Edit2: the ratio is amazing. I’m exhausted. This has quadrupled my hexbear time for the day and I will be limiting myself for a bit lol. I feel like we got somewhere in a couple of good threads thanks to Hellinkilla and ratboy. Good luck, comrades.
Edit: the rant wasn’t clear enough. In Previous struggles users have expressed frustrations with how mods/admin decisions are made. I would like to discuss how they are made and hear from them. Mods have also stated before that they wish we could be better, I’d like to hear how and know how they think this should be approached.
Rant/effort post coming:
What’s the follow up to the recent problems with how mods/admins have handled recent issues? Did I miss something? Can we get some explanations about how this site is structured and what roles we see for admins/mods generally?
history of struggle session, not necessary but gives context
We had a fairly large and fairly one-sided struggle session a couple weeks ago. Z_Poster was banned (and still is, as far as I know) and the emoji was added. Some users (thinking of @hellinkella, smong others) did some effort to really parse out where the pain points were and who was involved (largely Zionism inherent in some positions, Jewish exceptionalism). Only the emoji and banning occurred with no other promises/ideas from mods/admins.
There then followed a leak of mod logs where opinions were still very different than the userbase. I would encourage people not to open it or ask for it, please, and especially not to share it. But I think a significant amount of us did see messages that, regardless of context, gave an image of admins/mods that think the userbase hates them, disagreed with the userbase in significant ways, and which wants to steer us in a better direction. The mod chat was also absurdly active at the time, but there’s been little talk about what WAS discussed, only discussions about what was missed, where more context is needed, and things that were not done in a timely manner. This was not further discussed. (Personally I’m super appreciative of you all, doing work I don’t want to do on a website I enjoy thoroughly, and don’t hate any of you–including previous ones I’ve argued with, but would like to see some changes which will follow below and hopefully other comrades will add to it/change it for the better).
We had an EM/POC post which was tangential to that, but where there seemed to be large support for the userbase with regards to the ideological differences between mods/admins and the broader userbase. There was also a banning for which apologies followed quickly, but which indicates the structural failure more generally. There were of course other topics covered, which I won’t speak on here. I didn’t see any solutions proposed and accepted, from any of the topics relevant to this post. (Please correct me if I read this thread wrong, don’t want to speak for you, EM/POC comrades.)
Was there a follow up? Is that coming? Is the discussion behind the curtain of the mod chat? I understand you all have lives, so don’t spend all your time working on this, but some knowledge of how you’re working would be good. Otherwise it feels like purposeful pushing back of feedback/decisions so that we will forget the passionate feelings or give up. If that’s the goal, it’s a horrible strategy and should just be explicitly told. “3 months after a struggle session is the earliest we will make changes in processes” is better than nothing.
I would also recommend we have an open discussion about the direction of the site. It seems the mods/admins have indicated to have better ideas for what we can be (I remember this from the “dunk” discussions too), but have not made clear what their position in that is. Enforcers? A vanguard (with our input as leading determinant)? A different vanguard (against our input for but in our interests)? Theoreticians that have the ideas but want the users to take the lead? Knowing this would make clearer how to interact with you, and how to make our experiences better. Maybe we do need growth and improvement, but we haven’t been clear about how, and talking down is how most have experienced that. I already love this place, so when I’m frustrated I don’t think of leaving. But that’s not universal
The only people that dunk on it did nothing except read quippy social media titles framing it badly and relying on people not actually reading it because the article is largely correct. If your position is that you think white americans should be fought by poc in the same way that israeli settlers need to be fought by palestinians you will lead people in america to ruin because that is a blatantly absurd and unwinnable theory.
This is all I will say on this. Sectarianism is not allowed on the site and this is a sectarian struggle between the ML position and a maoist / ultra divergent idea from marxism-leninism. The people advocating for this have been, in my experience, maoists, gonzaloites and anarchists. ML orgs have taken positions against it quite rightfully.
