Liberation and Communism

[Adam James Fernandes]

Before I begin, I would like to say that I am a Libertarian Communist (aka Anarcho-Communist or Free Communist). That being said, I support any and all of the liberation movements. From radical Feminist movements to Queer liberation movements. I specifically support Queer movements because I am Pansexual and transgender. Before a pure Communist society can happen, all socially repressed groups need to be liberated. Without solidarity and, in some cases, violence, none of these groups will escape their current state. Without solidarity, these groups and workers will not achieve what they are demanding: complete and utter freedom. If none of this happens, Communism will not become a reality.

[Moggallana]

I am confused. Are you trying to imply that communism cannot be worked towards until the groups in question have been liberated? I don't think you're trying to say that, but if you don't mean it that way, what was the point of this thread? Every communist and anarchist worth a damn is already well aware that communism will not be a reality in a world where oppression exists; reaffirming that is pretty unnecessary, I think.

[Adam James Fernandes]

This wasn't the direction I was heading in. I clicked submit too early.

[Moggallana]

Forgive me, then. Please continue.

[(A)]

Are you trying to say that we as the Revolutionary left must focus our mental and physical efforts not on the distant transformation of Capitalist society into a socialist one but instead on the real world problems faced by today's working class and oppressed minority's; That only by our actions today can we hope to bring together the Workers of the world and expand class conciseness to the point where any meaningful change will even be possible?

And worse are you implying that to many of us are Keyboard Communists who would rather talk shit then unite in any meaningful way to empower the movement?

I agree. I will try and do more.

[Moggallana]

And worse are you implying that to many of us are Keyboard Communists who would rather talk shit then unite in any meaningful way to empower the movement?

That's pretty clearly the case. I wouldn't be surprised if more than a quarter (if not half) of the people on this forum (or indeed any forum dedicated to revolutionary politics) are keyboard/armchair communists. From my experience (and this is obviously anecdotal evidence that doesn't characterize the whole movement), I've noticed that communists that are online are not "communists in real life", and vice versa (with the exception of people using IRCs to help coordinate and communicate in real life, but those ones fall under the "communists in real life" thing). And even the keyboard communists who then began being active in real life, they proved to either have a god-complex (a la Stalinoids et al) or to be newbies that are easily frustrated when the going gets tough or when they realize that being a communist isn't glamourous. I've seen it far too often, though (again, anecdotally), it seems to be a disproportionately North American thing, and it usually revolves around students.

My favorite part is when keyboard communist university students get frustrated when communism isn't achieved in between their morning and afternoon classes; they ragequit and they begin to focus more on identity politics instead, for whatever reason. They go from keyboard communist to keyboard identity politicians (which I guess isn't a real term but it might as well be). It usually makes me laugh because those people go from irrelevance to impotence in five seconds flat. But, sometimes it is lamentable because they, not being fully grounded in revolutionary politics and communism, become reactionary obstacles, thus contradicting their initial desire to "achieve communism". It's quite a classic move, though, so it isn't surprising anymore.

[Heretek]

Looks like the revolution's canceled, again. Someone else came on and pointed out how sad and pathetic we are, time to throw in the towel. They're right, fuck communicating with the youth, the most impressionable group and only way of reaching future generations. You aren't a communist if you haven't gotten tazed at a rally for your right to work laws for no reason. This has really opened my eyes about how much more you newcomers have done to contribute to the worker's movement and the left than the years of regressive' practice and theory provided by these reactionary fossils here on the internet. They probably don't even vote, those bastards.

[Moggallana]

Looks like the revolution's canceled, again. Someone else came on and pointed out how sad and pathetic we are, time to throw in the towel. They're right, fuck communicating with the youth, the most impressionable group and only way of reaching future generations. You aren't a communist if you haven't gotten tazed at a rally for your right to work laws for no reason. This has really opened my eyes about how much more you newcomers have done to contribute to the worker's movement and the left than the years of regressive' practice and theory provided by these reactionary fossils here on the internet. They probably don't even vote, those bastards.

Spotted the keyboard communist. I kid, of course. Nice work on overreacting and filling in the gaps with sensationalized misinterpretations of the positions on which I stand (of which you know none as of right now, incidentally). I won't dignify most of what you said with a response because almost none of what you said deserves one. However to call one a newcomer just because they am new to this forum is adorable. I just read the twelve pages worth of Marx on a blog last week and joined, right? Ah, there's no way that someone with more than a week of experience would join this forum, is that it? You caught me red handed.

