cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2139382
It seems most cross tendency engagement devolves in to fights between leftcoms/anarchists vs AES supporters or “Dengists” vs Maoists. Anyone can point at each other and say “they started it” and avoid responsibilities. We agree on 90% of stuff but Anarchists decide to randomly call us tankies and we feel the need to defend ourselves or else look like we lost without an argument. Likewise we make memes about Anarkiddies and write texts denouncing them and they feel the same. Among scientific socialists we see China as an ally and an example to learn from while Maoists want to call out “revisionism.” There seems to be a contradiction between the history of different socialist experiments and disagreements not really mattering to our own conditions and those experiments also being vital learning experiences for us.
It’s strange to think about how we pretty much agree with Patsocs on more than almost any other tendency yet they are almost useless because they don’t understand the basic dialectical method and why have our positions beyond aesthetics and thus cannot understand the basic material conditions of this country.
We can keep trying to bring more people into our own sects and hope they do work for our own type of socialism irl, but if we’re so divided how can this happen. Of course we should all just log off and do things irl, but then some will fall into the trap of either larping or just helping their own friends without the wider goal of revolution.
We all need to remember that the feds let us speak because we spend all our time bickering. How can we unify as a revolutionary left? There are projects irl for trying to find unity as scientific socialists like ChunkaLuta, but it would be nice to be able to do the same online. In a way I’m just wishing everyone could just listen to revleft and everything could work out, but what can Lemmygrad and hexbear do for this vision?
I think most of the rev-left is in sync when they're considering what they actually can influence. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that for the most part the Western left has been crushed or defanged or otherwise rendered insignificant. It's hard enough to effect (affect?) any change within your own apartment building, let alone your street, let alone your borough, let alone your city, let alone your province, let alone your country- certainly there's extremely little you can do to influence a different country on a continent that's an ocean away.
As a leftist within the imperial core, whether you think there's an ongoing Uyghur genocide or you think the CCP is giving them the best possible lives, you have the exact same amount of influence over their futures: absolutely none. I'm all for internationalism, but we need to be honest about where we are right now. You've got to think and act local before global action is anything other than a fantasy.
When it comes to issues effecting their municipalities, I think most ancoms and MLs would be in agreement. We can start infighting when we get actual power, until then all the slap-fights are ultimately just about aesthetics. Knock it off and actually do something to help the underclasses within your reach.