F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

Probably Magic posted:

Want to check this out eventually, but this is also the go-to reference for every dipshit who argues that identity politics is so much more important than class politics. Which is probably taking the reading out of context, those weirdos do the same thing with TNC, but it's always inspired a bit of weariness in me.

unwantedplatypus posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising to decrease peoples’ living standards.

Anime Bernie Bro posted:

wokely buck breaking the white proletariat because diverse workplaces don't unionize

CaptainACAB posted:

like, it's really funny to me how j sakai fails to mention that the concept of the model minority was literally invented to describe japanese americans, and to contrast them against "the bad ones" such as blacks, chinese, hispanics and et cetera. the first ever use of the term was a long article in the 1960s about how good japanese immigrants were, how little crime their communities had and how smart and hard working they all were.

almost like hes a dipshit baby incapable of looking into a mirror.

unwantedplatypus posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising to decrease peoples’ living standards.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

japanese americans were thrown in concentration camps

Kindest Forums User posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising billions we won't remove their yoke until we complete our western revolution first.

CaptainACAB posted:

120,000, less than 1% of the japanese american population, were put into camps in which the conditions were always better than you'd find on any indian reservation, black ghetto or even regular prison, and the government has spent the entire time since then bending over backwards to offer reparations, apologies and extensive education (i learned more about these camps than i ever did about the countless massacres of blacks, or even the indian reservations IN MY OWN STATE!!!) which they have done and will never do for any other group but yeah sure, the japanese were uniquely oppressed.

there will never be an introspection on this because we, again, are just browbeaten by baby brains such as Settler Colonialist J Sakai.

idk maybe try asking stalin? you know, the guy who accomplished far more and liberated far more people than j sakai could ever dream of.

CaptainACAB posted:

120,000, less than 1% of the japanese american population, were put into camps in which the conditions were always better than you'd find on any indian reservation, black ghetto or even regular prison, and the government has spent the entire time since then bending over backwards to offer reparations, apologies and extensive education

AnimeIsTrash posted:

CaptainACAB posted:

love to issue reparations on several occasions to the 1% of japanese we wronged, while telling blacks, natives and latinos that we genocided and hosed out of an entire nation to eat poo poo and die because they're not honorary aryans like J Sakai.

i say swears online posted:

i mean even your first number is weird. there were over twelve million japanese americans during ww2?

CaptainACAB posted:

1.2 million or so yeah my math was incorrect sorry. less than 10%, as opposed to literally 100% of all blacks, latinos and natives. who got nothing because they are not settler colonialists like J Sakai

i say swears online posted:

o he'll yea

i say swears online posted:

oh honey. nice edit tho

lumpentroll posted:

Kindest Forums User posted:

Settlers can be boiled down to "american white people have almost no revolutionary potential and the borgeuise will use white supremacy to destroy any potential revolutionary movement. American white people will happily turn their backs on their coloured sisters and brothers because white people have been ideologically programmed to embrace white supremacy"

This shouldn't be that controversial among leftists....

Kindest Forums User posted:

Settlers can be boiled down to "american white people have almost no revolutionary potential and the borgeuise will use white supremacy to destroy any potential revolutionary movement. American white people will happily turn their backs on their coloured sisters and brothers because white people have been ideologically programmed to embrace white supremacy"

This shouldn't be that controversial among leftists....

AnimeIsTrash posted:

gently caress you, you settler piece of poo poo

unwantedplatypus posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising to decrease peoples’ living standards.

quote:

I am still at times asked to speak at DSA events, including a recent one for the DSA Tech Action Working Group—a decidedly PMC collection of DSA members working in tech. Inspired by Google software engineer James Damore’s infamous “anti-diversity memo,” the subject I was to speak on was “diversity in tech.” The friend who asked me to speak rightly recognized that the tech industry is no longer a small cabal of entrepreneurial specialists but is increasingly expanding into a global labor force of workers—from petit bourgeois to prole, if you will.

I cannot, however, say I found many examples of such workers at this event. Multiple representatives from HR departments spoke up, one to say that “it’s all about hiring practices,” and to urge the attendees to come to HR whenever they had a problem. One woman wanted to read a long academic article about a typesetters’ union fighting automation and other changes that would open the floodgates for underpaid, largely female scab labor. She was under the im­pression that this exposed the sexist nature of trade unions.

The crowd was very “diverse” in all the Ikea commercial ways that warm our Coca-Cola liberal hearts, but some of the most insightful observations came from the bearded and (presumably) cishet white males. One timidly put forth that “HR actually works for management,” while another recognized that the biggest source of “diversi­ty” in the tech industry is highly exploited third-world call-center workers.

