What about the IRA ballad "Come Out Ye Black and Tans"? From what I understand, the song is basically about Stephen Behan getting pissed and challenging working-class Protestants to a street brawl. When Irish republicans sang this beautiful song, what do you think they were saying? I don't think they were saying that the content of their movement consisted of getting in drunken fist-fights with Protestant settlers. But I don't think there is or has ever been a pressing need to move "beyond" these sort of sentiments either.

Or, to use an example from modern pop-culture, the ending of NWA's "Fuck Tha Police"; "The jury has found you guilty of bein a redneck, white-bred, chickenshit motherfucker". There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about NWA. But I'm not going to sit back and act indignant that these particular words have an important political resonance among a broad segment of oppressed youth. And if I was going to talk about politics with a teenager wearing a "Scarface" T-shirt, I wouldn't exactly be chomping at the bit to point out how politically incorrect and wrong it is to wear a dang T-shirt. (There's too much literalism. Right now I'm wearing a Chewbacca T-shirt, is this an expression of my middle-class desire to live under a Jedi republic?)

Or the 1995 western "Dead Man", praised for its realistic and sympathetic portrayal of American Indians. I remember the most powerful scene in the film, when Gary Farmer tells Johnny Depp, (whose character is himself a white accountant from Cleveland) "You were a poet and a painter, and now you are a killer of white men!" How many westerns are about white settlers heroically massacring scores of nameless Indians? It's true that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Or the enduring admiration for Valerie Solanas among revolutionary women. Is this such an awful thing, because she joked about killing men? Maybe oppressed people just have a sense of humor. Andy Warhol wasn't exactly Leonard Bernstein, either. Yes, there are lots of priviliged professional artists who are politically principled people who stand with the workers. There are also lots of privileged professional artists who are enthusiastic exploiters.

I don't know anything about RedFly's life, and I'm not going to make assumptions - "you might as well stick to tofu, organic wheat grass, Toyota Priuses and the likes of Elizabeth Warren". Well, I'm certainly not going to judge someone as politically hopeless because they eat tofu and organic wheat grass, or drive a Toyota Prius; that's asinine. (I'm reminded of recent accounts of Siezing Thunder operatives in Portland monitoring organic farmers markets and tailing Subaru Legacy drivers; if the police view these strata as potentially radicalized, than so should we.) But maybe RedFly is just blowing off steam because his neighborhood is being gentrified by tofu-eating, Prius-driving, Elizabeth Warren-reading middle-class liberals. And sometimes anger is an important learning tool. People engaged in gentrification need to be educated and called out on what they're doing. Middle-class people do need to be reminded how lucky they are that they can afford to buy healthy food, or drive expensive cars. I look back on times in my life when I was abusing other people, and the only reason I stopped is because the people I was abusing were people I cared about who got pissed out and yelled at me. I'm also reminded of Angela Davis' interview in "The Black Power Mix-Tapes", when she lays into a sympathetic Swedish journalist for asking her an inane question about "violence". It is undoubtedly the most powerful moment in the film, and entirely fueled by Davis' frustration and anger at her privileged allies.

Comrade Ely said: "I would be wary of seeking to 'appropriate' the particular symbols, rituals and belonging of other projects. (I.e. from churches, the army, gangs, corporate life, sports teams)." Well no offense, but that's incredibly silly. What is wrong, for example, with using Jesus or Mary as a revolutionary symbol? They were, after all, revolutionaries in their historical time. Hasn't Kasama very strongly criticized the RCP-USA for their dogmatic analysis of religion, for annoying and alienating religious people by ranting against all evidence that the Jewish god is the "first fascist"? Or the military. I'm reminded of the Occupy Marines, and their slogan, "semper fidelis, semper occupare". There's absolutely nothing wrong with this slogan, because the content of their political stance is mostly correct. And as someone who doesn't come from a military background, I can't fully appreciate the emotional resonance and interest it generates among the target demographic, nor is it my right to criticize the symbols that revolutionary veterans use to mobilize people from their community. Or gangs. Weren't a lot of the original Rainbow Coalition groups, such as the Young Lords and the Young Patriots, originally turf gangs, before they became politicized? Or what about Tookie Williams?

