This is just another reason to be organized, so others can look out for you and call attention to it if weird shit happens to one of you.
There is always risk to attempting to kill anyone. And there isn’t much benefit to it if all they’re doing is talking. Even the most repressive of states are usually going to go for imprisonment more than assassination.
The bourgeoisie haven’t gotten this far with pushing the legitimacy of “liberal democracy” by assassinating everyone who has an annoying opinion. Do not fall prey to paranoid thinking and exaggeration of what the state is capable of. Instead, consider it from the standpoint of logistics, precedent, and perceived material benefit. Expect that they will tend to put the most violent resources toward what appears the most immediately threatening and expect that they will also be calculating for what it looks like publicly to do so.
For example, one of the things they did to the Black Panther Party was slander their breakfast program for schoolkids. They didn’t just immediately start trying to kill every member.
Also consider what this train of thought is legitimizing: The argument here is essentially saying that someone can’t even run for political office in the US as anti-imperialist without getting assassinated. In the end, it seems to come out as a sideways way of excusing people like Mamdani for throwing the international working class under the bus. If it were proven to be actually that bad, then the criticism of someone like Mamdani should not be how he capitulated in order to win, but that he chose to run for office at all in spite of there being no way to meaningfully support the broader cause from that position, even as lip service.
I disagree with it being a defense for Mamdani. Mamdani is not unknown, and his rhetoric is getting less radical as he’s increasing in fame-derived protection. Rather you should take what Truly said to mean that he was vetted as this type of person before he was allowed to become influential.
In the USA, liberal democracy was legitimised on a framework apartheid, following public lynchings, following a genocide and cattle slavery. The optics in the USA have always been vile, and yet their PR is able to dictate the narrative. Even right now they have more political prisoners than anywhere else, yet the average liberal wouldn’t label the governance as “oppressive”.
There has been a period of fewer political assassinations in the USA. (Or they’re better at hiding them). We can safely presume they found lower risk and higher return strategies, but that doesn’t mean we can infer the risk was ever high.
I mean, people can judge for themselves, and as organizations, what kind of risk they want to take and how they want to present what they’re doing. But people got vilified just for bringing aid to Cuba. Unless you’re just going to go full underground, you have to take a stand in public view sometimes. If one’s goal is to make a career as a politician for themself within the system, then they aren’t a revolutionary to begin with. But if they are trying to get elected for now and use it as a platform to elevate consciousness and move things closer to liberation, capitulating on everything that matters is not the way.
Maybe Mamdani is nothing more than an opportunist. But for those who are sincere and look at the lane someone like him takes, my insistence is, learn from the lane someone like Marandi takes instead. Yes, the conditions are not identical, but the tactic of bringing your own narrative, rather than treating an interview like an attempt to keep the peace with family members during the holidays, is applicable anywhere in the world where liberation is an ongoing fight.
I mean, “centrist” Dem judges’ houses have been set alright, and had their doors knocked and families’ shot when answered, and this is regular citizens amped up on stochastic terrorism and G-d only knows what else. Why would the feds do it when they can coerce regular citizens to do it, or join fake da’esh cells or anything else?
This is just another reason to be organized, so others can look out for you and call attention to it if weird shit happens to one of you.
There is always risk to attempting to kill anyone. And there isn’t much benefit to it if all they’re doing is talking. Even the most repressive of states are usually going to go for imprisonment more than assassination.
The bourgeoisie haven’t gotten this far with pushing the legitimacy of “liberal democracy” by assassinating everyone who has an annoying opinion. Do not fall prey to paranoid thinking and exaggeration of what the state is capable of. Instead, consider it from the standpoint of logistics, precedent, and perceived material benefit. Expect that they will tend to put the most violent resources toward what appears the most immediately threatening and expect that they will also be calculating for what it looks like publicly to do so.
For example, one of the things they did to the Black Panther Party was slander their breakfast program for schoolkids. They didn’t just immediately start trying to kill every member.
Also consider what this train of thought is legitimizing: The argument here is essentially saying that someone can’t even run for political office in the US as anti-imperialist without getting assassinated. In the end, it seems to come out as a sideways way of excusing people like Mamdani for throwing the international working class under the bus. If it were proven to be actually that bad, then the criticism of someone like Mamdani should not be how he capitulated in order to win, but that he chose to run for office at all in spite of there being no way to meaningfully support the broader cause from that position, even as lip service.
I disagree with it being a defense for Mamdani. Mamdani is not unknown, and his rhetoric is getting less radical as he’s increasing in fame-derived protection. Rather you should take what Truly said to mean that he was vetted as this type of person before he was allowed to become influential.
In the USA, liberal democracy was legitimised on a framework apartheid, following public lynchings, following a genocide and cattle slavery. The optics in the USA have always been vile, and yet their PR is able to dictate the narrative. Even right now they have more political prisoners than anywhere else, yet the average liberal wouldn’t label the governance as “oppressive”.
There has been a period of fewer political assassinations in the USA. (Or they’re better at hiding them). We can safely presume they found lower risk and higher return strategies, but that doesn’t mean we can infer the risk was ever high.
I mean, people can judge for themselves, and as organizations, what kind of risk they want to take and how they want to present what they’re doing. But people got vilified just for bringing aid to Cuba. Unless you’re just going to go full underground, you have to take a stand in public view sometimes. If one’s goal is to make a career as a politician for themself within the system, then they aren’t a revolutionary to begin with. But if they are trying to get elected for now and use it as a platform to elevate consciousness and move things closer to liberation, capitulating on everything that matters is not the way.
Maybe Mamdani is nothing more than an opportunist. But for those who are sincere and look at the lane someone like him takes, my insistence is, learn from the lane someone like Marandi takes instead. Yes, the conditions are not identical, but the tactic of bringing your own narrative, rather than treating an interview like an attempt to keep the peace with family members during the holidays, is applicable anywhere in the world where liberation is an ongoing fight.
This is what brings me into full agreement. He threw his wife under the bus, ffs.
I mean, “centrist” Dem judges’ houses have been set alright, and had their doors knocked and families’ shot when answered, and this is regular citizens amped up on stochastic terrorism and G-d only knows what else. Why would the feds do it when they can coerce regular citizens to do it, or join fake da’esh cells or anything else?