vagrantmoralist
11th June 2012, 21:21
Hi, everyone. I'm a long-time leftist, but I've always tried to stay away from mass-left movements and organizations. (Though I did have a fun time with a few OWS rallies.) Why? In my experience, the international youth left has always acted as a personality clique (not so dissimilar from high school) than a true, open movement.
And then, recently, I had a crisis. I have always been committed to the revolutionary left, and not, as Zizek so eloquently put at the Subversive Forum in Zagreb recently, a typical left liberal moron. Yet in recent times, despite the triumphs of the left in Europe, it has become increasingly obvious that the left, for all intents and purposes, has lost any form of popular support. Of course, Monsieur Hollande's victory in France, Syriza's strong lead in Greece, and Melenchon's growing popularity may yet reverse this trend...but then the failure to evict that right bastard in Wisconsin in the United States and Chancellor Merkel's continued devotion to failed neoliberal policies in Europe stood, in my head, as near insurmountable obstacles.
I was heavily depressed. I crawled to my usual socialist panaceas - the New Left Review, Mother Jones, the Nation, LRB, etc etc. It didn't quite help - the news out of America is still quite depressing. I stumbled upon TJ Clark's article in the most recent issue of the NLR - For a Left With No Future- and, upon reading it (mind you, the article is wrong on many counts), I realised something. The Left has a future. We are, by definition, futurists. As long as the repressive puppet-politics of the capitalist world exist, we strive for the future. A better, freer future.
For being stuck in the most capitalist of capitalist countries, the great United States of America, I had long realised that my generation here - those born in the eighties and later - has no appetite for revolution. They yearn for moderate reform, yet we know that reform alone will accomplish nothing. After all, haven't some of the greatest crimes of the past decades been committed under nominally leftist governments? Clinton's abolishments of financial regulation, Labour's complicity in the Middle Eastern wars, the disgusting growth of corruption and nepotism in the European socialist parties, and so on.
Even internationally, the most common refrain I have heard from my fellow socialists has been one of patience, or defeatism. 'Yes, but we must wait. Yes, but for now, socialism has been discredited in the minds of the masses, Yes, but...' I am sick of 'Yes, but.'
This brings me back to the recent Subversive Festival in Zagreb. As I heard Tariq Ali, Zizek, and others explain, so clearly and plainly, that we are close to fighting for our most basic democratic ideals, to say nothing of socialist ones, I realised that I am not alone, nor is the Left as weak as the media and even, parts of itself, would have us believe.
And that brings me here. It's time to crawl out of my hole, to abolish the thoughts of defeat, and to participate. The Left is weak - that's simply factual. But defeatism has never served us, nor our cause, and I refuse to subscribe to it anymore. I look forward to being here.
And then, recently, I had a crisis. I have always been committed to the revolutionary left, and not, as Zizek so eloquently put at the Subversive Forum in Zagreb recently, a typical left liberal moron. Yet in recent times, despite the triumphs of the left in Europe, it has become increasingly obvious that the left, for all intents and purposes, has lost any form of popular support. Of course, Monsieur Hollande's victory in France, Syriza's strong lead in Greece, and Melenchon's growing popularity may yet reverse this trend...but then the failure to evict that right bastard in Wisconsin in the United States and Chancellor Merkel's continued devotion to failed neoliberal policies in Europe stood, in my head, as near insurmountable obstacles.
I was heavily depressed. I crawled to my usual socialist panaceas - the New Left Review, Mother Jones, the Nation, LRB, etc etc. It didn't quite help - the news out of America is still quite depressing. I stumbled upon TJ Clark's article in the most recent issue of the NLR - For a Left With No Future- and, upon reading it (mind you, the article is wrong on many counts), I realised something. The Left has a future. We are, by definition, futurists. As long as the repressive puppet-politics of the capitalist world exist, we strive for the future. A better, freer future.
For being stuck in the most capitalist of capitalist countries, the great United States of America, I had long realised that my generation here - those born in the eighties and later - has no appetite for revolution. They yearn for moderate reform, yet we know that reform alone will accomplish nothing. After all, haven't some of the greatest crimes of the past decades been committed under nominally leftist governments? Clinton's abolishments of financial regulation, Labour's complicity in the Middle Eastern wars, the disgusting growth of corruption and nepotism in the European socialist parties, and so on.
Even internationally, the most common refrain I have heard from my fellow socialists has been one of patience, or defeatism. 'Yes, but we must wait. Yes, but for now, socialism has been discredited in the minds of the masses, Yes, but...' I am sick of 'Yes, but.'
This brings me back to the recent Subversive Festival in Zagreb. As I heard Tariq Ali, Zizek, and others explain, so clearly and plainly, that we are close to fighting for our most basic democratic ideals, to say nothing of socialist ones, I realised that I am not alone, nor is the Left as weak as the media and even, parts of itself, would have us believe.
And that brings me here. It's time to crawl out of my hole, to abolish the thoughts of defeat, and to participate. The Left is weak - that's simply factual. But defeatism has never served us, nor our cause, and I refuse to subscribe to it anymore. I look forward to being here.