r/badempanadas

Let me preface by saying that I (and i think most Marxist-Leninist) agree with 60%-90% of BE’s critiques about imperialism, Westerners, and the global north as a whole. MLs readily acknowledge that the Western imperialist exploitation of the global south is not only unjust, but also (unjustly) increases the quality of life for most people in the West. Colonialism and racism plays its roles in capitalist systems both inside and outside the West, and MLs in the West have an incredibly formidable opponent to topple. The fascism (and liberalism that enables it) grows everyday and the injustices the West has committed has made this entire systems and its enablers really irredeemable and repulsive to any human being. Justice ought to be swift to those that support this system and MLs are more than willing to serve it when the time comes.

Our materialist conditions are obviously different from those from the global south, where some countries were able to achieve socialism in a revolutionary manner. As China and all these revolutions have shown, each of these conditions are massively different. Where the capitalist chains were weak enough where a well-organized proletariat through a revolutionary vanguard and dictatorship of the proletariat can overthrow Western capitalist puppets and create their own communist/socialist governments that withstand the bourgeoisie onslaught afterwards. Ironically, here in the West, as Che Guevara said, we are in the “belly of the beast,” where capitalism is in its most formidable, vicious, and tenacious.

Third Worldist like BE like to point to the lack of revolutionary movements in the West and blame it our our “cushy” materialist conditions that make a sort of “labor aristocracy” that dare not risk their own wealth for a revolution to topple a system that benefits them. This, however, completely abandons the basic Marxist principle of “international proletarian solidarity” by writing off the entire working class of the Global North. Just because a worker is born in the imperialist core that higher standard of living is based on imperialism and does not join immediately joins a revolutionary vanguard in the West does not mean they are just as complicit as the capitalist who is STILL exploiting their labor to line their pockets. And a revolutionary vanguard does not exist, not because the working class is “bought off” or benefits by imperialism, but because the vast difficulties of the capitalists suppressing our efforts here. Comrades here constantly organize to educate the masses on such exploitation, to rise against our oppressors and overthrow these chains. Their efforts are not in vain or invalid simply because they come from the imperialist global north. We face the strongest opponent against overthrow and supporter of our oppression that is extremely well-resourced, wealthy, and durable. And despite this, we do have comrades that insists on fighting against such trillions-dollar suppression propaganda systems. We are not going to bend the knee to such Third Worldist defeatism and our efforts are growing stronger every day because of the growing contradictions capitalism is inherently showing us.

Now, a third-worldist may say, well, revolutionary potential is only growing because the global south is getting more and more of a backbone against the West (thanks to China and other economic development). It is becoming more and more difficult to exploit the global south, so your materialist conditions are getting tougher to afford, and the working class are drowning because of the lack of exploitation of the third world. This simplistic analysis ignores the past, more revolutionary movements (like the Black Panthers, labor movements in the 1920s, women rights advocates, etc.), and the necessity of revolutionary efforts/groups that arise from the masses to agitate the contradictions and educate the masses to better their standards of living. Our efforts are becoming more important than ever to continue and grow as our capitalist contradictions grow and the global south resists the chains of imperialism. A third worldist celebrates such borderline accelerationist perspective, while punishing even the poorest most oppressed sect of the global north. Idk how many times I’ve seen BE celebrate the collapse of the West in a malicious way because of the sins of Western imperialist capitalists, while our working classes suffer the brunt of such collapse. If third worldist are correct, then why do we have comrades here ready to fight and organize against a trillion dollar capitalist propaganda machine? MLs attempt to not only alleviate such oppressive conditions from its most vulnerable population, but also mobilize the Western proletariat to rid themselves of such system that exploited the entire globe in the first place. The West ought to pay for its sins, while providing their working and oppressed classes a livable enriching life free of exploitation of themselves and abroad.

But this does not mean pushing “progressive candidates” (*cough cough* Hasan *cough cough*) and ignore their imperialist tendencies while providing for the working class. MLs rather align with actual progressive socialist parties like the PSL or FRSO than any phony attempts to “reform” the Democratic Party. Any ML worth their salt knows that these “progressive” or “leftist” will fall in line with the capitalist class’s expectations when they win an election here. A true ML party needs to use the corrupt electoral systems, not as a revolutionary pathway towards victory, but as a broadcasting platform for mass movements and revolutionary action to overthrow such systems corrupted by capitalism. Again, this task is overwhelming here as mass surveillance, censorship, dirty/dark money, and propaganda plague social media and system as a whole. And it’s been bought and designed that way a long time ago. But we do not succumb to the Third-worldist nihilism simply because we are spoiled workers in the global north that deserve it, and our revolutionary potential is a fantasy. Just because our revolution is not readily formulated and past attempts failed due to a number of reasons, does not mean it’s hopeless. Our fallen comrades are lessons to learn from for further revolutionary success (insert Mao’s “defeat, defeat, defeat until the final victory” quote here). And what about the Black Panthers and every other socialist/communist movement in the West that attempted to fight against such a system? The fact that they got so far and pushed the limits against the well-equipped capitalist class should be lauded, not used as an example of how our comrades will never win here to feed a Third-Worldist unfounded nihilism.

Again, this is not to make excuses for the liberalism that poisons our ranks and attempts to derail our efforts to topple this corrupt system. We are constantly fighting and organizing in the “belly of the beast” itself, which is the most formidable, well-equipped capitalist machine sought to preserve its own through weaponizing the state for its own gain against our efforts (see what happened to the Black Panthers). MLs will continue such fight here and abroad.

