Equal opposition to all states just shoots yourself in the foot, though. Should we focus on dismantling Cuban and Palestinian statehood with equal measure to the US Empire? If your goal is anarchism, shouldn’t you be focused on the bigger obstacles to that goal?
It’s not that the Palestinian Authority is doing a great job at helping the people on the ground. The Two State Solution (and therefore Palestinian statehood) isn’t liberation either.
Palestinian statehood is necessary for the protection of the Palestinian people against Israel. The “two-state solution” isn’t a solution, sure, but it is better than the current status, and the actual solution is a single Palestinian state until states can wither away.
To be clear: I do rally together with people who want a one state solution because I see it more as solidarity with the Palestinian people and even more as a protest against the involvement of my state in sending weapons to Israel. While I want to abolish all states (and I don’t believe in the withering away narrative), the focus should be my state. Not because it’s the worst but the one I have influence over. I leave it to the Palestinians to protest Hamas and PA, I protest the system that led to them.
Not really sure what you mean by “not believing in yhe withering away narrative.” The basis of the state, ie the political structures for ensuring the supremacy of a given class, is the class struggle. States arose when classes arose, not the other way around. Once a worker state has collectivized all production and distribution, the class struggle gradually dies away, and with it special political mechanisms for ensuring worker supremacy. All that remains is administration and management in a classless society, stateless and all.
Either way, as much as I personally align more with groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, I understand that they are a minority faction. Palestine’s path to social progress can only truly become unfetteted when it is liberated from genocide. Palestinians by and large are not protesting Hamas, and the Resistance is largely unified at this present moment against a common enemy.
In that sense, I agree, as activists and organizers outside of Palestine, it’s on us to focus on our own governments for supporting Israel’s settler-colonial project and genocide. The reaction to Israel is created by Israel’s own oppression, this is straight from Fanon’s analysis of nationalist resistance to colonialism. The people of Palestine have chosen the unified resistance, with Hamas as the largest faction, to break free of their chains. Any movement towards socialism will come after breaking free of Israel.
I’m begging liberals to either read theory, study actual material conditions, or just use basic common sense instead of relying exclusively on libertarian brainworms and propaganda.
It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence.
An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations.
So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore, neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself, nor can there arise real international intercourse between the proletarian parties in Germany, etc, with other than émigré Poles. Every Polish peasant or worker who wakes up from the general gloom and participates in the common interest, encounters first the fact of national subjugation. This fact is in his way everywhere as the first barrier. To remove it is the basic condition of every healthy and free development. Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme, appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.
I’m begging liberals to either read theory, study actual material conditions, or just use basic common sense instead of relying exclusively on libertarian brainworms and propaganda.
That’s totally the language to use when you try to convince people (not to listen to you). What even qualifies as theory? I’m confident I read more books by David Graeber for example. I didn’t read too much JC Scott yet but he wrote a book The Art Of Not Being Governed I heard about where he interviewed and lived with people in the Golden Triangle. You might want to check it out but it might contradict your holy scripture theory. Also, I’m sure you heard of Rojava and I don’t think they would do any better if they formed a state. They even went from an ML national liberation movement to what they are now.
Literally can’t cite any leftist author on anything ever without people jumping down my throat with this “holy scripture” crap.
You should study Marx regardless of your own beliefs and ideology if for no other reason than how much his ideas have shaped history. You can disagree with him all you like, contrary to what you instantly jump to whenever anyone quotes him on anything, I don’t consider Marx or anybody else “holy scripture” and I’m more than happy to listen to critiques, and make them myself. But you should have a basic familiarity with what he believed and the basic outlines of historical arguments regarding the National Question before dropping uninformed takes and declaring everyone else as wrong. Otherwise, you’re doing the political equivalent of someone who never studied physics declaring that they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine.
Why am I not surprised that that’s the only thing you take away from my comment? Must be all the brainworms at work. You use “theory” synonymous with “Marx” and now you’re rationalizing it. That’s what gives the impression of holy scripture. And for what it’s worth: I think of Marx much more positively than about most of his successors.
Why am I not surprised that that’s the only thing you take away from my comment?
Sorry, what else did you say that was worth responding to?
You use “theory” synonymous with “Marx”
No I fucking don’t. I cited Marx because Marx is one theorist. If I cited Lenin, you’d be accusing me of treating “theory” as synonymous with “Lenin,” if I cited someone like Fanon, same shit.
I’m so fucking sick of you libs acting like this. Like citing a source makes me some kind of religious fanatic. You don’t see me accusing you of worshipping David Graeber or saying that you “treat him as synonymous with theory.” What is it about citing Marx that makes it “holy scripture” but citing Graeber isn’t?
But more than that I’m sick of you lot taking pride in your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. No different than a MAGA chud. You’re not hostile to me because I only read Marx, because I don’t only read Marx and even if I did, there’s not a single thing I’ve said that would indicate that. You’re hostile to me for reading Marx at all. You act like it’s some kind of heretical text that corrupts the minds of all that read it. Or at least, you pretend to, because by lobbing accusations like that, you can avoid any sort of informed, intellectual discussion, and conceal the fact that you don’t know shit about ass.
So congrats, you’ve sufficiently derailed the conversation to cover your ignorance, like y’all always do. Tankies are the only people on earth capable of intelligent, educated discussions because we do the fucking homework and no one else does.
You started by accusing me of not reading theory at all, I answered by asking what qualifies as theory. You didn’t answer.
There is a rich intellectual tradition dating back to Marx’s time that’s critical of him (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Bergman, Simon Weil, …). Does that qualify as theory? What are your criteria or prototype of what counts as theory?