We can't appropriate the symbols of sports teams? Who says this? And why? What about the "Oakland Strikers"? Or the "Steelers bloc" that anarchists organized in protest of Ben Roethlisberger? Or "corporate" symbols? I still fondly remember a lot of the political propaganda the French PC-MLM used to produce, incorporating characters from "The Simpsons" and "Super Mario"...

I agree with a lot of what Mike says here. As usual, his analysis is very persuasive in many respects. But I think there are a few misunderstandings that I'd like to try to clear up.

<blockquote>I would be wary of seeking to “appropriate” the particular symbols, rituals and belonging of other projects. (I.e. from churches, the army, gangs, corporate life, sports teams). They all have such features. And we can learn from that.

And we can even, perhaps, discover elements in various places we can adapt. But mainly we face a creative process (together with the advanced among the people) of forging such things for our movement, for our very distinctive goals.</blockquote>

I absolutely agree with this. In no way was I arguing that we should appropriate the specific symbols and rituals of street gang life or the mafia or any other <em>capitalist</em> project. What I was arguing for was the need to understand the appeal of these things in a much deeper way than the usual dismissiveness occasioned by a <em>mechanistic</em> base/superstructure analysis, as if the only explanation for the appeal of such figures of rebelliousness is the superstructure reacting upon the base and spreading "false consciousness." What's going on here is I think much more complex than a simple inversion. What matters here (to the proletariat youth) is not so much the specific content as the idea and iconography of the figure of the rebel. What we need to do is to help effect a displacement of the figure of the rebel, so that the rebel is the true rebel, the one who rebels against this entire system, not the one who merely rebels so as to triumph within the same oppressive framework. This is why it's important to continue to tell and promote the stories of the Black Panther Party, of Che Guevara, of Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, of Mao Zedong. It's also why it's important to find and develop and promote more contemporary figures of rebellion.

Look, one of things that I think keeps a lot of proletarians from joining with progressive politics is the very insidious notion, made manifest through decades of ineffectual liberalism, that progressive politics is just soft, fuzzy-headed b.s. promoted by a bunch of cultural elitists that look down on the people, think their stupid, think that all they care about is watching teevee, think they're incapable of critical analysis, etc.

I have another co-worker who expresses pro-worker sentiments all the time but who also talks about how much "hippies" suck. Now, I've come to realize that what he's talking about are not really hippies but -- and I'm going to use the term again here because I think it's highly appropriate -- the petty bourgeois elitists (whether radical or liberal) who embody in any number of ways what I described above. The right has understood the power of these cultural signifiers for a very long time, and some on the revolutionary left have as well, but our politics for a long time has been dominated by the petty bourgeois and their attitudes towards the people.

And of course (of course!) when I'm talking about the petty bourgeois here I'm making a generalization. I completely understand that there are many <em>individuals</em> of petty bourgeois standing who really do adopt a revolutionary, proletarian consciousness. And yes, they are to be treasured and nurtured and accepted with open arms. But predominant attitude and outlook among the petty bourgeois is decidedly not proletarian and not revolutionary. The outlook of the progressive petty bourgeoisie is all too often one of open disdain. I experienced it often on campus and experience it today in everyday life. I experienced at Occupy. It's all over the liberal blogosphere. There are even times I experience it in more revolutionary settings, when I'm condescended to as if I'm some kind of child who needs the firm guidance of my cultural betters to understand things properly, as if I couldn't possibly listen to Tupac, clown around with the boys and read and understand Marx at the same time. Well I can.

I've got more to say but I'll leave it there for now.

I originally made a reference to Spartacus on the other thread, “Radiating…” but my main point different than Mike’s, although both seem reflective of a communist outlook.

When the slaves, some one by one, stand up and say, “I am Spartacus” they forged a common identity; an identity and unity that was empowering and inspirational to all those who have suffered under the yoke of oppression and enslavement—in all its forms..

This was not for revenge, pure and simple, but by example some of the sweetest revenge—i.e., when the masses of people together break the chains, sometimes link by link—not just physically but mentally as well.