At first glance, the superior class consciousness of the beardy white male tech bro may appear counterintuitive, but it is a function of tech industry managerialism that he has a better view of class con­flict. As an industry, tech has thoroughly absorbed “diversity” into its corporate culture and HR programming, for both legal liability and liberal credibility reasons. If you’re a woman and/or minority work­ing for Google and your job is miserable, you are told by the whole world—and by your employer itself—that this is because you are a woman and/or minority. But, you are also told, your employer is here with sensitivity trainings, diversity initiatives, and at-will firing practices (you know, for the bad employees) to remedy all of that and to build a better work environment and, thereby, a more egalitarian world. If, however, you are a straight white man working for Google and your job is miserable, you know it’s because your job is miserable, and the company isn’t there to help you. Liberal identitarian HR obfuscations don’t work as well on exploited and precarious dude-bros.

The evening culminated during the Q and A, wherein a woman earnestly asked, “What do I do if some alt-right guy wants to be in the union?”

Visibly vexed, I replied that if an alt-right guy wants to be in your union, you won.

This statement was met with noticeable consternation, so I went on to explain that you want everyone in the union because the end goal is a closed shop. I explained that this is the very premise of a union: it is not a social club for people of shared progressive values; it’s a shared struggle, and collective politics are the only thing that can actually break down all that office bigotry you’re so concerned about. She did not appear convinced.

I use this particular anecdote to illustrate the obstacles to building a socialist PMC, but I have many others (particularly in the recent spate of white collar unionism), and herein lies the tragic irony of the great middle class exodus: even when they fall, and even when they find themselves in “Left spaces,” they are still too proximal to man­agement—or at least believe themselves to be—to imagine much beyond human resources liberalism. Very frequently, they view blue-collar workers as inherently illiberal antagonists. (Just look at the response to the failed Clinton campaign by prominent members of the liberal media and academia, who have finally answered their fa­vorite old canard of “Why do the working class vote against their own interests?” with accusations of innate bigotry and misogyny.)

super sweet best pal posted:

Don't let the libs try do divide the proletariat with idpol.

Kindest Forums User posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising billions we won't remove their yoke until we complete our western revolution first.

Kindest Forums User posted:

Settlers can be boiled down to "american white people have almost no revolutionary potential and the borgeuise will use white supremacy to destroy any potential revolutionary movement. American white people will happily turn their backs on their coloured sisters and brothers because white people have been ideologically programmed to embrace white supremacy"

This shouldn't be that controversial among leftists....

sakai posted:

We see the recognition of Amerika as a “prisonhouse of nations” as the beginning – no more, no less – of the differences between revisionist and communist politics here. We note the hysterical energy that upfront revisionists pour into denying the existence of various oppressed nations, most notably the Afrikan Nation. It’s interesting that the leadership of the KDP (Union of Democratic Filipinos), for example, has participated in several major theoretical expeditions to prove that the Afrikan Nation never has and never will exist. In the well-known 1975 Critique of the Black Nation Thesis, the KDP leaders and other Asian and Afrikan radicals claimed not only that the Afrikan Nation was a crazy idea thought up by racist whites, but that nationalism has never had any support in the Afrikan communities. The document even goes so far as to say that no nationalist movement has ever existed among Afrikans here in the U.S. Empire.

Now united with other revisionists in the “Line of March” organization, these Asian-Amerikan activists are still writing documents arguing that Afrikans suffer no national oppression within the U.S. Empire (only “racism”). Why is this supposedly non-existent Afrikan Nation so, so important to them? Why spend years writing about something you claim doesn’t exist? Unless you fear that this supposedly non-existent Nation and its very existent revolutionary struggle will upset your applecart of reformist-integrationist schemes and alliances. It’s interesting that during these years the KDP leadership, which has been so concerned about combating Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism, has yet to concern itself with doing a significant class and national analysis of the Filipino community here in the U.S. We hold that once this outward shell of integration into a single, white-dominated “U.S.A.” is cracked open – to reveal the colonial oppression and anti-colonial struggle within – then the correct path to a communist understanding of the U.S. Empire is begun.

Kindest Forums User posted:

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I thought this was a pretty decent critique of sakai.

https://erich-arbor.medium.com/the-anti-marxist-elitism-of-j-sakais-settlers-409ff2d496ee

Kindest Forums User posted:

Is that a thing? Maybe I just haven't read enough books but do authors regular insert a chapter devoted to discussing their particular relationship with the subject matter of the book?

Kindest Forums User posted:

Sakai has discussed Asian americans falling into same trap as white working class Americans siding with the borgeuise to maintain certain priveledges. I think there's even an interview where he talks about his early days and how the white union workers explicitly asked him to side with the blacks or the whites.

It's so weird that your hung up on this. and that you believe that Japanese Americans in the early mid 20th century maintained a similar class position as white Americans.

Gazpacho posted:

one can mention it, but shouldn't do so for the purpose of distracting from the role of violence and political favoritism in clearing the US

Kindest Forums User posted:

I wonder how first world leftists are supposed to gain power while promising billions we won't remove their yoke until we complete our western revolution first.

CaptainACAB posted:

i could name a dozen white americans who have accomplished far more than the settler colonialist J Sakai ever has.