Compact was a joint project of some “anti-woke” socialists and some “anti-woke” nationalists and so it comes as quite a surprise to learn that one of their senior editors has been exposed as a National Socialist.
I think that there’s honestly a substantial divide in the left between people who actually joined out of either a sense of justice or because of personal identity based marginalizations, and people who actually just want authoritarianism but if a left way, and it’s going to be ugly
There’s a lot of incentive to just Never Admit that you were duped into thinking your allies actually had the sense of justice you did and weren’t just finding an alternative path to power
Because who wants to admit they’re a dupe
being Jewish in anarchist circles, back when I was active in anarchist circles, was a really fast lesson in this.
"this group fixes poor peoples' bikes and brake lights" vs
"this group gives legal representation to indigent folks" vs
"this group exists to do antisemitism as praxis"
oh ok then.
We have never been in more need of solidarity orgs that will organize in the grassroots, help people, and work towards a better future. I hate that so many orgs are a bunch of Jill Stein stans/tankies or exclusively interested in making profound statements about Israel/Palestine.
Eh, I'd say we need stuff like that only in the breach, and IMO it's better to work both inside and outside the system, but my present concerns are with things like civil war and you can't win one of those by grassroots organizing.
Look at what color the latter are, and how many more of them there are, and then look at the massive institutional weakness to entryism; it ain't a pretty picture.
It's gonna be a repeat of the way the present fascist wave was birthed in the collapse of Occupy; if you activate someone, but you don't meaningfully educate or discipline them, and all you teach them is how to repeat populist applause lines - welp.
This is why I have “moved right,” *basically*. Like a few of my opinions changed when I switched from Theoretically a Commie to Biden Dem, but *really* it’s that I don’t trust the motives of people offering idealistic solutions they know aren’t realistic over boring institutionalists
Put another way, I decided that I’m (aspiring to be) Lawful Good and of the kind that would rather end up friends with a lot of Lawful Neutrals than with most Chaotic Goods
This is also why I got tired of being mocked for my strategic voting and just gave up on disorganized anarchist politics; it was largely a debating society focused on disinterest in getting or wielding power, and I wanted real things, so I went where real shit was on offer.
The other problem is that the ethical standards of any actually-existing group I could have joined were somewhere below the high moral tone set by your average ethnic militia in central Africa, and that doesn't appeal to me.
Yeah exactly
Like when people are like “I don’t trust libs with 401ks” I think “I want everyone to have 401ks and the idea that you would want to avoid people who are saving for retirement or shame them for being lucky enough to do that shows you’re unlikely to win elections”
"We should abandon liberal political parties and embrace an ideology that has consistently dealt with demographic problems via various forms of genocide" um
when i have good opinions of anarchists they are mainly the ones who do stuff like helping people and giving them necessities without asking for permission
Yes. Your median Food Not Bombs chapter is a great lesson in 'how to organize people with some concerning and/or crazy beliefs to accomplish minor good things anyway' but that does not get you gay marriage or withdrawal from foreign wars.
I'm mostly a liberal because I routinely have very very bad thoughts in my head and realize that you need structures, authority, reasonable liberty, and constructive outlets to prevent people like me from just ruining everyone else's day in the worst way.