And that empowerment flies in the face of just being victimized by one’s oppressive and respective slave “masters.” The people start to think, more en masse and collectively, of being the masters of their own destiny. And more and more, people are joining forces--thousands not just speaking bitterness, or seeking revenge, but are trying to find the ways to actually change things.

In the most current situation, can’t we see, uphold, join with, etc. the rise of many Spartacuses—e.g., 30,000 (hoodies) yesterday in Sanford, Fla. alone, fighting for justice for Trayvon Martin—IMO (along with many others) not just for Trayvon Martin but the Emmet Tills and Oscar Grants of the world; the thousands of women across the U.S. waging their own war against the war on women; #Occupy, the Arab Spring inspiring many unlikely Spartacuses, etc. And with the advent of social media, many more Spartacuses are coming to the fore, communicating and connecting.

I got a call tonight from a dear friend, an activist who grew up with Jim Crow in the South. She has always considered herself a “practicing” Christian and knows full well that I’m a forever atheist. She had been listening to the latest diatribe from the “Christian” Right, some off the charts fundamentalist shyster (with Santorum on the same stage and applauding) ranting about how Muslims and Buddhists should get the hell out of Amerikkka. The same “folks” who are trying to discredit the war on women, saying it is a “war on religion.” (and coincidentally (?) at the same time the nazi pope is making his way around Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America.)

So my somewhat lapsed church-going friend starts the conversation with—

“Fuck religion!!!”

She and her two sons are planning to go to their African Methodist Episcopal church on Sunday, wearing hoodies, and with some homemade banners “to stir up some shit.”

You go girlfriend….


And where are “we” as all this unfolds around us? Are “we” lagging behind as more and more things go up for grabs?

I am probably taking this out of context, but it is a question that gnaws at me all the time.

Mike said, “And we will never succeed in being seen as a liberating solution. And we will fail.”

So do “we” see ourselves, even with all our differences, as having the “liberating solution”, or do we see ourselves as part (or an integral part) of and stalwart participants in that liberation? I think there is a difference.

And BTW, seems many people are creating their own righteous and popular symbols as we speak…

Another thing: while I appreciate Mike's attempt at a nuanced view of what I wrote, and while I think he's mostly generous in the body of the text, I gotta say I'm not so enthused about the headline here. I think it risks leaving a false impression in people's minds that my politics is encapsulated by "revenge and hatred of the relatively privileged," as if that's I'm all about, as if I personally can't see beyond that, as if what I really desire is not liberation but to live out some silly Tarantinoesque fantasy. I don't know if Mike characterizes things this way because of his impressions of the music I listen to or what. I certainly hope that I give off a vibe more nuanced than "REVENGE!"

I'd also like to say a little bit more about anger towards and hatred of the oppressor.

Look, I'm not arguing that we should have a <em>politics</em> based around the hatred of <em>individuals</em>. I really hope that's not what Mike believes I'm arguing for. A key aspect of any serious Marxist understanding of the world is an understanding that individuals are often relegated, when they lack a conscious analysis, to just playing their roles within the system. There are plenty of people who are well-meaning and who nonetheless play an unconscious role in perpetuating injustice. I don't hate those individuals. I'd like to help them see reality of what their support of capitalism and imperialism actually means to lives of real human beings. Still less do I have some Manichean view that anybody who has any degree of relative privilege is worthy of hate. However, let's be clear: there are some people in this world with enormous amounts of power and money who care not a fig for humanity, who are more than happy to exploit, oppress and even murder others for a buck. There are truly sick sociopaths that have enormous influence over the world who have no degree of empathy whatsoever. I think that's small portion of species, but they exercise a lot of influence because of their cold-hearted willingness to sacrifice anything and anybody on the alter of personal gain. And I'm not exactly going to go around tsk tsking people if they tell me they hate these sociopaths.

My point, and it's one that may still be controversial for some, is that anger and even hatred of the sociopaths, and more importantly the animating energy behind these emotions, can be channeled in a constructive way. Does anybody doubt the Russian masses hatred for the Czar after Bloody Sunday in 1905? Was this hatred fine or was it horrible? Do you think the energy behind these emotions had anything to do with the ultimate abdication of the Czar in 1917?

