Quick timeline, in case you aren't aware:

1. An old, anarchist, occasionally postie-leaning subreddit called r/antiwork has existed for several years. For most of this time it was large by the standards of its politics, but ultimately small.

2. In the last few months, the subreddit has exploded, becoming a rallying ground for people to discuss their negative experiences with asshole bosses, bad work environments etc. Several posts have made the reddit front page.

3. This obviously led, in a way, to a "depoliticization" of the community. The vast majority of newcomers were not principled anarchists, but simply people tired of a lot of the bullshit that work entails; I assume many did not read the sidebar. But still, a huge community moderated by anarchists coming together over shared grief relating to work? Sounds like a dream come true for the left—or is it?

4. A moderator of the subreddit, somewhat lacking in media training and rhetorical skill, appeared on Fox News recently. They did not make as much of an embarrassment of themselves as they could have, but it was hardly a moment of triumph. Moderators subsequently posted something or other about the media trying to destroy "us" (the community as a whole, presumably) and the sub went private shortly after. Splinter subs have appeared, expressing less radical politics.

I've peeked around some leftist subreddits to see general reactions, and I find the takes fascinating.

On r/LateStageCapitalism, like many places, the consensus appears to be something like "gosh darn liberals ruining everything by watering down our community"—I'm sorry, several million people basically sat themselves down into your lap and said "please tell me why work sucks so much", and you're angry that they "diluted" your community? That they didn't leave you and your inept little political club all alone? One comes to wonder whether these fellows want to build a mass movement or not.

Much else is said, but interesting is also what is not being said. There generally appears to exist no understanding whatsoever of how social movements work. In fact, I get the feeling that some of these self-proclaimed anarcho-communists have a conception of mass movements where you have a little discord server with internet-addicted 16-year olds, and then if you just post about how you're totally gonna do a general strike all of the dumb liberals will go away and The People will Rise Up. Where exactly the Liberals go and where exactly The People will emerge from appears to be a problem as yet unsolved (perhaps The People are hiding in tunnels?) though surely through the power of prayer posting online for the 27th time that there's totally gonna be a completely unplanned global general strike in two months, all will be revealed.

These last few weeks of r/Antiwork have been interesting. My personal guess as to what would cause the sub to fall apart was probably the weird tension between, on one hand, the many new users, posting (quite entertaining) stories about quitting their jobs or teaching their abusive managers a lesson, and on the other, the old guard of flaired anarchists condescendingly telling people to read Kropotkin. What comes up must come down, but we don't always know how or when, but I'll give myself a half-right because many of the splinter subs seem to be directly addressing this issue.

I do think r/Antiwork could have been an opportunity in other, more competent hands. The Left is, however, as always, not particularly good at seizing upon opportunities. You deserve what you achieve, I suppose—and if what you achieve is nothing, well...

This has been a brief post-leftish rant on the r/Antiwork issue. Feel free to add your own thoughts or tell me I'm dumb and wrong.

Digital apartheid: Palestinians being silenced on social media

Social media companies, from Zoom to Facebook and Twitter, are reinforcing Israel’s erasure of Palestinians.

Excerpts:

In April, for example, Zoom, Facebook and Youtube blocked the online academic event “Whose Narratives? What Free Speech for Palestine?” co-sponsored by the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies program at San Francisco State University, the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUFCA), and the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).

In April, after Zoom refused to host the “Whose Narratives?” event for the second time – following pressure from an Israeli government app and several right-wing Zionist organisations – Facebook not only took down publicity posts about the event, but also deleted the page of the AMED Studies program from its platform in its entirety, effectively erasing a vast archive of talks, discussions and documents on the Palestinian liberation struggle and its relationship to freedom movements from around the world.

Israel and its allies are not only pressuring Big Tech to silence the Palestinians from outside. Facebook’s oversight board, an independent body tasked with deliberating on the platform’s content decisions, includes former director-general of the Israeli ministry of justice, Emi Palmor. Palmor personally managed Israel’s Cyber Unit in the past, which successfully lobbied for the removal of thousands of pieces of Palestinian content from Facebook.

While it is only logical to assume Palmor’s presence on the oversight board is contributing to Facebook’s anti-Palestinian actions, Big Tech’s routine silencing of Palestinian voices cannot be blamed on such overtly pro-Israeli actors in its higher echelons alone.

Since the very beginning, social media companies have gravitated towards and aligned with centres of power in the US capitalist and imperialist structures. They even partnered with the US Department of Defence, coordinating surveillance and big data analysis. So it is not that a few powerful pro-Israeli voices are coopting social media companies into silencing dissent; the industry itself is rotten to its core. Let us not forget how Big Tech executives and employees have orchestrated a huge land grab and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area, displacing thousands of working-class and poor communities of colour.

In a recent CNN interview, Mohamed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and activist from Sheikh Jarrah, powerfully turned the age-old media trope of Palestinians being inherently “violent” on its head by responding to the reporter’s leading question with one of his own: “Do you support the violent dispossession of me and my family?” As usual, US mainstream media organisations attempt to hide the asymmetrical nature of Israel’s aggression by defining its latest and ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people as “clashes” or a “conflict”.

