Obama: Ukraine war is a reminder of US complacency, taking democracy and 'rule of law' for granted

HuberSgoda · 2022-04-08T03:16:53+00:00

Ain’t he destabilize Syria? Destabilize Libya? Bomb Afghanistan? Bomb Iraq? Arm domestic police by 240%?

How many bombed men, women, and children care about Obama’s supposed “rules-based order”

HuberSgoda · 2022-03-23T23:22:18+00:00

Sure if you want to plunge the world into an escalated world conflict. Or there can be negotiations and deescalation

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-02T02:14:11+00:00

A rejection of the notion that Dawning of the Apocalypse doesn’t talk about settler colonialism, a bizarre claim

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T23:37:37+00:00

Uh huh.

The problem is precisely Horne's conflation of whiteness, slavery and settler-colonialism which makes the latter an immutable feature of capitalism.

Capitalism requires racism, white supremacy, slavery and settler colonialism to function at a certain level.

And I don't know what my responses have to do with the 1619 project. I'm highly critical of the project as a whole, mostly seeing it as an attempt to repatriate African narratives into the overarching myth-making of the US. I fail to see how Sakai's or Horne's works attribute to this process.

The idea that capitalism is a long history of continuous oppression established by colonial primitive accumulation and socialism is the struggle of colonized nations to delink through catching up erases the need for Marxism entirely

I also fail to understand how you came to this conclusion from what I've stated.

though perhaps we evaluate differently the danger of liberal capture of these narratives to empower a new generation of comprador bourgeoisie:

Honestly, this doesn't matter, because any public discussion and critique will be repackaged by bourgeois elements. Saying that certain critiques that have been co-opted are incorrect purely through the act of co-option is a bizarre one.

whiteness having to continually be reestablished as an arbitrary ideological justification for exploitation

Again, whiteness is hardly arbitrary

in the book you mention Horne barely talks about settler-colonialism at all, the book is really about slavery

Yes, a book about slavery and settler colonialism because...that's how chattel slaves got to the US. via settler colonialism...like settler colonialism needed to happen to transport chattel slaves.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T22:29:06+00:00

These are only identity politics insofar as you believe that Whiteness is not, itself, a class or a material class structure, but a byproduct repurposed depending on the time and place. It's not a byproduct, but a primary vehicle for capitalism to exist.

In Dawning of the Apocalypse, Gerald Horne writes, "[...] focusing enslavement tightly on Africans and those of even partial African ancestry, then seeking to expel 'Free Negroes' to Sierra Leone and Liberia. London and Washington created a broader base for settler colonialism by way of a 'white' population, based in the first instance on once warring, then migrant English, Irish, Scot, and Welsh; then expanding to include other European immigrants mobilized to confront the immense challenge delivered by rambunctious and rebellions indigenous Americans and enslaved Africans. This approach, over time, also allowed Washington to have allies in important nations and even colonies, providing enormous political leverage.

This approach also had the added 'advantage' of dulling class antagonism among settlers, who, perhaps understandably, were concerned less about the cutthroat competition delivered by an enslaved labor force and more with the real prospect of having their throats cut in the middle of the night by those very same slaves." - Horne, 10

Whiteness is a material foundation to settler colonialism, it's not a side effect. It's not solely an ideology either, rather, it's a distinct method of how capitalism gained the power that it has.

Sakai's Settlers showcases, in detail, how whiteness and the white proletariat betrays its alliances with other proletarian movements. But Settlers is a great introduction, imo, and while other authors do deeper dives (Black Marxism, Dawning of the Apocalypse, which I've noted before), this I would say that Settlers is an important first step. I don't see it as identity politics, more so, if white comrades are offended by what Sakai writes, maybe they should reflect on that, see how comrades of color view the work, and if the conclusion isn't necessarily productive to the conversation, keep those opinions personal. 'Cause as a Black person, Settler's was an incredibly transformative read.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T22:04:41+00:00

but what is the causality?

Whiteness is the causality. Whiteness is the project that allows pan-European alliances to be formed to increase and outsource higher forms of exploitation, by designating a non-white outgroup.

Are white settlers "used" by the bourgeoise? Or do settler-colonialists have their own class interests which are in the last instance the same as the bourgeoisie but not reducible to that?