Symbols are not too important, except that they have to carry some meaning and should not be something that is going to get ridiculed. They should be as permanent as what they represent. If you're a Soviet-style communist, you should always be proud of the hammer and sickle, although it can be modernized.
More interesting to me is the idea of hate as a motivating factor in politics. Hate should be directed against ideas, policies, or economic classes that we are strongly against. It should not be directed primarily against individuals. The example of the Russian people hating the Czar in an example; the solution to such hate is to simply get a new czar. Or hate our capitalist bankers and politicians. Just appoint or elect new ones. Problem solved, right? Our society believes that the solution to crime is to direct hate toward those accused of crime, not to eliminate the causes of crime. Directing hatred against individuals also guarantees that they will hate you back, and that you will never be able to influence them or win them over. It is the philosophy of those who believe that the only way to get rid of an enemy is to kill them. No compromise, ever! But I think it was Sun Tzu who said something like: "The greatest victory is the one you win without a bloody battle."
Sometimes the sectarianism of communist parties is as bad as that of religious sects fighting over nonsensical differences.(But there are some differences that do really matter.) If communists ever get into power, how can they ever be able to unite all kinds of people together so they can have a functioning society? Can you work now with deeply religious people who believe in social justice without becoming enemies? How much are you really willing to tolerate people's beliefs that are seriously different than your own? Or is the goal a totalitarian society where everybody thinks and acts exactly the same way? We have to SHOW people that we are not like the anti-communist stereotypes, or no one will even listen to us

<blockquote>Hate should be directed against ideas, policies, or economic classes that we are strongly against. It should not be directed primarily against individuals. The example of the Russian people hating the Czar in an example; the solution to such hate is to simply get a new czar. Or hate our capitalist bankers and politicians. Just appoint or elect new ones. Problem solved, right? Our society believes that the solution to crime is to direct hate toward those accused of crime, not to eliminate the causes of crime.</blockquote>

I think this is a rather one-sided view of the issue. The solution of the Russian people was definitely not to get a new Czar.

And we have to make a distinction between the content of our politics, which should be directed against this system, and the grievances against individual oppressors that often do play a role in animating the masses. I don't think we should be going around saying "don't hate oppressor x" in some finger-wagging way. Yes, we absolutely have to get people to connect the dots on a larger vision, but I don't think Mao was going around telling the villagers "don't hate landlord X."

How well do you think it would have worked out if, when the occupation of Tahrir started, we all sat back and said, "No, you mustn't express hate towards Hosni Mubarak?" Or told people in Tunisia, "It's not Ben Ali, it's the system." Yeah, it is the system. But it's not always terrible when the masses direct their ire towards high-level oppressors.

Mike,

The problem with such high-horse morality is that it leads to monk-like self-righteousness, often the opposite of the intended. A good example is the GPCR: when it "got out of hand" those who came on top were not the voices who wanted to "be different from the enemy" but the voices that had always opposed the GPCR because they were the targets.

I think history shows that moral and ethical positions that are absolute are the problem: the complete tailism of understandable rage and the complete, ascetic, self-denial of this rage are both problems.

For me, this is the same as my views on socialism and communism: there is the perfect, and then there is the good, and one cannot let one be the enemy of the other. One cannot let the need not to mirror the reactionaries get in the way of the entirely understandable human emotion of retribution and vengeance. Personally, I am not a vindictive person - and I have many reasons to be vindictive - but I be damned if I were to impose my own proclivities upon the entirety of society.

Which returns me to the theme of totalitarianism: we cannot -politically- control how people behave or react, and to aspire and attempt to can and has lead to very dark places. We can, however, politically influence the conditions that affect how people behave and react.

I think that is a primary difference between a political movement (or even a sect) and a cult or affinity group: one has leeway in how people are, the other doesn't.

I think SKS hits on an important point: high-mindedness taken too far can be just as alienating as a politics based on rage.

We certainly don't want to be seen as above it all because being above it all is a luxury that the most oppressed in this society just don't have. We will rightfully be seen as out of touch if we resort to moralistic sermonizing. So it's a balancing act. If we want to be tribunes of the people we have understand and be able to articulate on a deep level the legitimate anger that they feel, but we don't want a politics that lashes out blindly either.

