Today I reviewed Slobodian and Tarnoff's excellent book *Muskism*, in which I argue that situating Elon Musk within the dynamics of class struggle transforms our approach to the international capitalist crisis and the imperial strategies to contain it
https://t.co/ZQiN6lWqMt
@workertenant To clarify, bc my phrasing was ambiguous, youre right to say that there were programmatic demands. I wanted to push back on the tendency symptomatic in OP that the rebellions were somehow "pre-political" or that they were not already oriented towards radically political ends
I think this characterization that it was "just" two cities really undersells just how significantly Ferguson and Flint reverberated through American politics. In addition, claiming that bc the 2020 uprisings had no programmatic demands they were apolitical is a very flat reading
BLM 2014-15 was in 2 cities. It was not a nationwide mvmt. BLM 2020 had no real demands or vision, so it was barely politics. "Woke 1" was abandoned so easily bc it never emerged from grassroots struggle. The only true politics was anti Zionism, which simply couldn't be coopted.
@RashmanTheHorse But it's not fleeting moral sentiment. Nor is it essentially dead as a politics. The impact still continues to shape post-Oct 7th/anti-ICE struggles. I think you can only believe this if class struggle is real to the extent that it's legible from the standpoint of the state
@totalnewbie1 You have to have a very specific and elite-centric notion of the political to approach the wave of urban and suburban rebellions throughout the 2010s as primarily a PMC non-profit psyop. That certainly wasn't the experience of the people on the ground subject to state repression
@Lauan_al It's a very helpful survey of how the left (especially Black Radical and feminist traditions) have reconceptualized fascism in light of changing historical circumstances. I recommend it!
To the Amerikkkan โleftโ being a backwater adjacent merc who slaughtered brown people is on par with a young person who has partied & said stupid shit online.
Cops have completely surrounded protestors and theyโre hitting them with riot shields.
Complete attack on peaceful protestors who were simply chanting. Blatant and completely unprovoked
Maybe it's because I'm not sufficiently practiced, but every time I attempt to outline an essay ahead of time it makes the drafting stage 10x more difficult. Maybe vibe drafting really is the way