[LeftistsAreRadical]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lvWhQKvkQuM/Tkfo7v_Ou5I/AAAAAAAACQc/p2OcYkmbyc0/s1600/Che-Guevara+%25284%2529.jpg

[Heretek]

Spotted the keyboard communist. I kid, of course. Nice work on overreacting and filling in the gaps with sensationalized misinterpretations of the positions on which I stand (of which you know none as of right now, incidentally). I won't dignify most of what you said with a response because almost none of what you said deserves one. However to call one a newcomer just because they am new to this forum is adorable. I just read the twelve pages worth of Marx on a blog last week and joined, right? Ah, there's no way that someone with more than a week of experience would join this forum, is that it? You caught me red handed.

New to this forum = newcomer to forum. Not sure how you could misread that. I'll blame the schools. Tax the poor, fund the schools! Hands off my right to private education! Those plebes won't ever do anything with that education anyways!

Oh please, people like you come on here all the time, make a few posts about how worthless we are, and leave. Most, if not all, of the members on here can identify your ilk. Despite your petty differences, you're all the same reformist scum, or outright bourgeois ideologues. Overreact? That's actually very funny, you haven't read one of our, ah, favorite, member's responses.

Think of this forum like a sort of representation of Newton's Laws. If you act a certain way, ie trolling or childish, you will get an equal and opposite response and it will continue to do so unless acted upon. We let blatant racists on here a few months ago thanks to the board, so 'community policing' is our deterrent now. That should satisfy you at least, the people policing themselves. But only if it's the right people doing the policing!

[Moggallana]

Think of this forum like a sort of representation of Newton's Laws. If you act a certain way, ie trolling or childish, you will get an equal and opposite response and it will continue to do so unless acted upon. We let blatant racists on here a few months ago thanks to the board, so 'community policing' is our deterrent now. That should satisfy you at least, the people policing themselves. But only if it's the right people doing the policing!

...And a hypocrite as well! Beautiful. My post was a serious observation about the superficial shitbags that have either polluted or abandoned the revolutionary movement, after which YOU came to troll ME with your garbage post. And then I didn't even troll you in response, because your post was so bad that I felt like trolling would have been a waste of my time. And yet in all of this, I'm the troll. Why'd you got upset over my little ditty about superficial keyboard communists? It seems to me that only someone who'd fall in that category would get upset over that. And not only did you get upset, but you found it necessary to troll me in your last two posts in a way that was pointless. You put words in my mouth because you didn't have enough information to say anything substantial. Nice work, chief.


New to this forum = newcomer to forum. Not sure how you could misread that. I'll blame the schools. Tax the poor, fund the schools! Hands off my right to private education! Those plebes won't ever do anything with that education anyways!

I may have joined in March and started posting now, but I've been lurking this site on and off since 2011. Please don't speak to me like a "newcomer" when I was around to see you post since you first joined.


Oh please, people like you come on here all the time, make a few posts about how worthless we are, and leave. Most, if not all, of the members on here can identify your ilk. Despite your petty differences, you're all the same reformist scum, or outright bourgeois ideologues. Overreact? That's actually very funny, you haven't read one of our, ah, favorite, member's responses.

Since I've been lurking for so long, I've seen those people you think I am like. I am neither a reformist, nor bourgeois, so why don't you holster your pistol for a second. I've been a staunch anarcho-communist/council communist for the better part of fifteen years, and I've spent that time purging myself of reactionary ideas, while also building up as much knowledge and experience about revolutionary politics as I could. Not to mention all of the stuff I've done to help organize the working class, but I'm not here to toot my own horn. To get attacked and demonized for being something I'm not would almost bother me but I know that your lack of information about me has led you to post in error, and so I'm willing to let it slide.

[Thirsty Crow]

Threads like this and RafiqTM outbursts are what makes me regret I'm no longer a mod.