I’ve never heard anyone suggest this position, ever. The idea of settler colonialism doesn’t advocate for the elimination and removal of settlers, we’ve already seen this play out in South Africa where white people still exist. I’d be interested to see where these conversations happened and who was advocating for such a thing. This is always the reactionary white position when this topic comes up, “so what you want to kick all the white people out?” No, this isn’t what people who understand settler colonialism advocate for by and large, again I have never seen a serious person who is involved in this movement suggest such a thing aside from maybe joking behind closed doors after being annoyed by cracker shit. I can’t speak for random people on the internet but just because those people suck and have bad takes doesn’t mean that the US isn’t a settler nation.
and no, I read that article when it first came out and made a long comment on why it is bad. It literally asserts an inherently racist notion of a Chicano nation, erasing dozens of Indigenous nations in the process. I am an ML who has argued with ultras, maoists, and anarchists here nearly every month and the US is a settler colonial nation which needs to be decolonized. If I remember correctly you are from the UK, maybe that’s why you don’t have any context for this reality, but as an ML organizing with MLs from colonized nations in the US, I know very well about this subject, have taught about it extensively after learning directly from the leaders of the movement and know very well the nature of settler colonialism and the importance of understanding the settler colonial context of the US and why it is still affecting our organizing here and now.
This isn’t the topic of the thread so no pressure to have this conversation here but I don’t know a single self identified American ML who rejects that the US is a settler colonial nation. The only people I’ve ever met in the real world of US organizing who have rejected this idea are DSA members and anarchists. I’ve never met an ultra in real life, only on the internet. FRSO is a tiny organization that barely exists and just because they wrote an article doesn’t mean they are correct.
edit: Also the Black Belt theory was developed by Harry Haywood while he was studying in the USSR and so the idea that settler colonialism is anti ML is just incorrect. Harry Haywood was advocating for the Black (New Afrikan) nation at the time with the approval of the soviets while Stalin was still running the show. The terminology of settler colonialism wasn’t developed at the time but the idea that there are colonized nations within the US that have the right to self determination was not controversial for the Soviets, it was in fact the CPUSA that rejected it which caused a big split at the time
edit edit: here’s my comment breaking down why that article is trash: https://hexbear.net/post/4043628
edit edit edit: comintern’s resolutions on the Black national questions : https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1946-1956/roots-revisionism/chapter-13.pdf http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/CR75.html#s2
Good job that’s not what I’ve said, nor does the article claim that it was not founded as one.
I literally just told you I’m not having this discussion and you’ve just dumped a whole wall of text on me, knowing I don’t fucking want to reply to it, while saying a bunch of shit that warrants reply. Can you respect when someone says not now nor here? You slyly shove a point about doing it via PM in the response so you acknowledge that I said not to do this then you just went ahead and did it anyway.
I’m going to bed. Engaging with what can only be described as a sectarian line struggle on this site will not lead to anything good. It’s against site rules for a reason.
I refuted all your points but I get if the amount of text was too much for your to read through, and the reason I said it is a settler colonial nation is because the claim is that despite being founded as one, that is somehow no longer relevant to the organizing context here.
I’m allowed to respond however I want and you don’t have to respond, this is an internet forum and I’m not just replying to you for your sake but also for anyone else who is around who might want to know more about this. I’ve seen that article mentioned multiple times and didn’t see any line struggle, and also am passionate about the subject because it directly impacts my life and the lives of everyone I care about, so the idea that there was a secret underground struggle session pit going on here at my favorite hexbear.net internet website about one of the most important communist things I care about was compelling enough for me to speak openly. You don’t have to read what I say, you can even block me if you want. I didn’t mention anything about a PM, I just made it clear that I don’t expect you to read or reply due to the setting it has come up. Expecting me not to respond as I wish without explicitly using the “disengage” option or some variation that makes it clear and then getting worked up about me not meeting your unexpressed expectation doesn’t really make sense to me. Generally I like your posts and haven’t really had any negative interactions with you, and I don’t think I said anything hostile, it doesn’t really feel warranted. They are long posts but when I see a long post and don’t feel like reading I just don’t and move on, sometimes I come back to it but most of the times I don’t.
