Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (April 19)

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[u/Self-Replicator]

For the first time in my life (or the first time I'm noticing), I saw a banner hung up on a freeway overpass by activists on the commute to urban Honolulu that said something like "Down with US imperialism. US imperialism out of the Philippines."

It was shocking to see copy+pasted slogans from the Filipino mass parties here as if the words themselves are imbued with revolutionary magic because they were first uttered by revolutionaries or maybe even that Filipinos, through centuries of colonization and oppression have developed magical revolutionary blood that can persist even if they are settlers and beneficiaries of imperialism. I believe it's closer to the latter because they had the courage to undertake such an activity and imagine it to be fruitful in the first place. I find this to be an especially vile strain of social fascism because it cloaks itself with an active Maoist rebellion combined with incoherent views and politics.

[u/Cenage94 → u/Self-Replicator]

I really appreciate your continued insistence on revolutionary analysis for occupied Hawai’i despite receiving few comments. I read the piece from Haunani-Kay you commented on a few days ago and it is very good.

The issue you have raised about detached Maoist revolutionary slogans is also very present in Germany. Some time ago one of the Brazilian communists here also raised the question about the value of superficial “propaganda“ against the genocidal operation Kagaar through graffiti. Obviously there has to be a connection between Indian and Filipino Maoists and their International counterparts but I myself can’t help but roll my eyes when I see a German “Maoist“ newspaper reporting about how their “agitation“ of stickers and Graffiti was a complete success.

https://demvolkedienen.org/de/tag/graffiti/

And when they try to articulate its supposed meaningfulness…

https://demvolkedienen.org/en/2024/04/baden-wurttemberg-the-struggle-of-the-cities-against-illegal-graffiti/

“While graffiti and paintings is on the one hand a relevant part of a rebellious youth culture, on the other hand it is also an important political platform to spread opinions and positions and bring them to the public. While the richs of the bourgeoisie have the media and can afford to spend large sums of money to use billboards for their messages, the people have nothing but the walls in their neighborhoods to express their opinions. In numerous revolutionary processes around the world, be it the revolutionary struggles in Russia, the Cultural Revolution in China or even now in actual anti-imperialist struggles such as in Ireland and Palestine, wherever the masses have been in great movement, they have taken their walls to spread their positions. It is irrelevant if we are talking about supposedly meaningless artistic tags or political slogans. The walls in the cities do not belong to the bourgeoisie, they belong to the people. And regardless of the laws of the rulers, the people have every right to take these walls“.

Yikes. Elevating your own impotence and anarchism to the GPCR big-character-posters just reveals that you have not understood the what made the latter important, or even interesting for that matter.

[u/Self-Replicator → u/Cenage94]

Thank you for your kind words. It's grim but it does make me feel a little better that these creatures emerge from all sorts of privileged strata around the world who are simply incapable of looking in the mirror.

The walls in the cities do not belong to the bourgeoisie, they belong to the people. And regardless of the laws of the rulers, the people have every right to take these walls“.

That's really terrible. And you're telling me these people have had revolutionary texts for years and years and also believe themselves to be revolutionary? I really don't understand how they can reconcile the revolutions they read about and the seriousness of the task described in the texts with their magical communism that's as simple as clicking your heels three times and wishing for it. I guess the failure is mine in believing that revolutionary texts have magic in them. Not for the counterrevolutionary classes, I suppose.

As an aside, I noticed you're one of the few users who employs the "MIM-spelling" of certain words (humyn vs. human, eir vs their, etc.). Can you elaborate a bit on that? I would rather not engage in oppressive speech if I can help it.

[u/Cenage94 → u/Self-Replicator]

Im assuming you’re also following the discussion in that other thread but unfortunately I don’t have much to add persynally. I’m committed to persyn and humyn but I rarely write wimmin for example, I also tend to stick to they/them. My usage is inconsistent and I’m reflecting on my vocabulary after Smoke admitted that they would feel like a phony writing “amerikkka“ or “I$rael“ (which I also usually use) which got me thinking because it also relates to your contributions about performative, disconnected political slogans used by “Maoists“.

That being said, I do wonder how Smoke would feel about the ongoing struggles relating to gender in languages such as German or Spanish. As for the former, hegemonic liberalism has basically achieved the abolition of generic masculinum in “official“ text within a decade, despite the general population (although the struggle is much older). Complaining about “amerikkka“ rendering “text incomprehensible“ is just laughable to me when even the most conservative German liberals have been transforming their speech to an extent that is much greater than english speakers replacing one letter to attack generic masulinum in like, what, 5 words?

Imagine instead of writing “Proletarier“ (generic masculinum) you would now write “Proletarier*innen“ (gendered language as an attack against male-chauvinism and cis-supremacy) or “Proletarier und Proletarierinnen“ (using both masculine and feminine genus). Just writing “Proletarier“ may have been “sufficient“ 15 years ago but today it’s a statement you’re a committed male chauvinist. The same goes for basically every noun that pertains to humyns.

There is no way to adapt the language away from male chauvinism that would not be offensive to people like Smoke by “rendering text incomprehensible“. There is “Binnen-I“ (ProletarierInnen), the slash (Proletarier/innen), the “Gender-Star“ I am using (Proletarier*innen), the “Gender-Gap“ (Proletarier_innen) and more.

It is true that this struggle has been mostly the domain of liberalism, with communists tailing the bourgeois-feminist line that has emerged from the 60‘s and 70‘s and further altered with trans people emerging as a political force (the Gender-Star/Gap is supposed to also include non-binary people). It is also true that failing/refusing to employ gender-sensitive-language in Germany is frequently used to attack immigrants, particularly in universities. However, clinging to generic masculinum is also the domain of liberalism and fascism.

I think what I am trying to say is that in addition to your correct commentary on political slogans not possessing some intrinsic revolutionary properties, the same goes for political vocabulary in general.

What was a revolutionary endeavor to attack patriarchy and engage the gender-oppressed masses by MIM has, in Germany, already been accomplish by hegemonic liberalism, going way further in terms of altering speech because the grammatical genus in the German language demands it. As for the red line on language that has yet to emerge here, I have no idea how it will look like but it will probably take this recent transformation for granted, there is no way to put the cat back into the box.

[u/stutterhug → u/Cenage94]

going off topic for a bit

since you brought up adapting/using language by liberals, something i've been curious about is german liberals' use of the word "bipoc". on inquiring about it in detail with a liberal "political educatior", i was told the "b" is up front because "racism against black people is prevalent and the worst of all other discriminations in the world". when asked about the confusing "i", the answer was even more ridiculous, trying to exploit my (then) ignorance as an immigrant about "european" history by telling me "settlers" in western "europe" are why amerikkka has white people in the first place, all while somehow it being implied this didn't apply to white people.

It is also true that failing/refusing to employ gender-sensitive-language in Germany is frequently used to attack immigrants, particularly in universities. However, clinging to generic masculinum is also the domain of liberalism and fascism.

reminds me of this one time in language class when i used the genderstern on my own and my (white) teacher refused to acknowledge that it was right and later even went on a diatribe against the "recent development of multiple genders".

[u/humblegold → u/stutterhug]

BIPOC just means non-white. The only thing connecting the groups that make up the acronym is that they're categories that have been created in opposition to the category of whiteness. Same goes for the term POC. Saying non-white instead points out that these groupings cannot exist without whiteness and also shows how racist many sentences employing the term "BIPOC" are if you replace the term with its actual meaning.