[Exterminatus]

What does keyboard communist even mean in today's context? That we don't go on 50-men sized protests, waving red flags and throwing rocks at cops and then go back home and feel good about ourselves? And this while proletarians are not even indifferent but fucking hate us and vote for Fascists? If we truly want to resurrect our Communism, to make it a real force, we need theory more than ever for that. We should come to peace with the fact that we are doing something very wrong right now. Why do we keep failing? Because we do not know really understand what is going on. And as a consequence of this we have no idea how to approach the concrete controversies of our time. Failures of the past 50 fucking years attest to this well enough. Going back to theory allows us to spot our errors, fully understand the present predicament and then eventually shape our strategies and tactics accordingly. Some users on this board, and especially Rafiq, have done more towards this end than all the worthless Trotskyo-Stalinite-Maoist flag-wavers in the world. "Keyboard communist". Is this supposed to make us feel bad? It's just another worthless shitslinging term.

[(A)]

That statement was was intended to be somewhat humorous. Maybe RevLeft is not the place for humor at it quickly descends into madness and shitposting.

The main point of the text was asking if the OP meant to say that arguing over what type of socialism is best distracts us from actually taking action to move anything forward. Its not to say that learning and debate is not important; but never at the expense and hopefully in balance with actual action.

Their are Many Many causes that our direct actions can help. Getting out on the street; even if we are only 50 people is better then nothing; which is basically what we are accomplishing here.
I have started following Antifa actions online and if I am needed within range of where I am I will try and rise to the occasion. Their are White supremacists active on my island and I wont sit idly by.

Even if we are only 50 the Propaganda of our deeds will carry forward.

[Moggallana]

What does keyboard communist even mean in today's context? That we don't go on 50-men sized protests, waving red flags and throwing rocks at cops and then go back home and feel good about ourselves? And this while proletarians are not even indifferent but fucking hate us and vote for Fascists? If we truly want to resurrect our Communism, to make it a real force, we need theory more than ever for that. We should come to peace with the fact that we are doing something very wrong right now. Why do we keep failing? Because we do not know really understand what is going on. And as a consequence of this we have no idea how to approach the concrete controversies of our time. Failures of the past 50 fucking years attest to this well enough. Going back to theory allows us to spot our errors, fully understand the present predicament and then eventually shape our strategies and tactics accordingly. Some users on this board, and especially Rafiq, have done more towards this end than all the worthless Trotskyo-Stalinite-Maoist flag-wavers in the world. "Keyboard communist". Is this supposed to make us feel bad? It's just another worthless shitslinging term.

You may be the only person on this forum that has read an entire post by Rafiq :lol:. It's a very Zizekian thing to say that we need to reflect on theory more than practice right now and I agree with the sentiment (even though Zizek can be pretty boring in my opinion, and so on and so on :grin:). The biggest difference between keyboard warriors and contributors to theory is that contributors to theory have definite goals and they work together to reach those goals, whereas keyboard warriors contribute haphazardly and irregularly, or they contribute little of worth.

A group of people I was with about eight years ago would be a good example to illustrate what I mean. There were six of us, and we started off by creating some goals. We wanted to digest a large amount of writings by prominent council/left communists/anarchists, summarize the important points, research the conditions of the city we were in (which involved talking to at least a thousand people by the end of it, including two dozen unions), and put it all together in a richly contextual way that could be also be easily spread and understood by the people in the city. Those were the initial goals. Many thousands of pages of reading and hundreds of pages of notes later, we started putting together the final writings, after which we got a bunch of associates to help us distribute the stuff and engage in conversations with many people (mostly targeting workers and unionists to try to radicalize them, but also other people like students and whatnot as well). By the end we had contacts in a good portion of the unions in the city, quite a few of which got rid of their bourgeois union bosses (those ones also either significantly changed the structure of their unions to reflect more of a revolutionary union or council, or they elected radicals to their boards). We also influenced a major student union to adopt more of a revolutionary attitude but it was crushed and restored to the previous status quo two years afterwards. It was a shame but multiple affinity groups and mini-councils sprang up from the ashes, so it wasn't all for naught.

In none of that did we go on 50-men protests, nor did we wave red flags, nor did we throw rocks at cops. It was just honest work put in by our group to try to increase class consciousness in the city we lived in and to plant the seeds for others to get involved in learning and theorizing and self-education. It could have been more widespread or in-depth but the logistical limitations of the core group of six individuals (five of which had full time jobs) were reached. As all of you know: there are only so many hours in a day. But we tried, and we reached our goals, and we helped spawn other a few groups that either congregated as reading groups or discussion groups or organizational group, or whatever else. It took a little over a year from start to finish, but it was worth it because it was both entertaining, satisfying, and gratifying. It may very well be a drop in the ocean, overall, but it was something tangible.

