RATW

My reactions to this https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/16/pers-f16.html

People can be on one side of the tape for one policy, and also on another side of the tape for another policy Why is this so difficult for WSWS to get?

With A.H on animal rights, against him on the entire fascist dictatorship, genocide and war thing...American pragmatism has gone crazy. Though this argument already sucks

If leftists/lean leftists want to form an alliance with the extreme radical-right, it's not surprising some don't want to talk about A.H . But I'll humor them, give me an example from the past 170 years where an alignment with the fascistic right resulted in gains for working people on any issue?

It's hard to get because most Americans do not have any idea that the political compass has 2 axes and at times you end up on the same side on issues that another axis bisects them on as is the case with the Rage Against the War rally.

"The political compass" is made up, it has as a lot of axis as a person want it to have, labelled whatever they please, most people still cluster into some pretty predictable sets of attitudes.

Yet Americans have in general had their minds broken by the "two party" system. Everything ends up being a zero sum game, and all issues are conceived as ceding ground to the Other

People mentioning the political compass strips anything people have to say of validity in certain places

It's reductionism to make a point. Not everything people read here is a full political essay. There are better forums for such things

"The Libertarians and the People’s Party have, for their own purposes, assembled an assortment of “left” speakers to parcipate in the rally. They include comedian Jimmy Dore and the editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal. Both Dore and Blumenthal...have downplayed the significance of the January 6 coup." WSWS article     UH OH! How could they ever do a terrible thing such as that?!

WSWS have a bit of good anti-idpol takes however their level of sectarianism is seriously unmatched lol. Who could have imagined that a website that is openly and explicitly biased would produce blindly biased nonsense for the sole purpose of propagating their beliefs?

All hands were on deck to discredit this Rage Against the War thing before it occurred. That's a swell thing. If this anti war protest was being ignored, we would have known it isn't a threat.

Activists (like the leftists/lean leftists at the Rage Against the War rally) in theory at least should revolt with the lumpen proletariat they got. Not the one they wished for.(if you think about it)

"The struggle against war has to be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population."  WSWS article

But for what reason? why do these forces against war HAVE to be progressive? Isn't it enough that it ends?

Rightoids are never truly against war though, they only haven't found the war they want yet. An effective anti-war position must solely be based on solidarity between the working people who will really fight and die in wars, not on the basis that it's against national interest, since there will always, in the end, be some war that is in the national interest.

"The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital and the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war." WSWS

Opposing a particular war does not entail ending the conditions for war as such, that is most likely impossible. Even socialist countries wage war on one another from time to time.

"The new anti-war movement must therefore, of necessity, be completely and unequivocally independent of, and hostile to, all political parties and organizations of the capitalist class."  WSWS

How come? Do each capitalist organization truly have a stake in supporting a war that is destroying the capitalist economies of the western world?

Maybe caz it's not destroying the economies as in and off themselves, only the savings of all people except the richest. Which is sort of the point, can't buy up everything and reinstitute feudalism by way of subscription services if people aren't bankrupted into selling by skyrocketing costs of all things

"The new anti-war movement must, above all, be international, mobilizing the vast power of the working class in a unified global struggle against imperialism." WSWS

How are you gonna organize internationally in opposition to foreign policy that is decided on the national level?

Trotskyists and Leftcoms love creating unachievable objectives and then admonishing any person who refuses to attempt to meet them while they themselves never do anything other than write sh*t newspapers.

Ultra leftists gonna Ultra

Actual fascists (alrights, Libertarians anyway) are for peace so we must be for war. oh, reminds me of Trotskyists. Marching with Benito Mussolini since Joseph Stalin was an evil man /s

There are so few post-industrial age revolutions I can name that didn't involve a coalition of unlikely allies. This is the nature of overthrow, every person that has interest in toppling the status quo joins in for this goal and works with each other. If they succeed, then they settle their scores among themselves afterwards. This is the reason that a lot of revolutions are followed by civil wars and purges. 