If you have criticisms of Marx’s arguments and analysis regarding the national question, then let’s hear them. But if it’s just gonna be, “it’s bad because states are bad,” I could get that from a damn an-cap.
Equal opposition to all states just shoots yourself in the foot, though. Should we focus on dismantling Cuban and Palestinian statehood with equal measure to the US Empire? If your goal is anarchism, shouldn’t you be focused on the bigger obstacles to that goal?
Critical analysis is like critical thought; absent from liberals and anarchists.
It’s not that the Palestinian Authority is doing a great job at helping the people on the ground. The Two State Solution (and therefore Palestinian statehood) isn’t liberation either.
Palestinian statehood is necessary for the protection of the Palestinian people against Israel. The “two-state solution” isn’t a solution, sure, but it is better than the current status, and the actual solution is a single Palestinian state until states can wither away.
To be clear: I do rally together with people who want a one state solution because I see it more as solidarity with the Palestinian people and even more as a protest against the involvement of my state in sending weapons to Israel. While I want to abolish all states (and I don’t believe in the withering away narrative), the focus should be my state. Not because it’s the worst but the one I have influence over. I leave it to the Palestinians to protest Hamas and PA, I protest the system that led to them.
Not really sure what you mean by “not believing in yhe withering away narrative.” The basis of the state, ie the political structures for ensuring the supremacy of a given class, is the class struggle. States arose when classes arose, not the other way around. Once a worker state has collectivized all production and distribution, the class struggle gradually dies away, and with it special political mechanisms for ensuring worker supremacy. All that remains is administration and management in a classless society, stateless and all.
Either way, as much as I personally align more with groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, I understand that they are a minority faction. Palestine’s path to social progress can only truly become unfetteted when it is liberated from genocide. Palestinians by and large are not protesting Hamas, and the Resistance is largely unified at this present moment against a common enemy.
In that sense, I agree, as activists and organizers outside of Palestine, it’s on us to focus on our own governments for supporting Israel’s settler-colonial project and genocide. The reaction to Israel is created by Israel’s own oppression, this is straight from Fanon’s analysis of nationalist resistance to colonialism. The people of Palestine have chosen the unified resistance, with Hamas as the largest faction, to break free of their chains. Any movement towards socialism will come after breaking free of Israel.
I’m begging liberals to either read theory, study actual material conditions, or just use basic common sense instead of relying exclusively on libertarian brainworms and propaganda.
That’s totally the language to use when you try to convince people (not to listen to you). What even qualifies as theory? I’m confident I read more books by David Graeber for example. I didn’t read too much JC Scott yet but he wrote a book The Art Of Not Being Governed I heard about where he interviewed and lived with people in the Golden Triangle. You might want to check it out but it might contradict your
holy scripturetheory. Also, I’m sure you heard of Rojava and I don’t think they would do any better if they formed a state. They even went from an ML national liberation movement to what they are now.Literally can’t cite any leftist author on anything ever without people jumping down my throat with this “holy scripture” crap.
You should study Marx regardless of your own beliefs and ideology if for no other reason than how much his ideas have shaped history. You can disagree with him all you like, contrary to what you instantly jump to whenever anyone quotes him on anything, I don’t consider Marx or anybody else “holy scripture” and I’m more than happy to listen to critiques, and make them myself. But you should have a basic familiarity with what he believed and the basic outlines of historical arguments regarding the National Question before dropping uninformed takes and declaring everyone else as wrong. Otherwise, you’re doing the political equivalent of someone who never studied physics declaring that they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine.
Why am I not surprised that that’s the only thing you take away from my comment? Must be all the brainworms at work. You use “theory” synonymous with “Marx” and now you’re rationalizing it. That’s what gives the impression of holy scripture. And for what it’s worth: I think of Marx much more positively than about most of his successors.
Sorry, what else did you say that was worth responding to?
No I fucking don’t. I cited Marx because Marx is one theorist. If I cited Lenin, you’d be accusing me of treating “theory” as synonymous with “Lenin,” if I cited someone like Fanon, same shit.
I’m so fucking sick of you libs acting like this. Like citing a source makes me some kind of religious fanatic. You don’t see me accusing you of worshipping David Graeber or saying that you “treat him as synonymous with theory.” What is it about citing Marx that makes it “holy scripture” but citing Graeber isn’t?
But more than that I’m sick of you lot taking pride in your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. No different than a MAGA chud. You’re not hostile to me because I only read Marx, because I don’t only read Marx and even if I did, there’s not a single thing I’ve said that would indicate that. You’re hostile to me for reading Marx at all. You act like it’s some kind of heretical text that corrupts the minds of all that read it. Or at least, you pretend to, because by lobbing accusations like that, you can avoid any sort of informed, intellectual discussion, and conceal the fact that you don’t know shit about ass.
So congrats, you’ve sufficiently derailed the conversation to cover your ignorance, like y’all always do. Tankies are the only people on earth capable of intelligent, educated discussions because we do the fucking homework and no one else does.
You started by accusing me of not reading theory at all, I answered by asking what qualifies as theory. You didn’t answer.
There is a rich intellectual tradition dating back to Marx’s time that’s critical of him (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Bergman, Simon Weil, …). Does that qualify as theory? What are your criteria or prototype of what counts as theory?
Sure.
If you have criticisms of Marx’s arguments and analysis regarding the national question, then let’s hear them. But if it’s just gonna be, “it’s bad because states are bad,” I could get that from a damn an-cap.