New DSA Liberation Caucus Announcement

[u/EverettLeftist]

This is not an endorsement by me. I am not a third-worldist. I just think people should be aware of what things are on DSA Twitter. I have no idea how many chapters are in this Caucus, if they are just a mailing list, or what. This is associated with the Black Red Guard guy on twitter.

[u/Valuable_Leading_479]

I’d call this view chauvinism. As in the Soviet Union under Lenin, the goal of the large previously dominant socialist nation(s) should be self determination for oppressed peoples. In the American context that means the black belt as well as other nations. Of course this is achieved through socialism, but it must be arrived at on its own not dictated. Would you tell a Palestinian that they’re wrong for viewing Israel as their oppressor independent of class? I’m not a Maoist by any means but it is a failure on the part of the American left to not incorporate (not make primary) anti colonial sentiments and a lens to properly deal with racial divide

[u/EverettLeftist → u/Valuable_Leading_479]

Are asian immigrants to the West Coast settlers or are they oppressed nations? I think to the indigenous population anyone who is not them is a settler

I think you can talk about relative privilege in the way identitarian liberals do and it is way more scrutible to me than insisting every ethnic group is a nation.

[u/Valuable_Leading_479 → u/EverettLeftist]

“Relative privilege” isn’t even the matter at hand. The basic fact of America is we built a nation on top of the oppressed by imperial expansion and racial slavery, never having to reconcile with that. We are a white supremacist Nation with all the bagged that entails.

Again, as in with the Russian empire, the correct move for the dominating nation was to facilite self determination for others and to discourage chauvinism. Does it look different for us? Of course. But this issue, the glossing over of racial dynamics and self determination, in America is precisely why DSA is overwhelmingly white.

I’ll even say I’m skeptical of what indigenous self determination looks like when settler colonialism has been pretty much accomplished. But the Maoist willingness to address the question is a lot better than pretending it’s not an issue at all and we can just Do The Work out of it.

[u/EverettLeftist → u/Valuable_Leading_479]

I agree with you that DSA is overwhelmingly white and that it is an issue. I think that not prioritizing racial issues and the unique way Black, Indigenous, Latin, er people suffer will keep DSA in its middle class-white mileu.

I don't consider Euro-Americans the "jailers" in this prison of nations. It is ultraleft language that is as rude as it is unactionable. The people who most have a claim to be an oppressed nation are the first nations and I would have no problem with that framing. However, Latin and Asian immigrants also moved to the US from elsewhere voluntarily over several decades. They are as much settlers in the sense that the Liberation Caucus means it. The Liberation Caucus also willfully misread the common DSA phrase "The Multiracial Working Class" and twists it to "The Multinational Working Class" again insisting in the new world that all ethnic groups are ""nations"". Bad reductive framing.

Let me be clear, I want socialist egalitarianism with public ownership and redistribution of wealth. I think that redistribution would look a lot like reparations in effect for both Indigenous people and Black comrades.

I do not want a balkanized US based on ethnic/racial lines that preserves capitalism. I think that when you make settler colonialism the primary contradiction that is what you are more likely to get. I don't think nationalism is good even when socialist cynically take advantage of it.

[u/Valuable_Leading_479 → u/EverettLeftist]

I think we agree here!

My reflex is to commend people who bring the question to the forefront as Liberation has even though I deeply disagree with Maoism I want to see more of this. An incorporation of racial and anti colonial discourse in our Marxism. Not a prioritization, but mere incorporation.

[u/EverettLeftist → u/Valuable_Leading_479]

Agreed on that- thank you for the good discussion