Resistance and Sacrifice

 

Rest in power Aaron, salute your sacrifice. I also salute the resistance and sacrifice of the Palestinian people who choose to fight. In the words of Huey P. Newton, "we have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. when reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death,"  and if we must go, lets make sure we take some of our enemies with us. Solidarity. 

Against Eco-Fascism and White Supremacy

 Ted Kaczynski was and Eco Fascist and his Manifesto was Racist

The internet has given rise to many weird political trends recently: from tankie politics, to weird political cults. You can see the rise of cult of personalities in Q-Anon to people ironically or unironically praising Ted Kaczynski (TK). After reading his manifesto, I wanted to point out mainly the racism in his writings, but you can also see the political short-comings of his ideas, which are innately eco-fascist.

It is very similar to a rant from an incel, blaming cancel-culture and political correctness, all the while wanting to maintain his power as a white man in society. When I see someone who's white, especially, complain about identity politics or political correctness it's usually because they want to be able to say and do oppressive things without being challenged, and TK was no different:

“The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him. And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on and on and on.”

“The terms 'Negro,' 'oriental,' 'handicapped' or 'chick' for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. 'Broad' and 'chick' were merely the feminine equivalents of 'guy,' 'dude' or 'fellow.' The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Those who are most sensitive about 'politically incorrect' terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any 'oppressed' group but come from privileged strata of society.”

His manifesto goes deeper into his believes on genetic superiority, white supremacy:

“Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others.”

“These are docile types who would have been happy as plantation darkies in the Old South. (We don’t mean to sneer at the 'plantation darkies' of the Old South. To their credit, most of the slaves were NOT content with their servitude. We do sneer at people who ARE content with servitude.”

His manifesto is also a misogynistic and trasphobic rant:

“We aren’t the first to mention that the world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies...It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies...transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes.”

“Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system.”

On top of the white supremacist, and fascistic views, what TK gets wrong is no different than other primitivists and rugged-individualists. Their politics, to me, are by nature white-supremacist, and if not, just white. They tend to get it wrong in many ways. From not being able to have an anti-colinial, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist analysis, it tends to be white people romanticizing certain things about their own histories. TK hasn't been the only primitivist holding views that are questionable and problematic, from John Zerzan writing about “Rank-and-File Radicalism within the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s” (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-rank-and-file-radicalism-within-the-ku-klux-klan-of-the-1920s), to Deep Green Resistance transphobic and terfy politics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Green_Resistance#Anti-trans_views), TK follows suit :

“The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising against any government. It may or may not involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution. Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics.”

“Revolutionaries might consider favoring measures that tend to bind the world economy into a unified whole. Free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT are probably harmful to the environment in the short run, but in the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations.”

So it's strange to see leftists and anarchists champion someone like TK. I think part of the appeal was that he took action, and in a world where we are facing the reality of a climate apocalypse brought on by capitalism, folks are looking for heroes. The reality that we have to face is, that the only way we can win, and where we have a chance for any future, or at least have a resistance movement worth anything, is one where we organize alongside indigenous people in the front lines defending their territories/taking back their lands (not just the celebrity activists/influencers, but the grassroots). There is no way around the fact that we have to organize our communities. Allies have to organize in their own, where the fascists are recruiting, instead of just moving to city where you can start a project with other like minded people. Anyway, there are better heroes and examples to look to for inspiration.

Critical Analysis of the Left (audiobook)

I recently found out that an older essay I wrote was made into an audiobook :) 

Revolutionary Audiobooks · Critical Analysis of the Left | Joaquin Cienfuegos | Audiobook

Autonomy vs. Neo-liberal identiy politics

"Isn’t it interesting how progressive whites seem to have a direct line of communication with black leaders, while everyone else in the street fails to suffer from the same delusion..."

-We Outside Collective

It's always some white guy talking about how identity politics "divides the class." These divisions are not being created subjectively. These divisions exist and have existed in this settler-colonial state. This is how capitalism developed here: it was through colonization, genocide, sexual violence, and racialized slavery. 

Neoliberals appropriate strategies and tactics used by the oppressed to liberate itself.  The 1960's and '70s saw a revolutionary situation where colonized and oppressed people were organizing autonomously while building coalitions and alliances with others.  This was a strength and build real unity, not a liberal notion that you build unity for the sake of unity (all while white people position themselves to lead and take over the Organizational leadership over and over again - leading us down a reformist path). White supremacy is the corner stone here, so much that even the white left benefit from this.  Giving up on that power for them is a leap so many of them still aren't willing to take. They rather have a better form of capitalism that still benefits them at the end (i.e. democratic socialism and reforms).

Fast forward to neoliberalism AND neocolonialism today.  They prop up fake leaders who might look like oppressed and colonized people, but their intentions are to steer rebellion and revolt towards a white supremacist reformism.  They've used these tactics in the so called third world for decades as well.  They buy-off the movement leadership,  prop off puppet leaders who look and act like colonized people, and kill off the ones they can't jail or buy-off. 

Malcolm X once said you have to follow the money/funding of a movement and so-called leader to see who's really pulling the strings. If most of these BIPOC's support is from white liberals, then that should definitely raise questions and suspicions of the intentions and validity of a movement.  We should analyze critically their goals and how they want to get there.

Democrats in particular pride themselves in putting forward politicians who might look like us and might even use grass roots language and rhetoric from time to time.  We all have seen them, especially, lead generation after generation of young people back into bourgeois democracy and electoral politics.  All while the empire continues to grow, the planet continues to be destroyed, and our communities continue to be occupied by police, and gentrified.  We continue to be pushed into prisons and into tent cities and shanties.

The point I want to make is that there is a difference between Neo-liberal identity politics or neo-colonialism (where reformists and the white left in general tell us who to follow), and building autonomy and solidarity.  We want to have self-determination as oppressed and colonized people to build our own infrastructure, process, strategy and tactics, that comes from within.  We can choose with which sections of other colonized communities we agree with (each community has their own internal struggle against their own sell-outs), so we can finally free ourselves, humanity, the planet, and return the land to its rightful care-takers everywhere once and for all.  

Abolish the united states

 Policing and white supremacy is part of the fabric of this settler-colonialist country, that Abolishing the police and white supremacy will have to mean we also Abolish the united states. https://t.co/hHxKi3V8KO

A Point on Gentrification

 Gentrification plays out in so many different ways.

It doesn't matter if you are an anarchist, communist, or well intentioned.

Sometimes by moving to a city and working class neighborhood with history of white flight, you can perpetuate Gentrification and settler-colonialism in a way.

Your collective and whatever project you think benefits the community,  at the end of the day makes that neighborhood more desirable to developers and gentrifiers.

Individual action is not enough to stop it, as well as performative clout chasing movements.

Creative direct action will always be a good start.

For those who open up or start a "project" in a community that is an obvious target of Gentrification, ask yourself, who is this for, and if the people who historically lived there don't make up the people in the collective or who come to the space, then you're probably a gentrifier.

Land Back!

 The goal is to return all lands to indigenous people. 

As a guest I want to assist in destroying colonialism, and to change our relationships to earth and all living things.

Cities as they exist today represent imperialist-capitalism to its fullest, and eventually there would be no divide between rural and city, because there would be no need.

A strategy of creating bases to operate from and live that is land based is what I want to spend more time developing with comrades (you can call it "building community" but to fight from), as well as connecting to the movement all over that includes the urban. 

Eventually all lands should be returned to original caretakers of those places. In the mean time fight alongside those communities fighting to free themselves and to decolonize. I hate paying rent on stolen land to settlers though.