Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Dec 30 2005, 03:26 AM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Dec 30 2005, 03:26 AM)
Originally posted by fats+--> (fats)The US is a multinational state, containing an oppressor nation and various oppressed nations and national minorities.[/b]
Plus it does seem strange that self proclaimed Communists would undergo the policy of "nation building." Something that is decidedly bourgeois in character.
Anyway, all the next comments come from this link -- http://freedomroad.org/content/view/226/51/lang,/
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
At least since the 1800s, the concept of the Black nation has been on the African American agenda, and nationalism has always been a banner under which many of the finest fighters of our people have marched.
(Emphasis added.)
"Our people"???
Such phrases should raise our suspicions of the author. It sounds remarkably similar to the rhetoric of the BNP, there are our people and their people. Not there are working class people and bourgeois people (the Marxist outlook) rather there are our (black) people and their (white) people.
Interesting logic to say the least.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
One current has centered on Africa and the idea of African Americans returning to the continent they were stolen from.
Misleading to say the least. As I understand it, Africans were not "stolen" by Europeans, rather rich Africans (as in the rulers) sold poor Africans to the European wealth.
Therefore under the law of that time, there was no stealing. Poor Africans were viewed as property and sold at the market price.
Of course there is Proudhon's argument "All property is theft." However such an argument is mainly philosophical and has little relation to the accuracy of this statement.
Mind you, there were no doubt cases where Africans were stolen, however I suspect these were in the minority.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
Another current, which dates back almost as far, is the demand for a national homeland here in the country which was built with the labor of Black men and women, the United States.
If the argument was going to be made about who has the "best" claim to America, I suspect the Native Americans would win.
That is however, besides the point. America "was built with the labor of Black men and women" but also with the labour of all workers. Irish immigrants for instance did at one point constitute a large portion of the American working class (perhaps they still do?). Right now it could be said that a lot of America's wealth is being produced off the backs of South American workers.
None of these ethnic groups seem to get a mention here, and quite frankly no ethnic group has a valid claim for being the most important "Americans." The workers of America have that claim, the ethnic minorities don't.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
Harry Haywood and his coworkers developed a Marxist analysis of the situation of Black Americans.
Keep that in mind when you read the next paragraph....
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
They were not merely a downtrodden sector of the working class. Neither were they, as the ruling class liked to argue, a distinct "race." Rather, they were a nation. Slavery had molded members of diverse African peoples into a single group with a distinct culture and language. When the promise of Emancipation and Reconstruction was broken, the possibility of Black people being assimilated into U.S. society as full citizens evaporated. Instead, Jim Crow oppression and the serfdom of the sharecropping system forged them into a separate nation within the Black Belt South.
So Haywood's "Marxist" analysis leads him to conclude that black people don't constitute the working class, rather they are a separate nation altogether? ....is a whole group of people being outside of normal Capitalist social relations really possible under the Marxist worldview?
Of course there is the possibility that the Black Belt South was a "black" nation. For this to be true, then there would have to be class structures within the "black" nation. However I know of no "black" bourgeois in the thirties, certainly not of a significant size.
So we are only left with one conclusion, the Marxist conclusion that "black" people (in the overwhelming majority) were part of the American working class, a particularly "downtrodden" section, but still a section.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
The Communist International adopted this position at its 1928 world congress
This today should be more of an embarrassment than a boast.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
This development had very important consequences for the African American struggle.
I cannot judge whether this had a positive or negative effect on the African American struggle, it probably did have a real rallying cry about it. "Unite brothers in the name of the black nation...."
However as Communists, is the rallying call "overthrow the white bastards" better than "overthrow the rich bastards"??? ....I would say the second one is what Communists are about, not the first.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
This position also implied that the goal of the Black struggle was not merely equality but liberation, and that this struggle was a progressive one, not a nationalist distraction from the tasks of the multinational U.S. working class.
Indeed there could be something in this. Perhaps the "black nation" is an American version of Northern Ireland.
However is promoting such a concept really that good when there is no significant call for it within "black" communities? ....is there really any point in creating a "black" nation, a "black" bourgeois and a "black" proletariat? ....especially when we consider that there is (slowly) already a black bourgeois forming and I suspect over the next 50 years we'll see loads more "Condi's" and "Colin's."
