Because the Uhuru org has gotten its appeal rejected, it’s now certain that we’re going to see its three indicted members put on trial. This is going to be a trial of an unprecedented nature; a trial that’s not based within charges that involve any actual criminal accusation, because the state has needed to redefine the law in order to accuse the targets. They’ll be tried for supposedly facilitating election interference on behalf of a foreign power, an accusation that comes entirely from their having done things within their First Amendment rights.
If the Uhuru 3 can be convicted for taking a pro-Russian stance, not only will opposition to U.S. involvement in Ukraine be criminalized. Opposition to the genocide against Palestine will be criminalized, on the basis of the accused activists supposedly working for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or whatever foreign government the U.S. has blamed. Our national security state is going to make up any story it needs to in order to justify going after those who challenge U.S. foreign policy, presenting stories of alleged foreign conspiracy that are spurious at best. The only reason why our government hasn’t already put the bulk of pro-Palestine activists in the same situation as the Uhury 3 is that it hasn’t gotten the precedent to do so yet. As soon as the security state gets the victory it’s looking for in the Uhuru case, we’ll enter a new phase of repression, where Palestine supporters today get targeted like how antiwar people got targeted during the Wilson administration.
This maneuver is going to come with blowback for the state, though. If our justice system convicts the Uhuru 3, this will expose the state in crucial ways. And I’m not just talking about the negative attention that this will put on the Democratic Party and our highest-level government officials. It will also further expose the bankruptcy of our most established “socialist” organizations, which have either ignored the Uhuru case or actively undermined Uhuru’s struggle.
If our government creates that precedent for illegalizing international anti-imperialist solidarity work, the repression that comes from this isn’t going to be distributed evenly. There are left or “Marxist” orgs that the state sees as useful, and that are therefore safe from being targeted by this coming purge. ANSWER—which Uhuru has come to see as a false ally after it sabotaged Uhuru’s November DC rally—has been allowed to hold a monopoly over the protest cage because it’s made this implicit deal with the state. It’s not going to do anything that genuinely threatens the power structure, and this has given it immunity amid these growing efforts to crush dissent. One can recognize controlled opposition in the United States by looking at which organizers feel comfortable pretending like things are going to remain as they are today, and like a giant wave of repression won’t come if the Uhuru 3 are sent to prison.
Our government has never had a truly democratic nature, so whatever dissent it lets exist in peace is managed “dissent.” It was always going to be that when the imperial hegemon started to collapse, and the U.S. escalated its global warfare again, authentic dissidents would be assailed while a managed opposition remained.
Where can the people go when they see their democratic rights being attacked to the greatest extent in their lifetime, and the only “revolutionary” orgs that they won’t get in trouble for joining are ones which don’t intend to lead them to victory? Some of the people will be successfully funneled into these controlled opposition orgs, but there’s also going to be an element that does what’s necessary for winning the class war. An element that joins with the targeted organizations after they’ve been driven underground, or at least come under visible threat from the state.
In order for this progress to be realized, we who are already part of the struggle will need to do our part of the work. We have to build the institutional structures that the people are going to require for getting involved in this fight. The imperialism-compatible orgs are going to try to portray themselves as the answer amid this crisis for civil liberties, and they’ll succeed at holding back the class struggle unless we sufficiently construct an alternative to them.
Among the masses, the will to mobilize against monopoly capitalist imperialism is there. This will gets more widespread every year, as our government keeps pursuing indefensible wars at the expense of the people’s wellbeing. A crucial reason why an immensely strong movement for socialism doesn’t already exist is that the people haven’t yet been given access to the means for defying the imperial state. Which we can change by out-organizing the synthetic, compatible “left” that’s been keeping our liberation movements stagnant for decades.
To succeed, we don’t need to make our orgs bigger than theirs. We only need to gain enough momentum that we can outmaneuver the opponents of revolutionary progress, and thereby become able to overthrow the capitalist state. Doing so isn’t going to mean advocating for violence and destruction; there’s a reason why the state allows for plenty of supposed “revolutionaries” to do that. Positioning oneself as an agent of bloodshed and chaos means doing what the elites also want to do, which is further destabilize society. And doing so while claiming to be revolutionary only harms the perceived credibility of one’s cause. We need to make it clear to the people that whatever violence happens throughout the class struggle, it’s the ruling class that’s going to be to blame for it. We merely seek to defend ourselves, and to minimize how much harm the reactionaries can do towards the people.
That must be the mindset we have as we go deeper into this new phase of the class conflict, in which our enemies are waging an ever-intensifying war against anti-imperialists. We can only win the people’s support, and win against the state in the game of power, if we avoid acting recklessly. Every error we make is going to be increasingly costly as things get more intense, so we need to minimize errors to the greatest extent we can.
We can do this through the same means that will let our cadres survive the state’s attacks: by making our orgs take on more of a disciplined, strict nature as time goes on. Democratic centralism, where every member of an organization is required to take the same stances the org takes, has long been abused by the synthetic left; the imperialism-aligned elements have used democratic centralism as a weapon to silence opposition towards their liberal stances. This has brought about a moment where defying this perverted “democratic centralism” has been necessary. As we build our own institutions beyond those liberal circles, though, and the state keeps putting more pressure on us, the only way we can continue in the long term is by becoming more disciplined. By building organizations that enforce a democratic centralism which strengthens anti-imperialist politics, rather than suppressing them.
Through this practice, we’ll be able to physically train our cadres for the vigilante attacks that are going to come from the state’s violent lumpen and ultra-left counter-gangs. It will also let us prevail within the later, larger confrontations which our enemy is going to bring about. This assault on free speech and assembly that we’re facing has the potential to only force us into a tactical retreat, where we shift towards operating more clandestinely for the moment while preparing our winning maneuvers. It depends on whether we navigate the situation correctly.
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