Does it not occur to these third Worldist that not every revolution will be a cookie-cutter PPW? Yes, history has shown that these revolutions produce AESs (however, see Eastern Europe, Burkina Faso, Angola, etc.). But dialectical materialism is not thrown out the window here; conditions are not yet ripe for such a revolution in the West. MLs still hold that communism is inevitable for humanity. Yet, the reason why its been difficult in the West to have such a revolution is multifaceted, namely this is the most formidable capitalist machine in history that has used the state for its bidding to crush any semblance of communism/socialism. The uses of the FBI, CIA, and police are all the violent structures of the capitalist wing used to suppress us, while using propaganda in its culture, academics, economics, etc. to brainwash its citizenry to this “cOmMuNiSm KiLlEd BiLliOnS” bullshit. Coupled with liberalism to provide false hope to the working class as their standards of living are constantly chipped away for the benefit of capitalists, you have a perfect storm of non-revolutionary potential. Let’s also not forget how Western Marxism plagued Western MLs for decades with the demands for “perfect revolutions,” only to mislead our movements while the West paid academic institutions to prop up such phony perspectives (thank you Domenico Losurdo (and Michael Parenti for upholding communism in academia in the West)). There are many more reasons, and each of those reasons can be an essay within itself. But the materialist provisions that are exploited by the global south is not the one reason by the Western masses do not rise up.

Although wealth is extracted from the global south, the benefits to the capitalist class is FAR GREATER than the laborers here. Yes, the standards of living are higher here at the cost of others exploited in the global south. But the same system in the West is still in play domestically; that is, exploitation of workers, whether it is in factories or gig economy workers. And that contradiction is growing bigger and bigger. We are in this fight together; not in a belittling white knight sort of way, but in solidarity with all workers and oppressed peoples around the world. International solidarity is not a north vs. south battle.

I wanted to write this because I was troubled by BE’s recent videos against FD Signifier and his push for Jewish Supremacy. Although FD can be Western-centric and BE did correctly point out some of these issues, it does not erase a minorities oppression experience in the West. Although critical race liberals may be subconsciously Western-centric, the oppression minorities faced in the United States are not lessened or diluted simply because they are a part of an imperialist country. This links to BEs claims about Jewish supremacy (and only Jewish supremacy) in Israel and his attempts to belittle white supremacy that still exist in Israeli society. He attempts to do this by showing that Israelis accept Ethiopians and Indians to their settler project on Palestinian lands, while lightening stories of racism experienced those very people. Yes, they are obviously using Judaism to justify horrid settler policies/genocide and takeovers while using other races to benefit their regime. However, this does not also erase the racism, profiling, and disparities within the Israeli communities, and how white supremacy still coexists and works in tandem with Jewish supremacy.

This echos a more troubling critiquing trend of belittling anything coming from the West. I can’t help but be troubled that a white Australian living in Argentina is telling black and brown Americans not to project their oppression experiences onto other international happenings because that’s just liberal identity politics. Yes, critical race theory and other liberal academic perspectives do fall short of explaining and projecting other oppressive happenings around the world, but to invalidate their own experiences and calling them Western-centric all together? Police brutality, immigration obstacles, and other disparities onto black and brown people to uphold White supremacy is not just an American/Western phenomenon. Colorism, racism, and other forms of prejudice do exist in tandem with lots of other oppressive system for the benefit of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism (see Franz Fanon).

Communism is about international solidarity and working towards worldwide revolution to overthrow capitalism. We work, even when it’s most dangerous, to achieve such a feat in the belly of the beast. But we do not participate in adventurism or short-sighted politics. From being the first political party to nominate black candidates for presidency, to putting communist pamphlets in trees in Alabama so the wind blows it out to the public to avoid getting our comrades killed, the history of MLs fighting and organizing in the belly of the beast is rich and promising. Our higher standard of living that is exploited from the global south does not dilute our efforts to help those that need it most, both domestically and abroad. We are in the same fight here, not to be divided by nihilism or the sins of capitalists working in the West. But for the international proletariat.

EDIT 1: Thanks for all your feedback comrades. Let me just clarify some points:

1.) I am in no way belittling the harshness and horrors that global south communist endures compared to the north. Death squads are more vicious and oppressive than COINTELPRO and what not. I am just saying this is not a competition and capitalist oppression takes many shapes and forms, that creates different circumstances for the West compared to successful (and even failed) revolutions. Experience to overthrow capitalism in the belly of the beast will be different but no way lessens the suffering from those in the global south. This is not about “well we suffer too!” This is just avoiding the defeatism that TWs promote.

2.) FD is obviously a liberal. I am not defending him. And if BE actually did state that white supremacy does play a role to the larger Jewish supremacy apparatus, then I’ll probably just remove this entire part. But the TW critique still remain.

BE calls out fascists who turned 'liberal' yet claim to be leftist. Obviously they're not.

that's it... that's the post

I really don't think I need to elaborate, we know it's not true, but their definition of truth in this sense is informed with how much jargon you can use and how you fall into the party line, participation in the spectacle. liberal or not this is just silly, it's sad. mother needs to twitter detox because they're irrelevant at this point.

you know I guess it's always been true, especially when it came to queer issues the gist of the disagreement seem to come down to language, optics, and emotional truth (is what you said VALID). she could say in her own words what she thought and the problem wasn't what she meant, but the fact she said it in her own words.

edit: I should clarify, im a leftist, online, but not an Online Leftist™