liberalism

Black August Resistance poster, by Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson, via Black Opinion, August 26, 2016

Black August and Its Global Importance

by The Bucharest Anti-Racist Collective, Bucharest, Romania

Why is the US national prison strike important not for just for the Americas but also for global attempts to fight racialized capitalism?

This time of year, dubbed Black August, is the time when a prisoner-led movement should be at the forefront of our attention. This is probably the biggest prison strike in US history. Although not always visible, comrades in prison are “boycotting commissaries,” “engaging in hunger strikes which can take days for the state to acknowledge,” and “will be engaging in sit-ins and work strikes which are not always reported to the outside.” Yet, other frames which count as political protest and contestation fight for visibility in the global media. Tropes such as “the corruption of politicians” and “the urban carnival of political protest” work to highlight these politics branded as “resistance to power.”

Nazi-Punching Praxis: Against the Liberal Theology of Reason & Non-Violence

[George Ciccariello-Maher interviewed by Daniel Denvir – Part 2]

I think what is being missed is the fact that [punching Nazis] is a praxis, that this is not simply a performance—it’s not an expression of frustration. It’s an actual political practice that is constructive and creative. The effects that punching Nazis creates include, first, as Richard Spencer through his own absurd inability to think strategically has admitted, it has made his life a living hell already. He admitted that it’s making it very difficult for them to organize. He’s admitted, in other words, everything that many of us have said about how Nazis need to be treated and about this famous apocryphal quote from Hitler that says, “If someone had recognized early on and crushed our movement with the utmost brutality of violence, then we would never have been able to grow.”

For Antifa, No Platform for Fascism

– by Mark Bray –

Germany has a prohibition against advocating for Nazis publicly. That doesn’t mean that Germany is a closed society where people can’t say whatever they want to say. You can have some prohibitions against speech without going all the way. In the context of an increasing number of hate crimes — the Southern Poverty Law Center cited over 800 such crimes immediately following the election of President Trump — the idea is that the people who carry out these crimes are listening to Richard Spencer speeches, going on Stormfront websites, imbibing this hateful doctrine, and that, to the degree that we can shut it down, we will have fewer people copy-catting them into attacking vulnerable populations. Most people would agree that it was acceptable in the 1930s and 1940s to organize armed resistance to the Nazi regime. The question is: how terrible does it have to be before that becomes legitimate? And the anti-fascist answer is: you need to nip it in the bud from the beginning.

Trump: The Neo-Authoritarian Tendency & the Epochal Crisis of Capitalism

– Luis Arizmendi –
“Make America great again” is a slogan that represents an unquestionably confused and intransigent project of reconfiguration of the US-led capitalist system and the restructuring of US global hegemony. Trump’s aims are not only to integrate the US working class, but also to push forward an authoritarian integration of this group in the government’s efforts to maintain its global influence. He sponsors escalating political violence as response to the present economic crisis. Donald Trump’s capitalism personifies the neo-authoritarian tendency of capitalism in the 21st century.

The Pitfalls of (White) Liberal Panic

– by Dylan Rodríguez –
There should be no shock at the success of White Nationalist revival. A fog of liberal-progressive panic seeps across the closest quarters, oddly individualizing what some inhabit as a normal and collective disposition of familiarity with emergency under conditions of constant bodily and spiritual duress.

Authoritarianism in America: A Call for Resistance

– by Henry A. Giroux –
Authoritarianism has now become viral in America, spreading its toxic ideology into every facet of American life. The threat of totalitarianism with its legions of alt-right political zombies has now exposed itself, without apology, knowing full well that it no longer has to code or apologize for its hatred of all those who do not fit into its white-supremacist and ultra-nationalist script.

‘White Privilege’ Defanged: From Class War Analysis to Electoral Cynicism

– by Zach Schwartz-Weinstein –
Throughout the current election cycle, it has been striking to note the ways that privilege discourse has been deployed to demand loyalty to particular parties and candidates. …This use of the concept marks an appropriation, one which transforms privilege discourse fundamentally, from an analysis of white supremacy’s capillary and quotidian power into an individuating and deeply ideological mechanism of state discipline.