It isn’t a “sectarian” line struggle because you said you are ML and so am I and literally everyone else I know who includes this analysis within their greater analysis, your idea that it is an “ultra” position is potentially wrong and perhaps you are just assuming that because you are an ML the things you believe are ML and the things you haven’t learned or adopted are some other thing that isn’t ML. Plenty of MLs from TERF island think advocating for trans people isn’t ML, and they are wrong too.
What part of fuck off I do not want to engage do you not understand?
The part where I have to listen to your petulant demands instead of using the disengage option or anything resembling a reasonable approach to talking to people. It’s not surprising you don’t have a good grasp of ML theory since you are incapable of respectful communication, the very basic foundation of organizing. A revolutionary theory based on bringing people together doesn’t really work when you are incapable of communicating
My respectful communication ceased at the precise moment you disrespectfully ignored a very clearly communicated desire not to engage in this. Disengage. Clear enough yet?
No because the disengage option means you aren’t trying to get the last word in and have some witty comeback, it’s established to be a standalone word that you use without saying a bunch of other shit. You can’t just say whatever you want and include the word disengage within a greater response and silence the other person from responding. You have to be mature enough to read a response and say disengage without needing to be narcissistic about it
Edit: also you can just not respond at all and I won’t have anything to respond to, it works that way just was easily as saying disengage
To come back to this, and not to stir the pot, I’ve got some points. (Awoo, if you’re reading, just disengage if you don’t want to be involved. I’m not taking bad about you but trying to find the root of the disagreement)
From what I can tell from the article, this may literally be an argument of definitions. When we state that a country is a settler-colony, some read that as having immediate implications all the way to the exact tactics that you must use (read, all violence is justified against the settler class). Others read it as a classification at high abstraction about the general way that 2 groups relate without many immediate implications for tactics. And others somewhere in between, with some implications for an end goal but not tactics, or with some implied basis for certain strategies but the goals aren’t perfectly aligned.
It seems there is a chance that you and Awoo (and the article) are really reading the term “settler colony” with a different view of what that term implies. If it implies that all violence against all settlers is justified, like many here believe for Palestine, then the article wants us to not use the classification. If it only implies a relation to the land question, and some justice can be found and the indigenous class be restored without that universal violence against settlers, then the classification would likely be fine, according to the author.
There is also the question of how a primary contradiction relates to secondary ones, and whether its primary or not. This does immediately have implications, there is no way to play with definitions around that. If I’m reading right, looking at a quick article by Nick Estes and this article, there is a difference between some ML’s about whether or not the settler-indigenous contradiction is the primary contradiction for the revolutionary classes of the US. I would tend to refer to Nick Estes about the other article in this case, but I don’t see a huge gap between the 2 in practice right now. But I will stop talking about it because I am no expert.
In conclusion, I don’t wanna be one of those people always saying “you just aren’t defining your terms, children” like some Wittgensteinian monster. But I do think that discussing the implications alongside the class relation is necessary avoid speaking past one another. Do you agree that this could be happening?
Edit: I didn’t state it, but I’m pretty sure Awoo is saying that there was a subset of Hexbear claiming that the exact tactics of Palestinians against Zionists was justified for all POC against white USians. That would be the extreme set of implications, and I’m pretty sure you’re not saying that? But maybe you are, in which case, yes there is a real disagreement and I also think you’d be drawing an Ultra or Maoist conclusion.
Crackers still existing in South Africa (or at least the ones who held power in the previous era), I hold, is actually a problem lol. Not to get off topic, but I just think that South Africa, Palestine, and the US should all be treated very differently because of the way that the Land Question relates to them! Max Ajl is my reference for this conversation. I do think South Africa failed to actually meet the standards of ending settler colonialism, because there are still Boers that need to be "kill de Boer"ed lol
But I think the point is just that the Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism will look different than the indigenous/POC one in the US because there are so many fundamental material differences.
yes of course, each organizing arena needs its own analysis. and yes I agree that the SA decolonial process didn’t actually get completed, but the mentality of crackers and Boers can be eliminated from society without eliminating the people.
Definitely. And to some extent will be true in Palestine too. But it’ll look differently every time in strategy, tactics, on the ground operations, and context. Complex world we live in, eh?
it’s so difficult to imagine