/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

There is a disease infecting the "left" in America, such as it is.

A disease of passivity.

No one will act, and by this I mean do anything besides pointless chanting and marching because they have not reached some undefined, arbitrary (and constantly shifting, in order to provide them with unlimited excuses) threshold of popular support that will, they think, magically flip a switch and allow them to do something. No change in circumstances will spur them to action. Even as their erstwhile comrades and immigrants are openly rounded up and thrown into for-profit concentration camps to be tortured and deported, the American "left", such as it is, sits on its hands and not only does nothing, but tells everyone else to do the same. Even as they watch the general public cheer and applaud the random murder of a CEO, they still believe that doing anything would be the greatest sin possible and doom their already insignificant movement to destruction. The greatest crime anyone can commit in the eyes of the western "left", such as it is, is so-called "adventurism", which is to say doing anything at all. They are so afraid of this "adventurism" that the quickest way to be ostracized from the American "left", such as it is, is to imply that anyone should DO anything.

Why has this sickness emerged? It is because the "left", such as it is, spends all their time reading theory but none of it reading history. Dialectical materialism is a tool which we use to analyze history, not a means to an end. Understanding dialectical materialism but not history is like a mechanic buying all their tools but loudly and boastfully refusing to ever work on a car for fear of getting their hands dirty. It is pointless, a waste of time, resources and energy. If anyone in the western "left" had genuine conviction in their beliefs, even a cursory reading of actual history would dissuade them of this cancerous strategy of "sit and do nothing." It takes only a basic understanding of history, analyzed through the lens of dialectical materialism, to understand why this strategy is doomed to fail.

This mindset of passivity is in error for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it ignores the class composition and material conditions of America. The ancient tomes into which the western "left", such as it is, pours all it's time and attention, were written over 100 years ago in countries with wildly different material conditions to America and the west in general. Russia and China, the origins of most of the theory that the western "left" hyper focuses on, were still struggling to escape from the yoke of feudalism and suffering from deep, existential crises, both internal and external. Even then, the revolutionary movements only gained serious traction when the old order was either seriously diminished or outright destroyed by brutal foreign invaders. In the case of Russia, this was caused by the first world war, and in China, a series of western interventions, culminating in complete anarchy and a genocidal invasion from the Japanese imperialists. This means that the majority of the people were ruthlessly oppressed, both by their own government and by external forces. This gave the people a common cause and a rallying cry, which allowed the Communists (through hard work and lots of bloody struggle) to gain mass popular support.

In America, this is not the case. There is no external army here to shatter the state, and there never will be. The two oceans provide impenetrable insulation against invasion, to such an extent that a foreign invasion is not just farfetched, it is impossible. It would be easier to eat the sun than to move millions of troops and all their supplies across the vastness of the ocean to invade America. Even a basic understanding of military strategy and history would reveal this to be true. It simply cannot be done. Protected from foreign pressure, American capital has become a complete hegemon, able to loot the entire world at will and use the superprofits generated from imperialism both to prevent any dissent by buying off the otherwise restive sections of the proletariat and to build a state apparatus that maintains an iron grip on the populace through an inescapable surveillance and propaganda panopticon. There will be and can be no mass movement in America like there was in Russia and China until America, as in, the central government, is either seriously diminished or destroyed. Since that cannot happen through an external force, it must be done internally. ONLY Americans can destroy America, and America MUST be destroyed.

This mindset is also at complete odds with history. Every successful revolutionary organization started their armed cadres and began to wage war against the state before they had mass popular support. In fact, it was mostly through their dedicated campaigns against state power that they earned their support in the first place. To give an example, the first armed cadres of the CPC were formed when the party had fewer than 5000 members. The first combat groups of the Bolsheviks were created in 1902, and in the last 20 years of the Tsarist state, over 17,000 people died from so-called "terrorist" attacks even as the parties which would later start and lead the revolution were in their infancy, if they existed at all. It was largely through armed struggle, demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice everything, including their lives, that these groups were able to recruit new members. War and politics are not just related, they are the same thing. All acts of war are political acts, and vice versa. To quote one of the pillars of Leninism, Carl von Clausewitz:

>"We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception."

Thirdly, this mindset ignores the urgency which has emerged from our present epoch of history. For the first time, humanity, not just one individual nation, faces an existential threat through Capitalism-caused climate change. If we do not act now, we will be looking at a world that has been rendered unfit for human habitation. It may already be too late to save the planet, but every day we wait, the situation becomes worse. The very nature of capitalism means that any efforts that the system takes against climate change will be meaningless and intentionally ineffective. Any nation which tries to go against the capitalist world order and chart a different, more humane and ecologically sound path will be either starved to death or violently destroyed by the United States. Even America's vassals are forced to maximize their consumption to feed the fires of global capitalism, to wit, the vast expansions of NATOs military in response to the mere existence of China means that there will be a vast increase in carbon emissions, poisoning the world that much faster. This means, therefore, that to fight against climate change in any meaningful sense, we must fight against America.

Even setting aside climate change, which would be a foolish policy, the American system still sustains itself through blood. In the 30 years after the fall of the USSR, the United States has, at an absolute minimum, murdered 15 million innocent people through economic and physical warfare. You may be questioning how this number has emerged. At least 5 million excess deaths were caused by Capitalism in Russia alone from 1991-2001. Another 5 million have died since the 2001 "Global War on Terror". Before that, America callously starved to death over 1 million Iraqis through sanctions (really, siege warfare) and killed 1.5 million in Yugoslavia. This number is both incomplete and rising every single day. It can do nothing but, as the American economy is based around the endless sale of more arms. Even the farthest "left" of America's mainstream politicians openly advocate for the maintenance and expansion of this murderous system of oppression. America cannot be reformed, it cannot be remade into something more humane, America MUST be destroyed.

Since the class composition of America precludes the formation of a national front against the government and the geography of the country precludes any foreign invasion, this means that the crisis which weakens and destroys the American state can only come from within. Since climate change cannot be fought within the same system that caused it, we do not have time to wait for the ebb and flow of empire to eventually lead to America's implosion. We must act, and we must act NOW. America MUST be destroyed, the only possible alternative is human extinction.

The ONLY left wing policy, therefore, is to physically wage war against this system, by any means, and at any cost necessary. Facing the absolute certainty of extinction from Capitalism-caused climate change, we cannot hold our own lives so dear. It is better to die now, standing on our feet for even the remotest chance at a better future than to die later, choking and coughing as our planet becomes uninhabitable. If you would sit and do nothing in the face of your extinction, then you deserve to go extinct.