Dmytri Kleiner on Mon, 18 Jan 2021 18:53:18 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy 

Notes:

- I'm an unknown, illegitimate, defiler with a mania for china.
- Brian is a profound ubermench whose invoking of stalin and hungary where totally relevant. 
- The mods should intervene to silence me.
Just a coincidence that none of these folks, supposedly interested in dialogical approaches, have picked up on any thread in my arguments relating to dialogical practices. Neither the intermingling of global socialist practices in the orbit of Jane Addams's Hull House, or the various rays of those practices in pedagogy, labour, business management and design.
Also, no engagement with the roots or strategies of proletarian internationalism, any attempt suggest a respectful approach to foreign comrades is out of hand rejected with fallacious absurbdum, charges of mania, idolizing, etc.
But this lack of engagement is not evidence of chauvinism and white rage, of course not, it's just that I'm a bad person, possibly crazy, and I have no right to be here. 

So sure, no mccarthyist gatekeeping going on here. Plainly.



On 2021-01-18 18:13, Iain Boal wrote:

Nettimers,

I’ve no idea of the identity of the sinomane telecommunist (‘Kleiner')
defiling this conversation, or their whereabouts, or their condition
(though the aggressive logorrhoea is suggestive). However, to call
Brian’s profound - and profoundly open, generous, and dialogical -
contributions to the discussion “mccarthyist gatekeeping” is either
wild self-satire or grounds for a strategic ‘intervention' from our
moderators. Ted?

IB
On 18 Jan 2021, at 08:28, Dmytri Kleiner <[email protected]> wrote: 


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
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--
Dmytri Kleiner
@dmytri
#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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