Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy

[Dmytri Kleiner <dk@telekommunisten.net>]

On 2021-01-18 13:42, Felix Stalder wrote:

> So, what exactly is the lesson that China holds for "us", that is,
> cultural/knowledge workers
While these questions hold promise, it feels to me like the precondition 
is that cultural/knowledge workers in the west stop carrying water for 
US intelligence and work on developing a respectful relationship with 
the global left.
I'm not sure that many who are here in the core realize how badly we are 
viewed by our comrades abroad due in no small part to the cartoonish 
cold war pejoratives we see here on this list all the time.
I understand not knowing, it's hard to know what is said about us at MST 
schools or among comrades in Kerala or in shop-floor meetings among 
Numsa members, as we are most often not there.
What I do not understand is not caring, and when this is mentioned, 
reacting with white rage and mccarthyist gatekeeping and doubling down 
on chauvinist denouncements, as we've seen from some contributors here.
While asking "what lessons" can we learn from China is interesting, in 
my view there are far more pressing questions. What role should we play 
as tensions heighten with China? How do we deal with the fact that in 
many cases progress of our comrades abroad are directly sabotaged by way 
of aggression from our own countries? How do we deal with the fact that 
in many cases workers here benefit from exploitation abroad, and so we 
have differences in material interests that create obstacles to 
solidarity?
What strategy can we pursue that addresses the challenges of worsening 
social conditions at home, heightening international tensions and 
aggression and the existential threat of climate change?
Many of these questions are not new and where key areas of discussion in 
the "old fashioned" position of proletarian internationalism elaborated 
on in Stuttgart, Basel and Zimmerwald from 1907 to 1915, before the 
Russian revolution led to the 3rd international era, with it's 
spy-vs-spy intrigue in the bosom of which the western embedded left was 
distilled and synthesized as a liberal strain, separate from and hostile 
to the global left, branded "authoritarian" by the spin-doctors of Der 
Stürmer or der Wochenspruch der NSDAP, who's greatest hits continue to 
be spun on the Mighty Wurlitzer to irresistible effect among the 
meandering pundits in our midst, who gladly dance to this beat.
In my view, we mustn't dragonboat all the way to China to find the 
lessons we need, we just need to stop feeling entitled to judge and 
denounce the Chinese workers and deny their accomplishments. We must 
understand that the struggle continues everywhere, there and here, and 
trust them in their struggle, while we focus on our own. We only really 
need mention China at all when confronting the propaganda used to 
justify aggression against it by our own countries. We must turn our 
weapons on the class enemy at home.
In terms of lessons to take, we can find the lessons we need in the 
legacy of the US Progressive Era right here in the imperial core, in the 
work of Freire, and building upon the practices of Jane McAlevey, "deep 
organizing."
We don't need a "new left strategy" we need to stop the ever changing 
iterations of the bullshit new left and its various derailments into 
thirdwayism from sheepdogging our movements away from the tried and true 
dialectical materialism that has been proven to work everywhere, among 
the revolutionary workers of the global left, and has blossomed in art, 
pedagogy, labour organizing, and even business management and design 
practices.
As has been advocated in this thread now many times, in my comments, in 
Frank's comments, in William's comments, in Vincent's comments, etc. We 
need a practice resident among and rooted in the efforts of the people 
themselves facing concrete proglems, led by their own organic leaders, 
not third party pundits, where we organize, try stuff, learn the results 
and iterate forward, always building class power.
This is the strategy we need, and as Jane McAlevey would note, there are 
no shortcuts.

--
Dmytri Kleiner
@dmytri
#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: