Subcomandante Marcos is dead (not literally)

[blake 3:17]

Excuse the double post -- I find it reprehensible that so called revolutionaries mock the most beautiful and successful revolutionary movement of the last 20 years.

@Loco101 -- the Zapatistas have usually called for friends and allies to act as Zapatistas in their own communities.

[Skyhilist]

So the zapasitas... Pretty clear at this point it is nothing more than Soft maoism anarchists think they can jerk to without sacrificing principles.

Lol you don't like anyone these days do you

*waits for indignant snide response*

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Emphasis mine. Source: http://rabble.ca/news/2014/06/death-...enous-autonomy

During the bloody civil war in El Salvador, paternalistic, "moderate" Catholic functionaries, who were surely far from anything resembling leftism, were killed alongside actual leftists. Being targeted by a paranoid bourgeois state does not make one a leftist, let alone a good leftist.

I am ill-equipped to judge the beauty of the Zapatista movement, but I can and will comment on their accomplishments: a fat nothing. The EZLN started as a militant struggle organisation, not exactly correct as far as theory goes, but their actions engaged the bourgeois state at the basic level - the level of violence, territorial control etc. Now they are a media project - hence the metamorphosis of the former "subcommandante" into a "delegate", touring the country and organising workshops, speeches, writing articles and so on. And in opposition to what? Not in opposition to capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, but a nebulous "neoliberalism".

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Well considering the geopolitical situation they have to work with they could have gone in two directions:

1. Pointless and suicidal armed struggle against the Mexican state (something Marcos and the the precursors to the elzn had already tried)

2. Exploit the relative autonomy they had gained to provide a semi-decent life for the people living in their regions. While at least serving as a nice bit of living propaganda for what remains of the left.

I do feel that their rhetoric has been toned down in recent years, but even if that wasn't the case its not as if communism was going to come about solely from a group of impoverished peasants from a back water state in Mexico. Their staunchest allies in the west are for sure guilty of pumping them up to be something they aren't, but their critics on the left are almost without exception talking out of their asses. A bunch of cold war relics who apparently love watching poorly armed guerillas get pulped by state security forces for purely symbolic reasons.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Excuse the double post -- I find it reprehensible that so called revolutionaries mock the most beautiful and successful revolutionary movement of the last 20 years.

@Loco101 -- the Zapatistas have usually called for friends and allies to act as Zapatistas in their own communities.

Subcomandante Galeano in his first communique actually pointed out the racism within the revolutionary left. Interesting how he points out that the 'cult of individualism finds in the cult of vanguardism its most fanatical extreme'.

And it is this precisely — that the indigenous rule, and now with an indigenous person as the spokesperson and chief — that terrifies them, repels them, and finally sends them looking for someone requiring vanguards, bosses, and leaders. Because there is also racism on the left, above all among that left which claims to be revolutionary.

Subcomandante Moises is referred to as chief here because he is part of the EZLN.

The only aspect of them that I endorse is the attention that they have received for the indigenous rights cause in Chiapas. The rest I am neutral towards/slightly warm.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Why is this event so cloaked in mysticism? I think there's a pretty good reason people are confused over this.

The point is that Subcommandante Marcos was a stage identity which an ex-maoist professor in the EZLN took on to act as a sort of quasi-anonymous spokesperson.

During the bloody civil war in El Salvador, paternalistic, "moderate" Catholic functionaries, who were surely far from anything resembling leftism, were killed alongside actual leftists. Being targeted by a paranoid bourgeois state does not make one a leftist, let alone a good leftist.

I am ill-equipped to judge the beauty of the Zapatista movement, but I can and will comment on their accomplishments: a fat nothing. The EZLN started as a militant struggle organisation, not exactly correct as far as theory goes, but their actions engaged the bourgeois state at the basic level - the level of violence, territorial control etc. Now they are a media project - hence the metamorphosis of the former "subcommandante" into a "delegate", touring the country and organising workshops, speeches, writing articles and so on. And in opposition to what? Not in opposition to capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production, but a nebulous "neoliberalism".

I think the Zapatistas accomplished a lot for the communities which actually participated in their movement. Their failure wasn't in their ability to create collective political and economic power for their supporters, it was their inability to spread outside the jungles of Eastern Chiapas into the rest of Mexico and organize the urban working class.

I think the Zapatistas deserve criticism (as does every movement), but I think it's unfair to dismiss their achievements or their commitment to revolutionary politics. They are a movement of incredibly poor peasants who live in remote, traditional agrarian collectives and are cut off linguistically from most other people in Mexico, as well as one another. Their use of the media was both necessary and effective (it probably staved off a full Mexican military assault and elimination of their movement by force, in addition to the possibility of ruthless violence against the communities which supported it) and I think they did the best an indigenous peasant movement immediately after the fall of the USSR could do with limited arms and no international backing. Again, whatever ideological limitations and practical failures they may have, their achievements (modest as they may be) and opposition to capitalism and imperialism should not be scoffed at.

[USAneedsCommunism]

You know its real hard to wake up the great majority of poor mexican people, who are very mind-controlled by the catholic church, by traditions, by art, by music and by mexican films. Art, music, films and soap operas in that country are a powerful weapon that works as a tool to sedate poor people there

[The Modern Prometheus]

So the zapasitas... Pretty clear at this point it is nothing more than Soft maoism anarchists think they can jerk to without sacrificing principles.

Maoist Anarchists? Umm those 2 ideologies are not really alike at all and the EZLN are certainly not Maoist. They are Anarchist Communists not Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. Though they do have some characteristics of a national liberation organization they are still far more Anarchist then ones of the past.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Confound this thread. Confusing and stupid. Meh.