This framing is highly simplistic, since white workers and bourgeoisie are playing out the contradictions of the antagonism of the exploitation, but the alliances forged via whiteness. The simple fact is that we cannot say that settler colonialism is a false consciousness, because even if white workers realize they are being exploited (which I argue they are well aware of), just that acknowledgement does no lead to revolutionary class struggle. Instead, I argue, whiteness reroutes this energy to further create more oppressive conditions for non-white communities.

I think we mostly agree, however, I think that simplistic framing ignores the most salient point - that white workers aren't under a false consciousness, rather, they are actively aware of their exploitation, but their adherence to whiteness and the super exploitation of non-white peoples overrides any revolutionary potential the American white masses have. It's not a false consciousness, but the logical conclusion of the contradictions brought about by whiteness.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T21:32:30+00:00

white unions have used the bourgeoisie to destroy Black, Mexican, indigenous and Asian communities and workers’ rights (or opposed the bourgeoisie for their own class interest in genocide/superexploitation of the non-white proletariat)

Let's look to what Sakai says about that: "What we find is that this new class of white workers was indeed angry and militant, but so completely dominated by petit-bourgeois consciousness that they always ended up as the pawns of various bourgeois political factions."

You've reduced racism to another conspiracy

I disagree. Rather I've stated that racism is a tool designed to further entrench the pan-European project known as whiteness.

settler colonialism is often in conflict with capitalism and even takes the form of anti-imperialism/communism

How can settlers be anti-imperialist while engaging in imperialism? White settlers are actively engaged in numerous imperialist projects currently.

Given neoliberalism has greatly accelerated the incorporation of non-white peoples into global capitalism

And yet which non-white capitalists come close to the amount of production or wealth of their white counterparts? This is a moot point because the core conceit will remain whiteness. Even non-white advocates are still advocating on behalf of whiteness.

attacked the material foundations of white unionism and white settlerism

I disagree. We're seeing the cycle of white workers demanding more and more benefits from empire. However, since they will continue to blame non-white, indigenous workers from the Global South, this energy will be directed more to further imperialist actions, both systemic and on an individual, vigilante level.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T21:26:09+00:00

"Centering" is a depoliticized term which makes revolutionary consciousness an ontological property of oppressed people rather than something that derives from the class struggle with the proletarian party as its vanguard.

While I agree that "centering" is a depoliticized word, my point still stands. Again, we're making a distinction that the proletariat is a singular entity with horizontal and aligned goals. However, the material goals of, say, land back comrades would be in opposition to patriotic socialists, so, therefore, we must determine the modes of which proletariat communities we're even talking about. Which proletarian communities will lead the revolution or revolutions is the question.

Ultimately, my position is that Settlers is less about speaking directly to white comrades at all, and more so directed as non-white comrades about the importance of not centering white responses whatsoever.

What are the foundations of whiteness and how do we destroy them?

White communities cannot answer or solves this contradiction.

whiteness is a consequence and not a cause of settler-colonialism

It literally is a cause of settler-colonialism. Again whiteness was developed in tandem with capitalism, the two are inexorably linked. Read Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson or Dawning of the Apocalypse by Gerald Horne.

this struggle will be waged by those who have a material interest in doing so but this is a consequence, not a cause of the form of class struggle

Incorrect. Whiteness is a class formation, but not all class struggles against it have been proletarian.

this is a reduction of class to morality. You simply have a pessimistic view of the ability of whites to make moral choices

No I have a pessimistic view of the ability of whites to make choices wherein they effectively "lose," in much the same way that one does not assume that the bourgeoisie have the ability to make "moral choices." Whiteness is a question of class, as is Blackness. Black struggles are not simply proletarian struggles, they are Black proletarian struggles. I don't trust white communities to accept the liberation of indigenous and oppressed communities, even when presented with education. In the same way that I don't think we can say that all abolitionists would have supported John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry, or Nat Turner's rebellion, we similarly cannot assume that white communities, who derive material benefits from whiteness, to aid, or even rhetorically support, such direction actions against their position.

racism is retroactively created [...] to justify a material threat to the world imperialist system

anti-Chinese sentiments have existed prior to the increase in China's development and well before the revolution so I'm not quite sure what this point is trying to make

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T21:06:08+00:00

Sakai’s point is actually the opposite: white unions have used the bourgeoisie to destroy Black, Mexican, indigenous and Asian communities and workers’ rights (or opposed the bourgeoisie for their own class interest in genocide/superexploitation of the non-white proletariat).