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
In the 1930s alone, he helped launch the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, which campaigned against lynching. He mobilized national demonstrations to defend the Scottsboro Boys, when they were railroaded on charges of raping two white women. He organized Black coal miners in Pennsylvania who were slow to join a strike, and challenged the racism among their striking white co-workers which contributed to their reluctance. He made risky clandestine visits to sharecroppers in the deep South who had dared to form a union. He went where the party sent him, leading campaigns in Memphis against police brutality and in Chicago against the Italian fascists' invasion of Ethiopia, an independent African country. Like other dedicated communists, year in and year out, he went where the battle was sharpest--to give it structure, focus, and organization.
That is quite a list and gains my full respect, but really is there any need of a "black nation" concept before you can do these things? .....these activities are Communist activities with the aim of creating a Communist society not a "black nation."
Really is there any need for the "black nation" concept in all this, it seems to me that the only thing it will do is alienate non-racist white workers. And what good comes from that?
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
From the beginning, some people in the party had disagreed with the CP's position on the Black nation. Others, who did agree with the position, felt that the party should not promote it in their organizing because the concept was unfamiliar to the majority of Black people and would definitely alienate many white workers.
The American Communist Party from around 1930 onwards was very shabby. However it seems that parts of it at least, did have some sense.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
During the late 1940s, the push to abandon the revolutionary position on the Black nation was gathering steam.
Well to be honest it isn't a "revolutionary position." However if I recall correctly there were plans (which were successful) to abandon the revolutionary position altogether.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
Haywood and others drew another lesson from this defeat: the abandonment of a revolutionary position on the Black nation goes hand in hand with the abandonment of revolutionary politics altogether.
Not really a materialist answer to the question is it? ....I'd say the abandonment of "revolutionary politics" was due to the appeal of reformist politics and the monetary incentives of social democracy.
It had very little, if anything, to do with the abandonment of the "black nation" concept.
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
When Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party criticized the kind of politics his old party had taken up, he was heartened.
The saviour cometh! All hail Mao (and his revolutionary "line")! :lol:
Originally posted by African Peoples Commission
but the systematic Marxist approach he pioneered would not be as well known.
Marxism my arse.
The following quotes are from this link -- http://freedomroad.org/content/view/10/50/lang,english/
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
The Palestinian question, among others, points to the existence of a nation without clearly existing national boundaries.
They have a very abstract view of what a nation is. A nation is formed out of thin air, it is formed by either the native rulers or the conquering rulers as an extension of property law.
This is how Europe was formed and this was how Israel was formed (by the conquering "Jews").
To say that a certain ethnic group has exclusive rights of a certain geographic are is pure folly. True they may have property rights over certain areas of terrain, but the article seems to suggest that only Palestinians can live in Palestine because they have lived there the longest.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
Our political view supporting self-determination on the one hand explains how independence would strike a blow against imperialist rule
Horseshit.
A "black nation" would develop a form of class society, most likely Capitalism and this class society would go on to trade happily with the imperialists. Indeed given half a chance its rulers would gladly become imperialists too.
The solution to Capitalist oppression, is not to create another Capitalist society, but rather to abolish Capitalism and create a Communist society.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
Every class in the Chicano nation is involved in some aspect of the struggle against national oppression and for equality and political power.
It is somewhat strange that the first time they mention class in the whole "nation" argument is that of the "Chicano's" having classes. They've curiously neglected to mention the "black" bourgeois.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
The educational record for the entire USA must also be clarified to recognize the contributions of the Native peoples and the genocidal practices perpetrated against them through white supremacist national oppression.
While this is not an unreasonable demand, teaching the correct history never is. They seem to think that these things happened because of white supremacy (bad ideas).
Hardly a Marxist analysis of what and why certain things happened in America.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
The oppression of African American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Native American, Asian American and other minority nationalities gives rise to independent, multi-class movements which-because of their strategic interest in the complete elimination of white supremacist national oppression-have a revolutionary character.
So they're not Communists then? .....rather they want a African American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Native American, Asian American etc. Capitalism.
Their motto could perhaps be "Workers, don't unite, instead form an ethnic group and fight for "ethnic" Capitalism." Sounds frighteningly similar to what the white supremacists (they oppose) call for.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
Under conditions of a socialist USA in which self-determination had been exercised by African Americans, resulting in the creation of an independent Black republic
So you have a unified working class that has just overthrown Capitalism and then you go and divide that working class? ....really wise.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
headed by the white imperialist bourgeoisie.
What about Condaleeza Rice or Colin Powell?
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
And the privileges usually extended by the ruling class of an oppressor nation to all classes of that nation also take a specific form: in the U.S. national privileges are white privileges.
