Nagarjuna

The story: https://labornotes.org/2023/12/inspired-strike-wins-1000-volkswagen-workers-sign-union-cards

Volkswagon is the first of many organizing victories that will come in the wake of the UAW strike. Militancy builds support!

This takes a look at the history of labor militancy on scales smaller than strikes, and advocates for guerilla labor actions as a solid foundation for larger actions like strike.

It's a really good look at practical examples from history of how to make gains at work even when you are between contracts or maybe even don't have a union.

Turning the global conflict meter and looking back at the audience like a contestant on the price is right

If you're thinking in tickets and arrests, you're not really thinking about justice.

Former democratic party activists are organizing Muslims and Arab-Americans in Swing states to vote against Biden with the demand that he support a ceasefire in Gaza.

I'll allow them a little bit of electoralism this time.

An injury to one is an injury to all.

I've seen a lot of posts on this site that are leaning into anti semetic tropes while criticizing Israel. I want to point it out so that folks can recognize it.

First, because I have to say it:

Israel is a colonial outpost of the United States. It was created by Britain and inherited by the US. The US gives Israel ~3,000,000,000 USD in aid every year. As a colony, it should be the goal of every socialist to destroy it, just as we seek the destruction of the US, Northern Ireland, South Korea, Canada, the Phillipine state, etc.

But! Israel is also a safe haven for Jews. This is seperable from the colonial nature of the state. Israel could have been created in Germany or Siberia or frankly Florida for that matter (in fact, annexing Florida to create a new state of Israel is what I mean when i refer to "the one state solution"). In many ways, the US with its civil rights act serves the same purpose, and in fact, most Jews live in the US.

Many of us had ancestors in Germany or Poland during the holocaust who did not stick around after the war. They saw Israel as their best shot at safety in the wake of the holocaust. Many Israelis are liberals, hoping to vote out Likud, stop supporting settlements, and negotiate palestinian statehood. These people are advocating half measures, sure, but they are not our enemies.

So I wanted to point out some anti-semetic tropes I've seen on this website and call them out so you can recognize them.

Conflating Jews in Israel with Zionists.

This can be done through omission. If you aren't clear whether you're talking about jews or a specific institution (for example, the I"D"F or the settlements or Likud), many people will read your statement as being about Jews. Be careful with the word "they"

erasing the ambivalent position of jews within colonialism / conflating jewishness with whiteness

The zionist entity is not a Jewish colonial project, but an Anglo colonial project. It was created by the British and now is funded by the US Americans. Jews are an oppressed minority whose oppression is leveraged against other oppressed peoples. Similarly to how the US uses Kurds to Balkanize Iraq or The Hmong to wage counterinsurgency in Laos, it's uses Jews to destabilize the Levant.

Outside of the US, jews are largely understood as a racial group and oppressed on that basis. Especially in the Arab world where the Islamic hyper nationalism has gained ground in response to colonialism and been funded further by colonialists to their own ends (google "the safari club" or "Israel funds Hamas")

Blood Libel

This one is the assertion that Jews are uniquely bloodthirsty / murder non Jewish children. The classic example of this myth that people are familiar with is Runplestiltskin.

It is true that the IDF under the direction of Likud and the US state is murdering many Gazans, the majority of whom are children. but! be careful to specify. When people talk about "jews" or "israelis" generally as perpetuating the murder of children, they are engaging in the blood libel trope. Again, be careful with the word "they" and specify which entities you're talking about.

calling for ethnic cleansing

Okay, wtf ya'll. It's not jews as an ethnicity that are oppressing Palestinians, it is US imperial power. Jews have always lived in Palestine and the occupation only began in the 40s as part of a British initiative.

Jews will always be part of a palestinian state, and frankly need protections as ethnic and religious minorities. We do not seek the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, but their integration into it as citizens.

Jews are safe in the US not because its a colonial state but because of civil rights protections and generational wealth. If we can create civil rights protections in Palestine and a social safety net (ideally communism but I'll settle for social democracy), then jews will be safe in Palestine.

Jewish control of America / protocols of the elders of zion

America controls Israel and not vice versa. APEC is not a cabal brainwashing otherwise Nobel Christian politicians. US politicians support Israel because they're colonial politicians and Israel is our colony. APEC exists because lobbying is how power is exercised in the US, but if we had patronage instead, APEC' functions would be carried our by a governor or an ambassador or whatever.

conclusion

Recognize the role of the US empire in Palestinian oppression. Recognize that jews are in an ambivalent racial category and are an oppressed people. Be specific when criticizing Israeli colonialism. Name who you're criticizing, is it the settlements? The IDF? Likud? The US military Industrial Complex? Stop calling for ethnic cleansing of jews if you've been doing that. Don't equate jewishness with whiteness / the Nazis. White people are white people, the US is the Nazis.

This is what putting people in a pressure cooker of $8/hr minimum wage, state violence and $1500/mo rents yields.

Also, whatever you think of this action (I happen to be against it because it's illegal.), acknowledge that mobilizing this many people is the result of invisible forms of organizing, not neccesarily legible to the "left" whose traditions cross-polinate with the professionalized activism of ngos, labor unions and political parties.

It's just a shame that it was expressed this way. We need major social democratic reforms and avenues for disenfranchised people to exercise political power so these kinds of desperate actions don't disrupt our lives.

The provocative title is a way to call attention to the ways that overseas reporting and domestic reporting on social conflict differ. A detournament of imperialist propaganda if you will.

Housing is a human right. This is what decomoddification from the bottom up looks like.

Till every cage is empty.