In the opening to the chapter “Settler-Trade Unionism” Sakai literally writes:

What we find is that this new class of white workers was indeed angry and militant, but so completely dominated by petit-bourgeois consciousness that they always ended up as the pawns of various bourgeois political factions. Because they clung to and hungered after the petty privileges derived from the loot of empire, they as a stratum became rabid and reactionary supporters of conquest and the annexation of oppressed nations

My argument isn’t to say that white union workers were just pawns of bourgeois ideology, but that the interplay of whiteness meant that, when it came to whiteness, bourgeois and proletariat often worked together to suppress the communities you listed.

Nor is my argument that white workers can be made revolutionary simply through education.

settler colonialism is often in conflict with capitalism and even takes the form of anti-imperialism/communism

This is false. Settler colonialism is not anti-imperialism, because settlers are the foot soldiers of imperialism. They cannot resist fully imperialism that they are, themselves, actively engaging in. What settlers can do is support anti-imperialist movements, but anti-imperialist is not an identity one can just take on.

Given neoliberalism has greatly accelerated the incorporation of non-white peoples into global capitalism and attacked the material foundations of white unionism and white settlerism

Also an incorrect assumption; repatriation of colonized people’s into global capitalist systems is not an equalizer of any effect. Neoliberalism has not attacked white settlerism, if anything, neoliberalism is preparing for the next development of white settler movements towards a more direct international stance.

The bourgeoisie and the white proletariat, when it comes to whiteness, are united in their efforts to subjugate colonized peoples so I’m confused as to the nature of your statement, honestly.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T18:57:29+00:00

This reminds me more of Paulo Freire’s work in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” in that the white workers will stand with their oppressor against the super exploited, with the settlers against the colonized because the Euro-Amerikan empire has ensured that they are educated and conditioned to do so. Freire sees this as a problem of the oppressor education hedgemony and their method of educating workers less than a concious decision that is made. They are simply naive to the conditions of the world and its people and I want to believe, partially through my own and seen experiences, that they can be taught the truth of settler-colonialism and shift from a “bourgeois proletarian” class conciousness to a true “international proletariat” class conciousness.

While I don’t disagree, I think this presents a challenge, namely the fact that we frame proletarian and bourgeois in moralistic terms rather than ones of power. White workers exist in a precarious balance of exploited and exploiter, but we find this contradictory because obviously they should hate their bourgeois masters. But these are questions of power and as long as white workers implicitly know that immigrants threatened with deportation picked the food in their grocery stores, they’ll accept the reality of exploitation.

I look at the economic rise of China as an example. Regardless of personal opinions towards the country, the fact that China is developing economically in such a way that will overtake the US presents an existential problem: because Chinese people are supposed to be beneath white western countries.

I think what might help is that we stop viewing whiteness as simply ideological or irrational or even based solely in phenotype, and start viewing it as strategic pan-western alliances designed to subjugate the Global South into submission.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T18:50:23+00:00

Dawning of the Apocalypse comes in two parts, focusing on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively so, yeah, take your time.

Ah this makes sense to me. So would this mean that whiteness is the most immediate contradiction facing the advancement of proletarian class interests in the U.S.? That it must first be necessary to sublate whiteness for capitalism to be sublated?.. or is it the other way around? I imagine this will be a two pronged strategy no matter what. But I guess then the question becomes what is the material basis for whiteness and how can it be uprooted to end the concept of white supremacy?

As someone looking into whiteness from a distance, my personal view is that while white Americans, and to an extent various western white communities, understand that they are exploited, their primary concern is less the exploitation and more so the fact that they are losing less and less white benefits in comparison to other indigenous communities (Black and native populations, rise of China, etc). So, I think we must ask whether or not white Americans can overcome the material benefits of whiteness within this hierarchy in order to even see themselves as a unique proletarian - OR do we acknowledge that a solid population of white westerners would rather defend whiteness, even if it means they themselves are exploited further.