<blockquote>Second, I don’t share or promote the kind of dismissive insulting of the “enlightened middle classes.” Why mock tofu? Is there something wrong with eating tofu that we communists should expose? Or are there issues of diet and sustainability emerging among some middle class forces that we can “divide into two” — and help apply more widely (for both heath and ecological reasons)?</blockquote>

The point was not really about tofu or wheat grass or Priuses or Elizabeth Warren. I have nothing against people who eat tofu. I have nothing against vegans. I'm frustrated by liberals but I certainly don't hate them.

Ghan is right that I was partly just blowing off a bit of steam. But I was also trying to make what I think is an important point which is that left culture has been under the hegemony of liberals for a long time. And too often these liberals use these kind of cultural signifiers in a way that alienates less privileged people.

I sometimes shop at Wal Mart. I don't like Wal Mart. I think they're a despicable entity in many ways. But I'm poor. And so, yes, low prices are important to me. Now in conversations I've mentioned to "enlightened middle class" liberals that I shop there and the response has often been one of condescension and moral superiority, as if I didn't know what Wal Mart was all about, as if I'm in favor of their labor practices or against sustainability or whatever.

In this town the middle class liberals like to think of themselves as oh-so-enlightened about everything. And they're so very happy to tell you just how enlightened they feel they are. It's very annoying.

As for my statement that the petty bourgeoisie can never understand the beauty in the anger expressed by Tupac, I think Mike is right to say that's not literally true. But looking back at it now I think I said it more as assertion of my own proletarian identity and a direct challenge to the progressive petty bourgeoisie to not always judge things by their perfectly politically correct standards, to not always be so judgmental about the proletariat and its rough edges.

"I sometimes shop at Wal Mart. I don’t like Wal Mart. I think they’re a despicable entity in many ways. But I’m poor. And so, yes, low prices are important to me. Now in conversations I’ve mentioned to “enlightened middle class” liberals that I shop there and the response has often been one of condescension and moral superiority, as if I didn’t know what Wal Mart was all about, as if I’m in favor of their labor practices or against sustainability or whatever. "

Yes, and to me this is a perfect example of how ideology IS connected to the interests of a specific class. (The only confusion arises over the fact that one can ascribe to an ideology belonging to a class other than one's own) In this case, the ideology of the petit-bourgeois consumer class that wishes to see circulation and consumption as the motor of the capitalist economy rather than as a byproduct. This shows a prejudice towards the proletariat (the class that produces value) as a central force of socio-political change.

That's where Mike's argument runs ashore. It's all well and good to "love and nurture" revolutionaries from middle-class backgrounds. (All revolutionaries deserve love and nurturing from their comrades) The problem is that so many people from middle-class backgrounds who are NOT (yet) revolutionaries, view themselves as the centrally political class and dismiss or marginalize the political demands of the underclass. These illusions DO need to be shattered as a pre-requisite for mass-mobilization of the middle strata in support of the revolutionary project, which is the project of the proletariat asserting itself as a class. The education that the middle strata needs is the education that teaches them that they are in the camp of the working-class, not coddling them and placating to their illusions about the unique political importance of their position in society.

There is an element of "be the change you want to see in the world" that is true, and an aspect that is really fucking annoying, and an element that is reactionary. The struggle is to figure out how to separate what is true from the others.

I have an internal struggle, between my general love of humanity, and my hatred for what one segment of humanity does for the rest. I want to include the capitalists in this new and better world, but I want them to pay for the lives they've stolen from the millions of corpses that paid for their profits. I think of the nine million dead children under the age of five every year, and I wonder how I will ever be able to forgive.

I think that when the revolution comes, some capitalists, some bosses, some cops, etc., will need to fear for their lives, even if they don't take up arms against us. Those who run Coca Cola's bottling operation in Columbia, for example, have a lot of blood on their hands, and I don't think the revolution should stand between them and their workers.

On the other hand, a general orgy of revenge and blood letting would take the revolution no where, except possibly into Pol Pot territory, which is no place we want to be, regardless of U.S. responsibility for much of what happened there.

I do think the best revenge will be showing them a world without them running things, a world which will be better and more beautiful than anything they could have imagined. I do think that part of the problem of capitalism is that it turns humans into monsters, and we want to make them human again.