighting it with fighting fringe
weirdos, which explains why Antifa groups (with the sole exception of
Antifa groups in Israel) support Zionism outright or simply have shitty
views on the topic altogether. In my experience they have equally asinine
views about anti-black racism, believing it to be a problem with
individuals rather than a problem with the institutions that govern
society, which they confuse with hate groups.

So while the mechanics of these factions differ, the underlying conclusion
is the same: fascism poses some sort of overarching, persistent threat to
society, and trying to find it and engage in street brawls with it is
either an alternative to or necessary for replacing capitalism.

Separate from this bizarre and leaderless series of incoherent cults is the
wider "black bloc" anarchist network that, both in the US and in Europe,
engages in property destruction and looting in order to thwart the police.
Without knowing who they are or what they stand for (or if they stand for a
coherent single thing at all) it is not worth generalizing about
their ideology: they are reduced to the tactics they use and nothing more,
namely rioting.

So as for rioting as a tactic, I think we should view it as any other
tactic: something that might effect change under certain circumstances, but
not on its own. The notion that a group of people can break some windows or
burn a store down and cause revolutionary change in the system is belied by
the fact that far greater destruction to property has taken place during
war, economic crises, etc. without suddenly prompting a revolution. If that
is the goal, then it is foolish.

However, I do believe that these kinds of militant tactics, under specific
circumstances, might provide a sort of "force multiplier". The rebellion
that is taking place throughout the United States right now is not being
driven by the Antifa types or the black bloc types, whether they
self-identify as Antifa or agree with the hucksters who speak on their
behalf. The people flooding the streets are attempting to throw a wrench in
the system. This is true whether they are smashing up department stores,
blocking traffic, or even just defying curfews. Note, they all stopped
following social distancing as well. It is obvious why: during a massive
recession that may soon become a depression, they are watching a white
supremacist who openly breaks the law and calls for shooting people egg
them on and defend police racism, all while failing to ensure their basic
needs are protected. Indeed, the system has actually encouraged that they
put themselves at greater risk of the pandemic by returning to work as an
alternative to ensuring they are bailed out and protected from landlords,
etc. In essence, legitimate governance had already collapsed before the
mass rebellion and the rebellion is simply a response to that crisis of
legitimacy which calls for the government to be replaced. In such a
circumstance, I believe that "black bloc tactics" could potentially lend to