I admit that purity testing an anti war rally is so fucking idiotic 

I don’t have a clue if I agree with a lot of the points in this WSWS article, yet there is a point within criticism of this rally that has to be made. I’m all for being anti-war and so I overall support all of the anti-war—or even just anti-MIC—rallies such as this. But what I do have problems with are reactionaries co-opting “leftism” and socialism. Jordan Hinkle is currently smearing Lula as “George Soros-backed” for condemning Russia’s invasion. 

Michael Tracy got into a debate with him recently pointing out that Hinkle isn’t anti-war, but is instead pro-war i.e pro-Putin and I must say that take on Hinkle is defensible if not spot on. 

Tracy also has been very much outspoken in opposing western military aid to Ukraine and advocating deescalation and has been on the receiving end of a lot of grief for it from liberal 2.0ers and even some liberal 2.0-up socdem/DSA sorts. With some of these leftists' like Jimmy Dore and Jackson Hinkle there is no place for nuance or reasonable discussion.

I have no issue with people like Aaron Maté and his co workers representing the left at events like Rage Against the War. But I’ve observed a lot of the “more stupid” sections of people with anti-establishment sentiment being sucked up by reactionaries making believe they are socialists and I’m not certain it’s for the best, even if their foreign policy rhetoric is more good than the MSM. It’s not by accident that the moment any of these former leftists begin tacking to the right they find themselves falling into much success and I don’t think it’s because they’re just down-to-earth or willing to speak to chuds or what have you.

If the authentic neo-naughzies oppose nuclear war, they unironically have the moral high ground insofar as their proposed policies would kill fewer people than the alternative. /irony sarcasm fusion What even is this timeline?

I don't have proof that any of the speakers who spoke at the Rage Against the War rally are literal neo-Nazis. Yet following this type of logic,I would never go to a rally where there are literal neo-Nazi speakers if they happened to be speaking out against nuclear war . It would be discrediting for starters. It would give a bunch of ammunition for the liberal 2.0ers to shout "see! Guess who you're with!" But that's not the only problem with such a thing

I do perceive the politics of people we align with do matter. Various groups and individuals have their own agendas. Paint me cynical, but there's very uncommonly a strictly "anti-"anything protest, there are people with various agendas who are using whatever they can to push their agendas, even if what the thing they are pushing aligns in that circumstance, so, in said example of a neo-Nazi, they're opposed to nuclear war which is being pushed by the Jews and that's the reason they have to do something about the Jews.

To promote their agenda, and pull people into their camp.

The actual NDSAP too spoke out against capitalists back in the day. Who were in cahoots with the Jews... and that's why...

You see. I don't think appeal to "morality" is the correct frame to think upon it.

"The platform of the right-wing Libertarian Party is the demand for the full and unrestrained right of the capitalists to exploit the working class. It is virulently opposed not only to socialism, but to all social reforms." WSWS

Forgive me but this is an extreme truth stretch. The libertarian party has openly supported same sex marriage for a half century. The Libertarian party also diametrically have been opposed the war on drugs, the military industrial complex, and the Prison Industrial complex for decades.

Although I like civil libertarians more than libertarian party libertarians, to claim that the libertarian party is opposed to all social reform is a ridiculous thing to state. That would be like me calling all communists tankies - an equally stupid comment.

But I always come back to the view that libertarians are still misguided when it comes to grasping that the market economy isn't inherently detrimental to the working class nor do they comprehend how capitalism needs the state to survive. That being said their anti war stance is commendable 

FWIW, the so called 'war on drugs' and the prison industrial complex are state responses to a growing surplus population created by neoliberalism and deindustrialization. The welfare state's retreat meant that mass incarceration was needed in order to enforce order amongst lumpenproletariat who exist due to the market conditions created by post-Keynesian welfare state, at least within the US

The issue people who say that the LP 'supported same sex marriage for a half century' are not seeing is they've supported the idea that the government shouldn't limit such things.

Libertarian Party libertarians love it when private employers are able to make any ridiculous rule they so choose. They're supporting tyranny (Whether or not they know), they only want to remove the government strings and hand them over to private money.

