The White Left is Building Cop City
Removed by mod- cross-posted to:
- marxism
Removed by mod
The White Left is Building Cop City
Removed by mod- cross-posted to:
- marxism
A critical appraisal of recent struggles in Atlanta
Ah, I see we're at the "duelling google docs" stage of recriminations for why the US left's latest battle is floundering.
Seriously tho I mostly agree with this piece, except that it never says where it thinks the "disciplined, organized, working-class base" that should form the basis of the anti-cop city movement is gonna come from. We're deindustrialized, all bouncing around between precarious gigs and either super propogandized or just completely checked out from any political conciousness. Plus unions are shot to hell and the ones that exist are mostly reactionary and captured; I don't see how you coalesce a demcent vanguard party from people in those conditions in time to oppose Cop City before it gets built.
It does point to an organization doing adult literacy, political education, and other programs in a neighborhood that's actually being occupied by police. I don't know about being able to stop Cop City at this point but generally it sounds like a better, or at least more direct, strategy for building class consciousness than the DSA or forest camp strageties.
Well ok, sure, in the long term I agree, but then that's not really offering up anything helpful to answer the immediate question of "how do we stop cop city from getting built?"
Unless the author's implicit argument is that cop city is just one more hit we'll have to take on the chin. Which, yeah, it probably is.
I think the other point that they get to with quoting Kwame Ture is that we need to keep our eye on the ball of long term organization rather than short term mobilization. Yes, it probably is, but if we view that only through the lens of failed mobilization we can be defeatist instead of recognizing the need for longer term work.