"Keyboard communist" should only make you feel bad if you're a keyboard communist. If all you do is sit around on a forum or the internet, posting at random, trying to either peddle overrated viewpoints or little of substance, or engaging in "clicktivism", then the term will offend. But the people who both contribute to forums and do anything in real life to increase class consciousness in their communities, those people would not get offended, because they don't fall under that category, and they know it. Even if all of your revoluationary activity is online, that doesn't mean you're a keyboard communist. One personal example of that is a handicapped man that I knew in the early 2000s. He was stuck at home for a very large portion of his time (almost 100%). Yet he wrote and published books and pamphlets (he was handicapped because of an accident and he used some of the insurance money to fund his printed works) and online publications and he helped organize both demonstrations and groups over the internet (in his city, mostly over IRC). One of the groups he organized was tasked to hand out his books and flyers for free and to engage people out in the city. He basically did not step out of his house or get off the internet, and yet he is the furthest thing from being a keyboard communist. Being a keyboard communist isn't a death sentence, because, if it applies to you, it should be a wake-up call (if anything).

Also, I find it kind of odd that you (and others) think that action means "50-men sized protests and waving red flags" and that the opposite of that involves discussions on open forums like these. It seems very "in-the-box"/"black and white"/polar extremes, where what is needed is out-of-the-box thinking. Action doesn't mean waving red flags and throwing rocks at cops. Theory doesn't mean contributing on a forum. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to think bigger than that, for in the underexplored grey areas in between theory and action, there lies much to enrich the revolutionary movement and give it momentum again.

You know what sucks though? I don't live in that city anymore. Or in that country. Where I am now, putting together a group like the one from above is unbearably hard. The amount of dispassion and disinterest here is borderline disheartening but I reckon I'll find the right people eventually.

EDIT: I laughed when I posted this because in the first sentence I kind of ragged on Rafiq by alluding to his enormous posts, and I am visibly guilty of that right now. I didn't realize how long of a post it was. The irony was too juicy to let to unnoticed.:laugh:

[SonofRage]

There's no shortage of causes and reforms we can fight for. The key question is: how does this bring us closer to socialism? There a few things to consider.

First, does it have the potential to further the development of revolutionary consciousness among the working class? For example, the Fight for 15, while a worthy cause, seems to me to be something that will lead to people declaring victory once the demand is won and they don't see the need to fight anymore. This is different than something like an additional demand for the democratization of the workplace or the disarming or abolition of the police.

Second, does the reform or instance of so-called identity politics have strategic value? I would argue that, in the United States, the fight against white privilege/supremacy is of key strategic importance. If you look at US history, Black freedom struggles have tended to open up possibilities for greater freedom and have pushed the limits of revolutionary possibilities (I can expand on this point later if there is disagreement. I'm posting from my mobile).

So what it comes down to me is a matter of strategy. I don't think enough of us on the Left really consider this. Instead, we take this moralistic approach of fighting the good fight.


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[ckaihatsu]

There's no shortage of causes and reforms we can fight for. The key question is: how does this bring us closer to socialism? There a few things to consider.

First, does it have the potential to further the development of revolutionary consciousness among the working class? For example, the Fight for 15, while a worthy cause, seems to me to be something that will lead to people declaring victory once the demand is won and they don't see the need to fight anymore.


On the flipside, there's the idea / theory that populist-type gains around reforms leads to an *increase* in political consciousness and confidence, spurring *more* demands, etc.





This is different than something like an additional demand for the democratization of the workplace or the disarming or abolition of the police.


These two issues aren't simple reformist-type demands -- they'd outright be *revolutionary* demands that couldn't just be acceded-to by the powers-that-be because such changes would decisively tip-the-scales in favor of working class power and revolution.





Second, does the reform or instance of so-called identity politics have strategic value? I would argue that, in the United States, the fight against white privilege/supremacy is of key strategic importance. If you look at US history, Black freedom struggles have tended to open up possibilities for greater freedom and have pushed the limits of revolutionary possibilities (I can expand on this point later if there is disagreement. I'm posting from my mobile).


Agreed.





So what it comes down to me is a matter of strategy. I don't think enough of us on the Left really consider this. Instead, we take this moralistic approach of fighting the good fight.


Agreed.