Midwestern Marx is not perfect
(Thread here: https://nitter.fdn.fr/RodericDay/status/1666063389733298176#m) They have some decent stuff, but they are also tailist patsocs. It’s probably better to just read the Black Agenda Report article than buy the book.
Yes this article seems to summarize the Midwestern Marx group's schtik.
Tactically for the movement as a whole it is good to have Americans be more anti imperialist and unionizing in order to undermine the power of empire and funnel people to a more marxist lenninist way of thinking. I don't think they want the disaster of unions for whites.
MWM doesn't say much about marginalized people other than say that they are not revolutionary subjects for their minority status, but by their status as workers. They are very much in favor of AES countries. There is the linguistic criticism that Americans can be proud of the historical workers struggles without opposing their American identity. It seems that it is a linguistic strategy to not trigger barriers to conversion.
Is the criticism that they post very long winded stuff and still don't mention how the secondary contradictions of ablism, anti LGBTQ, and white supremecy are superstructural elements that support the base of capitalism?
From an ideological funnel perspective I don't think that they are bad, but useful to the socialist cause. If there were an actual party with power and they were doing what they are doing now, I'd say that they serve the forces of reaction because their kind of discourse isn't necessary when a communist party with effective power exists. In that situation that party would need to push against our old superstructure even further with a cultural revolution.
For those that can be radicalized with compassion, use one kind of rhetoric. For those that can be radicalized with self interest use another. The core of the party must though be those that are compassionate either initially or eventually.
It is sus platforming Haz or Maupin though.
Unless you are a third worldist that thinks that the USA needs to be militarily destroyed by the periphery nations, I don't think they are inherently opposed to the building of the socialist movement in the United States. Tell me where I am wrong.
The US will be destroyed by the fourth worlders. I've posted elsewhere in this thread why American Communists absolutely need to be decolonial revolutionaries. MWM meeting white supremacists halfway leads them away from the decolonial movement, let's them keep their reactionary views, and puts them into opposition to our liberation. Instead of platforming indigenous and Black revolutionary voices they party with white supremacists like Haz and Hinkle.
Supporting indigenous people's liberation is certainly morally correct. The way about linguistically supporting it must appeal to the interests of the people you are trying to convince though. We can talk about how we can use indigenous knowledge to have a healthier relationship with the land and live happier and healthier lives. We can utilize the treaties as a means to an end to give rental properties on their land back to the tribes as a means to undo the exploititative rent of corporations like black rock.
What does being "destroyed by fourth worlders" mean exactly? They are locked out of power to destroy the country without help from colonizers thus proclaiming such a strategy is immaterial.
If we see all workers as workers regardless of background and organize in such a manner, but listen to the marginalized about the ways that the capitalist superstructure is perpetuated within our new organizations in order to take actions to meet their needs.
Who they platform is sus though.
I think the core issue is that the working class in the USA is having trouble conceptualizing how to actually achieve power.
This is news to you? Midwestern have always been patsocs, and Liger even recommended Maupin's book as well as admitting to doing a collab with InfraHaz.
the 3 ppl who downvoted me are patsocs :p
Looks like you shamed one of them successfully lol
That whole thread by Roderic is great and really digs into the problems with midwesternmarx and this book.
They've been flirting with patsocs for a while, but it looks like when pressed about it now they are doubling down. Recently they had some friendly interactions with Haz even.
MWM (Eddie) and Rainer Shea are crypto patsocs. They don't believe in Land Back and Black Liberation, they believe Settler Colonialism in the US is over and thus the decolonial movement doesn't apply.
They are dogmatists who refuse to do any historical research of North America, and are class reductionists (who ignore that racism and colonialism are class systems in the first place).
I've noticed a few times that decolonial points get brought up, specifically in relation to US settlers today, the comments expressing these ideas tend to get quite a few downvotes without anyone really offering a substantive critique. I find it a bit worrying but I don't know if it's some external brigading or if some of the users here hold these views.
In any case, like you said, the US is very much still a white-supremacist settler state. There is a very real material basis leading to differences in interests between racial groups in the US. This kind of divide makes it very difficult if not impossible to rely on a predominantly white working class to be a revolutionary force. There's a reason that most of the theoretical development and all the revolutionary movements in the US have been led by minorities and the conditions to change that aren't there yet. Not even close.
Like confused men they don't understand that the system of oppression can hurt them while still overwhelmingly benefit them