I doubt the "white" unemployed or the "white's" without healthcare would agree that they are privileged.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
From the Southern planters to the robber barons, from Wall Street to the Imperial Valley, in agriculture, industry, mining, transport, communications and service, the U.S. ruling class has reaped enormous profits form the toil of oppressed nationality labor. The forced reduction of living standards, the deprivation of public services, the extortion of high rents for substandard housing and so on all add to the direct economic benefits of national oppression for U.S. capitalism.
They seem intent on showing that there is imperialism inside America. This is normal Capitalism they are describing, nothing more.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
We therefore stand for the complete abolition of white national privileges in every sphere of U.S. society.
Not only do I not know what specifically these "white privileges" are, but I would imagine whatever benefits the "white" working class fought for being dismantled, is not going to be liked by the "white" working class itself.
It's the equivalent of asking the "black" population to accept segregation again.
Instead they should be demanding that "black" people get access to the same "privileges." That is progressive, what they are proposing is regressive.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
U.S. imperialism abroad has always been inextricably linked with white supremacy, and its rise at the turn of the century continued the colonial traditions of enslavement, genocidal wars against native populations, annexations and hemispheric domination.
What utter horseshit.
Do these people really call themselves Marxists? ....because they wouldn't know Marxism if it hit them in the face. U.S. Imperialism, like all other imperialism, is the quest to make a profit.
Racism may be used to justify this quest, but the quest would still happen even if there was no racism.
Originally posted by Unity Statement on National
[email protected] National Liberation and Socialist Revolution
The right of the U.S. to rule over people of color throughout the world has been popularly conceived of as an extension of the right of white people to subjugate people of color at home. The democratic aspirations of the majority of peoples of the world are diametrically opposed to domination by the so-called white race.
For all their talk of opposing racism. This group seems to be "white" racisms natural opposite. "White" racists say "black" people are bad, "black" racists (which it would appear this group are pretty close too) say "white" people are bad.
This group seems to prefer to perpetuate racial stereotypes rather than point out that there a no races.
Worse still, they invoke the name of Marx to justify their shabby theories.
Originally posted by fats
They do some reactionary things. They also do some progressive things.
They do far more reactionary things.
Originally posted by fats
Example: they worked with the Million Workers March and other left forces to bring one million people to DC this year for the Millions More March
Despite the name, it seems virtually a million "black" march. Communists should propose a united working class.
Originally posted by fats
which had a very progressive platform.
Really....
Originally posted by The Issues of The Millions More Movement
We call, first, for the unity amongst Black peoples and organizations. We call for unity amongst all African peoples and peoples of African descent worldwide. We call for unity with our Brown, Red, disenfranchised and oppressed Brothers and Sisters in America, Caribbean, Central and South America, Asia and all over the world. “The Power of One” is the synthesis of men, women, youth and elders working in unity for our total liberation.
They didn't even pay lip service to the "white" workers.
Originally posted by The Issues of The Millions More Movement
We call for Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility. We organize in the name of our God (The One Creator) and on sound ethical, moral principles and values. Our Movement affirms the rich legacy and diversity of our spiritual traditions and calls for unity and understanding among our religious faiths and spiritual traditions.
Since when has any (institutional) religion been progressive?
The Issues of The Millions More
[email protected]
We will establish a Black Economic Development Fund, with the support of millions, to aid in building an economic infrastructure. We will also offer housing ownership opportunities to check the adverse tide of gentrification. The Millions More Movement will produce and distribute its own products and supports “Buy Black” campaigns.
Like I said earlier, all these "black nation" "radicals" seem to want is a "black" Capitalism. That's not want Communists want, period.
The Issues of The Millions More Movement
We demand an end to the lack of adequate health care in our community and we demand free health care for the descendants of slaves in this nation. The Millions More Movement will present a Preventive Health Care Plan to our people that will begin with a campaign to educate our people on healthy dietary, eating and exercise habits.
(Emphasis added.)
Are non-slave decedent workers not allowed free healthcare?
________
Their platform is not (Communist) progressive. Indeed there are probably more progressive liberals out there. [/b]
Really? .....this if I'm not wrong is a Maoist concept, and like Maoism, has very little to do with Marxism."
Why you got to put a name on it?
What the man says is the truth. the united states is run by ritch white men.....and their culture is the standard. Everyone who wants to suceed has to act like them and act along their standards, talk their kind of english, wear there kind of clothes, use their interpretations of the world when expressing opinions etc....
So the race issue is an issue because if you are not like them reguardless of your class you have to spend the time to compensate and "get on their level"
\As a result alot of people while they are concerned with class are also concerned with the race issue as well cause we are living in a white cultural dictatorship- as well as a bourgeois one.