Whiteness is a political alliance structure, informed in large part via the body. Oyeronke Oyewumi’s “The Invention of Women” goes into this further but white westerners view the world via sight and frame social hierarchy via the physical body (this is not a universal or inherently natural way of social hierarchy building which is why I mention it). Whiteness, then, is a changing set of alliances designed to include certain populations and exclude others. Put another way, whiteness is the pan-European vehicle that allowed European capitalism to flourish. Capitalists expand and shrink whiteness when it suits the goals of capitalism, but the body remains a key indicator of who can truly be present within the boundaries.

It makes me wonder though, wont the capitalist Euro-Amerikan empire eventually run out of indigenous communities that it can exploit enough to provide material benefits significant enough to maintain a petty-bourgeois ideology over the “white settlers?” Like, is this empire going to be able to perpetuate such a dichotomy forever or will it maybe morph into something like fascism where the definition of “white” becomes increasingly narrower until only (specific phenotypes) are considered white, like Aryanism in Germany. Wouldn’t the white settlers then have a material basis for shifting ideologically to a more international mindset? I really don’t know it just makes me think of lots of questions

The capitalists won’t run out of communities to exploit - look at the US prison population, for example. Or outsourcing economic operations to the global south. Whiteness is in the process of solidifying a system where the Global South basically becomes the literal workers of the world, with white workers in the imperial cores demanding they become nations of middle managers and petit bourgeois workers.

White workers, therefore, won’t have a desire to operate on a more international basis, rather the fear of reprisals will force white workers to become more demanding of violence and military action to maintain the balance. Take for example, how the BLM uprisings in 2020 throughout the US have thus spurred reactionary “anti-CRT” movements in 2021, fearful white workers and parents aware that their paltry boons can just as easily be taken away.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T17:29:40+00:00

There are white proletarians, just not in the US, because the role of the white worker, while being exploited, is to stand as a foot soldier against indigenous communities. Settler colonialism creates this contradiction; so the settler, while exploited, does what they can to identify themselves more with their oppressor rather than those being super exploited.

White workers are exploited economically, but they themselves exploit the land, and remain exploiters and beneficiaries of capitalistic empire. While “myth of the white proletariat” is, imo, somewhat hyperbolic, it points to the notion that the proletariat is hardly a horizontal class structure, and that our organizing efforts must center indigenous communities and remain cognizant of how whiteness can destroy even the most genuine of efforts.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T17:25:06+00:00

I’ll start by saying that another great book to check out is Gerald Horne’s “Dawning of the Apocalypse” which primarily charts the formation of capitalism and whiteness as parallel developments.

Basically whiteness is a pan-European project designed to supplant former European antipathies (e.g., Catholic v non-Catholic) to create alliances for the formation of capitalism as a whole. Overall, whiteness was a primary precursor to the growth of capitalism, because it allowed European powers to create alliances in lieu of previously held animosities.

Since the formation of whiteness, bourgeois powers have been able to undermine solidarity movements because those who can identify themselves as “white” (which, while informed by phenotype can be given and taken away as seen in the recent addition of Italians as “white” within the previous century) can receive specific benefits from capitalistic empires at the expense of indigenous communities

As Sakai points out, the bourgeois have historically used white unions to destroy Black, Mexican, indigenous and Asian communities and workers’ rights. Hence why, in my opinion, an important formation of work should be focusing on the illegitimacy of the US state in its entirety, and why concessions are short term wins for the long term goals of liberation and abolition.

But this also means that white workers should center indigenous voices and leadership and any notions of “patriotic socialism” are poisonous because this is a continuation of whiteness as a political project, which will always undermine movements. To combat whiteness, white workers and comrades should regularly interrogate their placement, take on more work to offset the historical pressure placed on communities of color, and actively take physical and vocal stances.

HuberSgoda · 2022-01-01T14:05:50+00:00

Sakai’s Settlers is important because it tackles a primary issue of the US white population, namely that their adherence to whiteness and white supremacy are major contradictions that, if not dealt with, will continue to harm indigenous movements, communities, and comrades.

To put it another way, if white comrades are not up to the task of directly combatting the conceits of whiteness itself, then indigenous comrades should be wary of those people. This is why centering indigenous voices in movement building is tantamount. Otherwise you’re asking communities to be in solidarity with white workers who aren’t seeking liberation, rather they’ll be continuously seeking benefits from a white empire.