This latest round of social media censorship of Palestinian posts about Sheikh Jarrah is part of a larger pattern of repression, given the long and well-documented complicity between Israel and social media companies in regulating and censoring Palestinian content and accounts. Instagram officially attributed these latest deletions to a “global technical issue”. Twitter likewise claimed the restriction of the account of Palestinian writer Mariam Barghouti, which was subsequently reinstated following a huge social media outcry, was an “accident”. Activists and watchdog organisations have expressed doubts about such explanations, given the targeted nature of the removals and censures.

Decades after Edward Said’s criticism of the US media’s insistent refusal to allow Palestinians to narrate their own stories, the voices in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle are being silenced not only by mainstream media organisations but also social media companies.

..."We're all in this together!!"

Original post: https://raddle.me/f/anarchy/153342/how-to-be-a-leftoid-10-red-flags-to-drape-yourself-with

1. Be obsessed with identity: declare all your affiliations when describing completely unrelated matters. "As a disabled queer POC in STEM, I really hate cottage cheese".

2. Needlessly collectivize people at every opportunity in order to attack and demonize them: "You oppose industrial civilization which naturally means you want to genocide (deified identity groups that celebrate industrial civilization), we must purge you for the good of all society!"

3. REFUSE to veer off strict path set out for you by dead idols, always live in that cozy 19th century factory in your mind and scream bloody murder at anyone who dares poke holes in the illusion: "REVISIONIST ANTI-COMMUNIST SCUM!!!"

4. Use carefully constructed academic language in order to maintain elitist barriers that will keep the unwashed peasants out of "the community" (politburo)

5. If that doesn't work, make heavy use of fun words like "problematic", "reactionary", "wrecker", "doomer" to castigate the filthy animals who won't fall in line with your glorious revolutionary program and cast them out before they taint the beautiful utopia you're sacrificing EVERYTHING to build

6. Speaking of sacrifice, make sure to ritually sacrifice your fellow leftoids whenever the opportunity presents itself because remember: there can only be one Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and all pretenders need to be brutally eliminated so you can secure that chair

7. Remember to strap on those boots, march, chant those slogans, wear those badges and wave that flag because the only way to destroy nationalism is to goosestep right behind them (but draped in red)

8. ACAB (except us)

9. Remember: Victimhood is the most powerful identity of all. Tell everyone within earshot how victimized you are and how much you deserve to be in charge

10. Work! The productivity of the worker is paramount. We can't build the revolution without a strong work ethic, comrade, even if that means we need to sacrifice half the workers and 98% of the world's ecosystems in the process... Just keep telling yourself you're enduring an empty, torturous life so your great-great-great grandchildren can one day live in a classless, money-less utopia after the revolution. Working yourself to death is always worthwhile when communism is the end goal.

So I'm sort of in between post leftistism and left anarchism, I like aspects of both. However I strongly dislike what identity politics has become, or is, or maybe always was. I feel like it's just another method of control with a better deontological justification.

However bigotry and systemic racism are still problems regardless of wether or not idpol is a shit show.

So I thought perhaps maybe some post leftists would have some interesting takes on these issues. I recently read this article by flower bomb and agreed with a lot of its criticisms of identity politics.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/flower-bomb-an-obituary-for-identity-politics

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this topic? I'm pretty open minded on this and really dont have a set opinion other than I'm disillusioned with the current state of left identity politics.

They don't know how to argue anything without applying moral imperatives to everything. "If you hate America, just LeEeEeEaAaAve!" "Americans can't criticize Canada for their treatment of indigenous people because America also did it, because all Americans definitely benefit from that!" "You should want a secure job, it's okay to be boring!"

I genuinely want to do things that will get me banned from Reddit to STEM liberals. Morality and objectivity are greater threats than anyone wants to admit.

Metal From the Dirt

For whatever its worth, this video has personal significance for me. I hitch hiked through the Navajo reservation once upon a time, and was picked up once by a family who then invited me to stay the night. The father had a metal guitar, I think it was an Ibanez. This happened 12 years ago, but this video reminded me. Wouldn't be surprised if this dude is involved somehow.

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty great video for this subreddit.

EDIT: Here's at least one excerpt for anyone who doesn't understand how this is relevant to this sub:

"Growing up on the res. is basically a constant struggle - there's no jobs, there's little to no opportunity. You have cultural roots that you grew up with, with your grandparents, your family, your parents... Before western expansion, you know, we were all right. We took care of ourselves and we were very self-sufficient. But when we had to conform to western culture that's when everything went pretty much straight to hell after that for us. Like I'm not an activist or anything but I'm aware of our history and I'm proud to be a Navajo. It's hard to balance that cultural heritage as well as trying to live in the 21st century. It's a constant struggle. It's a cultural trauma passed down is what we play, how we feel, the anger, that aggression, growing our hair out..."

And while I'm at it:

Honestly probably all of us even here on this forum are inheritors of cultural trauma. Doesn't matter what race you are, really just a matter of a different time period in history. White, black, yellow, red, brown, humans have been conquering and enslaving each other for thousands of years. It's obviously more raw for a Native American, especially growing up on a reservation. But I think its relatable energy.

(The thread on the homepage is locked, so I'm making a post instead of asking there. Sorry if this is a basic question.)

As someone who was first introduced to the idea of anarchism in the framework of anarcho-communism, seeing anarchism that directly opposes leftist thought is strange. So I'd like to ask here, what do you guys believe and why do you directly separate yourselves from leftist thought?