DJP
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With some relevance to Trump / ‘insurrection’
What’s with the reluctance to call the storming of the Capital with the intention of overturning an election an ‘insurrection’? Surely the likelihood of success is not a criterion of whether something is an ‘insurrection’ or not, but the nature of the actions themselves.
Interesting background facts are in this BBC series:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001324rWow, that tweet above is a pure embarrassment! Using official social media accounts to snitch to the police, surely that’s a no-no?
And surely SPGB members would be pleased if that Stalinist monstrosity was removed from Highgate cemetery. Not that anyone is going to topple it in the near future.
Incase anyone missed it, there’s already a decent text on UBI here: https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/en/what-wrong-free-money/
The struggle in society is not between “blacks” and “whites” but between workers and capitalists.
Which piece of CRT law research says “the struggle in society is between “blacks” and “whites”?
All it says is that the racist legacy of slavery / white supremacy / segregation has real effects in today’s society and not talking about it will not solve the problem. It’s not racist to talk about the effects that “race” has on society and want to do something about it.
It is racist because it is based on the concept of race, and only racists believe and support the concept of race
But CRT is explicitly *not* based on an acceptance of “race” as a biological category.
One reason I wrote “if” is because that Maoist article says of one school of CRT:
“Realism rejects that structural racism can be eliminated through class solidarity because the contradiction between white working class and black working class is an antagonistic contradiction (or very close to being one)”
Yes, I did notice the “if”. I wonder what they are actually talking about – a strong case of “citation needed”. I don’t think the Maoist, or Trotskyist, press should be the first choice for sources on this..
The only thing we could say against CRT is that it’s reformist, another appeal for equal rights to exploitation. But as far as I understand it right now they don’t seem to be working from false premises.
As far as I can work out this whole moral outrage about “Critical Race Theory” has been manufactured by the American Right as a convenient vehicle in an effort to regain power. I think we need to tread carefully.
it is a racist theory
OK, then in that case you’ll have to say what you are specifically talking about and *why* you think it’s racist. Otherwise you’re just repeating GOP political lies and ideology.
if CRT is saying that there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between white and black workers
But CRT isn’t saying that. From and article I posted in the previous thread about this:
Critical race theory is a field of intellectual inquiry that demonstrates the legal codification of racism in America.
Through the study of law and U.S. history, it attempts to reveal how racial oppression shaped the legal fabric of the U.S. Critical race theory is traditionally less concerned with how racism manifests itself in interactions with individuals and more concerned with how racism has been, and is, codified into the law.
There are a few beliefs commonly held by most critical race theorists.
First, race is not fundamentally or essentially a matter of biology, but rather a social construct. While physical features and geographic origin play a part in making up what we think of as race, societies will often make up the rest of what we think of as race. For instance, 19th- and early-20th-century scientists and politicians frequently described people of color as intellectually or morally inferior, and used those false descriptions to justify oppression and discrimination.
Second, these racial views have been codified into the nation’s foundational documents and legal system. For evidence of that, look no further than the “Three-Fifths Compromise” in the Constitution, whereby slaves, denied the right to vote, were nonetheless treated as part of the population for increasing congressional representation of slave-holding states.
Third, given the pervasiveness of racism in our legal system and institutions, racism is not aberrant, but a normal part of life.
Fourth, multiple elements, such as race and gender, can lead to kinds of compounded discrimination that lack the civil rights protections given to individual, protected categories. For example, Crenshaw has forcibly argued that there is a lack of legal protection for Black women as a category. The courts have treated Black women as Black, or women, but not both in discrimination cases – despite the fact that they may have experienced discrimination because they were both.
Source: https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752
In light of facts like these:
http://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/05/21/how-america-compares-to-the-world-when-split-by-race
How are you going to argue against the above?“Race” and white supremacy are still very relevant factors in US politics, this should be obvious to anyone that wants to look. I’m not sure how you can have any understanding of recent American history without using these concepts. “CRT” has just become the latest bogey of the American right, lets not get swept away with that.
I shall never really feel free while Julian is still imprisoned and while Scotland is still part of an imperialist United Kingdom.
FFS
I don’t follow developments in the anarchist milieu but what, DJP, is the split in the Spanish CNT? Looks as if the UK IWW will have joined the less dogmatically anarchist faction? But why join either?
I know that there has been two CNT’s in Spain for a few years, but hadn’t previously really known the ins and outs of it. (The last major split was around the time of the demise of Francoism and that led to the formation of the Spanish CGT). The present split seems to be about the unilateral reforming of the IWA (or IAT in Spanish). So there’s now a CNT and a CNT-IAT.
I starting reading this interview with a CNT general secretary but haven’t got to the bottom of it yet:
https://libcom.org/blog/beyond-iwa-interview-cnt%E2%80%99s-international-secretary-04012017Surely our policy is to join the union that is best likely to support our working “rights”, support other members of the working class in their on going struggles and which increases our pay.
And in some cases (though perhaps Spain is the only country where this could actually be the case) this could involve joining an explicitly anarcho-syndicalist union. I don’t think you have to be a fully committed anarchist to join the CNT or Spanish CGT, they don’t filter membership like that, just a wage worker.
The outcome of Pieter Lawrence’s campaign was this compromise resolution carried by Conference in 1991:
“That this Conference recognises that rules and regulations, and democratic procedures for making and changing them and for deciding if they have been infringed, will exist in socialist society. Whereas a ruling class depends on the maintenance of laws to ensure control of class society, a classless society obtains social cohesion through its socialisation process without resorting to a coercive machinery. However, in view of the fact that in socialist theory the word “law” means a social rule made and enforced by the state, and in view of the fact that the coercive machinery that is the state will be abolished in socialist society, this Conference decides that it is inappropriate to talk about laws, law courts, a police force and prisons existing in a socialist society.”
Are any of the documents relating to this conference available online? I’d be particularly interested in reading Peiter’s motion and any responces to it.