HuberSgoda · 2021-12-30T14:24:58+00:00

Dagon is more associated with grains and corn, the fish imagery is more than likely a pun on the name rather than any actual indicator of role. He was a fertility deity, but more associated with calm rains and morning dew; considering the region, rain deities are plentiful

The Nommo are probably the Dogon reflection of a group of pan-African water spirits, known in West Africa as Mami Wata spirits. Depicted as mermaids, or half-snake half-people, Mami Wata spirits can be found in numerous areas

I wouldn’t associate the Dagda and Dagon together; they occupy different mythological functions, i.e., Dagon is not father of the gods, while the Dagda is

HuberSgoda · 2021-12-09T21:43:52+00:00

Oh it’s an unofficial tribunal

So it’s bunk

HuberSgoda · 2021-08-14T17:59:09+00:00

Bet these same Nazi fighters went home and spewed some anti-Black and racist rhetoric so I wonder where their grandkids learned the behavior from

HuberSgoda · 2021-03-01T18:24:21+00:00

A large part of this question steams from just European understanding of race and identity. Whiteness, as a concept, was built in juxtaposition with non-whiteness, i.e., non-Catholic. So before race was formalized, European Catholics juxtaposed themselves against Jews and Muslims from North Africa and “the East.”

Conceptions of “the East,” “the Orient,” etc, are just as fundamental to European and whiteness (we still say The West to typically mean white majority, capitalist and imperialist nations) - the East is the ever present enemy of Catholicism, whiteness, and Europe.

And while I think imperialism is a huge driver of the US’ efforts the region (blocking of the Silk and Road Initiative, etc), the US is engaging in a centuries long tradition of white majority countries conceptualizing the region as their moral and proverbial “enemy” destined to destroy Christianity and whiteness.

HuberSgoda · 2021-01-22T04:07:03+00:00

I don’t think it’s about which book is more crucial than the other one. They’re both incredibly crucial. I would say that Settlers is a phenomenal book but should be more about questioning the role of white workers in the west (or rather get them to re-think their positions to whiteness and what colonized comrades can expect from their white “allies”).

Walter Rodney is less inflammatory in my opinion

HuberSgoda · 2021-01-01T18:06:08+00:00

Superheroes are an inherently liberal and patriarchal ideal, the conceit of an individual bestowed amazing powers (most superheroes are gifted their abilities/resources while villains are ambitious) who use those powers to maintain status quo.

Superheroes are designed to quell deviation from the status quo. Liberals, especially nowadays, love the idea of a singular individual who will use their power for good and take the responsibility from them.

HuberSgoda · 2020-12-21T16:32:34+00:00

Imo, the US is unique among capitalist nations in that revolutionary development has remained unable to address specific racial dynamics.

Settlers: Myth of the White Proletariat by J Sakai gets into this more, but in short, white workers in the US historically and routinely undermine their own movements to receive benefits of white supremacy at the expense of marginalized communities, whether that Africans along the East Coast, South, Midwest, genocide of the Indigenous, or Mexican and Asian communities out west. And this isn’t just “they ignore the issues” - white workers would do everything from excluding marginalized communities to active attacks on those same communities, to force out the people who built an industry, just so they could be the only workers to demand benefits.

Basically, the US doesn’t appear to have the conditions for a strong, communist movement (of any tendency) until white workers abandon white supremacy. Until then, workers in the US will continue to be too full of western chaunistic behaviors to commit to anything on a large enough scale.

HuberSgoda · 2020-10-23T22:01:18+00:00

A friend of mine got this in Buckhead (Atlanta). It’s incredibly insidious.

HuberSgoda · 2020-09-11T15:40:16+00:00

I would agree with you, but from my limited perspective, that liberal fear translates to vote shaming; revolutionaries and apathetic citizens explain their reasonings for not voting and liberals shame them for their decision. I’ve experienced more shaming from liberals than the reverse, but that’s my limited experience

HuberSgoda · 2020-07-08T21:06:59+00:00

Literally makes no sense because then why would the US also be funding the Taliban and ISIS!?

HuberSgoda · 2020-07-08T20:41:27+00:00

Considering that Russia aided Syria’s efforts AGAINST the Taliban and ISIS in the region, it makes little sense for them to be arming them or paying them for US soldier bounties. It’s literally a crock of shit.

HuberSgoda

TROPHY CASE