black_badger

black_badger wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by ruminator in Abolish Israel by kano

your binary thinking is pretty wacky. nowhere in my above comments (or the subs you linked to) have I promoted some strange beast called "Zionist protectionism" (whatever the hell that is), nowhere have I stated I am "against Palestinian self-determination." what I have done consistently -- in keeping with the well known anti-nationalist positions of virtually all anarchists throughout history -- is present a critique of Arab and Palestinian nationalism at the same time as I have been unequivocal in my condemnation of Israeli policies (which certainly qualify as genocide) and the war crimes of the IDF. but in your bizarro world, calling the IDF genocidal and the state of Israel a mad dog is "Zionist apologia." there's nothing "neutral" there. the Israelis are wrong, racist, genocidal, perpetually oppressive. Acknowledging that can't keep me from scrutinizing Palestinian nationalists and Islamic fascists and condemning them for being reactionaries.

Your new dialectics amazes me. Explain again how sheep's bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes...

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black_badger wrote

Reply to comment by kano in Abolish Israel by kano

"Barbarians for Palestine" is literally part of the graphic and is the heading of an entire section of the rant. Learn to read.

The region was named "Palestine" by the Romans sometime in the second century, but what's a thousand years give it take? [insert eye roll here]

Being "for Palestine" as opposed to being for Palestinians centers a nation-state (Palestine) versus a people (Palestinians). Anarchists have always opposed the nation-state, regardless of the ethnicity of the ruling class. This is fundamental to understanding and embracing anarchist philosophy and history.

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black_badger wrote

Reply to Abolish Israel by kano

self-described anarchists shilling for a nation-state yet again... anarchists support Palestinians not Palestine.

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black_badger wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted52089 in by !deleted52089

If the opposite of niche is lowest common denominator left unity, I'll take niche every time. The problem isn't some vague concept of what's middle class, but a generalized dumbing down of anarchist discourse into the annoyingly quotidian populist American anti-intellectual tradition. Most Americans who self-identify as anarchists couldn't theorize their way out of a wet paper bag, and popular misconceptions about anarchism continue to proliferate.

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black_badger wrote

Reply to by !deleted52089

a single sentence doesn't override his commitment to the development of productive forces. from all the other shit he and his pal Karl spewed it's clear that their progressivist views on history mandated more factories and more industry -- otherwise there'd be no communism. they took their cue from Adam Smith, who knew that the development of capitalism entailed massive dispossession and exploitation; he thought that the greater good of humanity necessitated the short term misery of proles. Marx and Engels, as good authoritarians, could only agree.

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black_badger wrote

the Lincolns were a battalion, not a "brigade"; they was attached to the International Brigades, and never had more than a few hundred armed men in the field at any given time. but "brigade" sounds really important, militarily and numerically. typical self-aggrandizing stalinist bullshit. in addition, the VALB was formed by the hardcore stalinist loyalists who gleefully weathered all the twists and turns of Comintern policies, including supporting the Nazi-Soviet Pact. the VALB never represented more than 20% of the Lincolns.

the International Brigades were made up of upwards of 80-90% full members of their respective countries' Comintern-affiliated Communist Parties. very often the Internationals were used to enforce stalinist policies, like the suppression of independent political activities among the battalions as well as punitive raids against anarchist collectives.

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black_badger wrote

he may have self-identified as an anarchist but his practice (like Chomsky) was firmly left social-democratic. he advocated voting -- absurdly enough, in an election he was not qualified to participate in -- for Corbyn in the UK. he (along with plenty of other useful idiots) was thoroughly hoodwinked by his revolutionary tour guides in Rojava into believing that the PKK/YPG (et al) were implementing some kind of anarchist or anarchist-adjacent regime, while it was clear to most other observers that a hierarchical Marxist-Leninist guerrilla formation can't just stop being a hierarchical Marxist-Leninist guerrilla formation just because the leader orders it. he took credit for popularizing the bizarre populist rejection of class analysis slogan "we are the 99%" -- which clearly enlists cops and landlords into this fantasy beast. his anthropology is crappy wishful thinking, especially that last co-written paean to urbanism.

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black_badger wrote

so many people still think of the wobs as anarchists. this chicanery shows that if there is an anarchist presence in the IWW (which is doubtful at best), then it's definitely not part of the executive bureaucracy. the wobs are just as prone to this back room bullshit as any business union -- just without the big bucks. bureaucratic maneuvering plagued the wobs even before the first major defection of members into the incipient communist parties of the early twentieth century.

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black_badger wrote

the mad dog state of Israel and the war criminals of the IDF are committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and less dramatically in the West Bank.

But just as not every Israeli is a blind supporter of the right wing quasi-fascists in power in Israel, it cannot be the case that every Gazan is a blind supporter of Hamas (the de facto government). The Israeli state is increasingly targeting dissident Israelis for shit treatment-- as outlined in the post starting this thread. The interesting thing is that we get to learn about that; we know almost nothing at all about how Hamas treats Gazans who dislike how they're running things. Judging by how they went after PA militants and bureaucrats after the 2006 elections, I can only presume they are treated the same, or worse.

as an lifelong internationalist anti-militarist, I support unpatriotic non-combatants standing up to groups of armed men.

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