https://hexbear.net/post/50208/comment/467241

  • Bedandsofa [he/him]
    hexagon
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    4 years ago

    Say what you want about Trotskyists, but I'm generally okay with not falling into the “The BLM movement represents social fascism as outlined by Stalin” camp.

    • Civility [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      I mean, Joey's not wrong in saying the BLM movement isn't about confronting US imperialism.

      That doesn't mean that the BLM movement isn't cool, good and worthy of out support. It doesn't mean that the people who organise and show up to BLM protests aren't also about confronting US imperialism, it doesn't mean the BLM not being about US imperialism necesarily supports whatever argument Joey was trying to make, but confronting US imperialism is not what BLM's about.

      • Bedandsofa [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        I mean, JoeySteel's point was that the BLM protest movement represents "social fascism," or in other words, BLM complements fascism. That's not just saying the movement had some shortcomings in its anti-imperialist perspective, that's literally calling the entire protest movement reactionary.

        From JS's perspective, we should oppose BLM. It's beyond just a bad take, it is itself a reactionary position.

        • Awoo [she/her]
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          4 years ago

          I mean, JoeySteel’s point was that the BLM protest movement represents “social fascism,” or in other words, BLM complements fascism.

          This is true when you understand that Stalin's "social fascism" is what everyone else calls social democracy.

          I think Joey's argument here is that if the movement only succeeds in achieving concessions for the proletariat then its outcome is not actually good. It will do what happened in Europe to oppose the rise of communism -- give concessions to the proletariat and deradicalise the masses.

          Stalin argues that social democracy is fascism because it prevents the revolution from happening by pursuing these concessions instead of the ultimate goal of full revolution. It upholds the existing fascism by deradicalising the people through social democratic gains.

        • Civility [none/use name]
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          4 years ago

          So, I read the thread you linked.

          I couldn't find anywhere that Joey said we shouldn't support BLM

          The thread's an escalating rhetorical shitshow of

          "SO YOU BELIEVE A THING I DON'T LIKE??? I BET YOU ALSO BELIEVE THIS OTHER THING I DON'T LIKE!"

          YES :yes-chad:

          Which, isn't great but from what I gathered Joey's position wasn't so much that we shouldn't support BLM. I think he probably does support them, albeit critically. If there's one thing I know about Joey it's that he loves critical support like Elton John loves cocaine. I think his actual position was that whether or not the BLM movement achieves their goals is immaterial to his wishing death on ever US citizen who has ever voted for a capitalist party. Which 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 is maybe not his best take.

          I think Joey's actual position, presented slightly less edgily, is that for the sake of the 7 billion people not living in the imperial core, as there isn't any real chance of a communist revolution in the US in the near future, we should cheer on anything, up to and including the complete destabilization of the US state so long as it impedes their ability to terrorise the rest of the world.

          You seemed to be saying that sort of rhetoric is incredibly unhelpful if you're trying to get people in the US on your side, which is a good point and a very healthy first response to have if you're an activist in the US. It's not bad rhetoric if you're trying to radicalise people who are victims of US imperialism though.

          I think the clash is coming from the two of you coming from very different activist cultures with very different audiences for your rhetoric and views of the US state. Trying to synthesise them into something that won't alienate each other or each other's audience is probably a good idea and struggle sessions like these could be where that starts happening but I'm not holding my breath for it to get done in the comments of either of these posts 😂

      • Spartacist [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Yeah but that’s not the point. We already know that BLM is not about confronting US Imperialism. The whole dunk here is that Joey thinks that Social Democracy is Fascism and needs to log off and get real life perspective

        • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
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          4 years ago

          Social democracy is fascism. Let's just ignore all of the exploited countries that the Scandinavian social fascists are exploiting to create their "paradise"

          • Spartacist [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            You seem to be coming into this argument expecting me to defend Social Democracy in general. Social Democracy is still capitalism, and thus still imperialist, exploitative, and morally wrong. I still don’t define Fascism in the same way you do, and there are distinctions between social Democracy and fascism.