This is completely the product of left and right becoming aligned over the issue of globalization, where we are either opposing the right and supporting globalization (liberal 2.0-imperialism) or opposing globalization like the right is currently also doing (which opens us up to accusations of an anti-liberal 2.0 coalition, which takes off with Russiagate). There is enough blame to go around to be shared between left and right for such things but maybe least of all among the people at this rage against the war anti-war protest.

Regardless if someone is an anti-war leftist, this division leaves a person alienated and contradicting himself/herself regardless of what side they take.

I think the beginning of the problem is globalization breaking down into class warfare by the ruling class as the liberal 2.0 end of history and its democratic peace was killed. This class warfare has numerous fronts ranging from the Western rural petit bourgeoisie to Eastern nations and in the south of Europe to the colonized periphery itself (definitely emergent countries such as Russia and China). Harmed the most by this warfare is the working class and the oppressed persons among them. The consequence of this, is this global class warfare by the liberal 2.0 bourgeoisie which has generated a large variety of reactions, some progressive and some reactionary.

But this is an old story even Karl Marx dealt with (he wrote more than his fair share about reactionary anti-capitalism). What I find odd here is a missing piece from when this was an issue previously. When Marxists had to do something about reactionary opposition to capitalism and imperialism, specifically in the anti-colonial struggle, the answer was easy: promote the leadership of the working class and move movements of the people leftward.

The answer here remains seemingly easy. There is one uniform type of class warfare that originates from the crisis of the 20th century's liberal 2.0-unipolar determination of imperialism. The role of the left is in moving the movements this creates leftward, arguing anything that falls short of working class leadership is doomed to be defeated by liberal 2.0ers or simply create another type of class warfare (effortlessly dinged as racial warfare thanks to the nature of the right wing populists). Anything that does not comply is left behind.

The nerve of the anti war leftists trying to unite people of various political beliefs for such a terrible thing like opposing the military industrial complex. /s

The WSWS can consistently be relied upon to present the sectarian ultraleftist perspective.

Obviously I admit that the organizers (some of which are Mises Caucus reactionaries) are in a difficult spot and they invited some shady figures. So like the majority of ultraleftist criticisms of concrete initiatives, there is a bit of basis in fact here (by the WSWS). But no alternative is given by the WSWS other than outdated utopian rhetoric quoting some sect's resolution. If Rage Against the War's strategy is flawed, the answer is come up with better strategies instead of retreating into fantasyland. To that end we must communicate with and learn from the working class wherever they're at.

As we observed with Force The Vote, the establishment will smear us no matter how hard we try to stay within "left" lanes. See here for more

However the left put itself in a hard spot. It doesn't believe we got ourselves a revolutionary class or that mass consciousness is obtainable. 

In actuality, many of them basically became radical liberals and support that class warfare as the 'defense of democracy', particularly after Russiagate. This is how come there are far more critics of the Ukraine war on the right than on the left, something that Noam Chomsky has commented on. It's not out uncommon to see people who feel that liberal 2.0 democracy is fighting to decolonize in both the West and the East.

Why purity test something (Rage Against the War) that will have no impact?

Americans are cucked anyways. Anti War movements are dead

So it appears to me like RATWM is only small, localized product of the sick nature of Western politics that not any person has an answer to. I think it's comical if it becomes an effigy for it since it's more of an indictment of how small support for anti-war there is after the 2010s.

I think it's laughable that a group of collectivists (like WSWS) are actively saying "We don't want to collect with THEM." Even on the brink of a potential nuclear war they can't set aside the partisanship. But I think if that partisanship pays their bills, it is sensible on some level. Like if someone is stupidly called fascist for saying 'don't bomb Syria' because Richard Spencer said the same thing

So Jimmy Dore and Max Blumenthal are "left" using quotes (WSWS), but the standard issue shitlibs with blue checkmark on Twitter are in some way "more left"? Who again was it that pushed for M4A again? And who opposed it?

If Marxists were on top in one country, they’d engage in imperialism. If fascists were on top in one country, they’d engage in imperialism.