Skipped a month
Internationalism
I see the current moment as one of a failure of internationalism and international solidarity, despite unprecedented opportunities for contact and understanding across borders. This failure is well illustrated by the selective solidarity exhibited by the left for emancipatory struggles that don't fit into the tired geopolitical matrix of "anti-imperialism" - as well as by the mirroring selective solidarity of liberals and neoconservatives for pro-democracy movements that don't fit into the geopolitical matrix of the Washington consensus.
Recent reading: An exception to the rule of selective solidarity on the left is Bill Weinberg; his "Forgotten voices in Venezuela crisis", published by New Politics, is one of the better things on the topic published there. Another is antidote zine - see e.g. this on Russian prisoners. And another is Libcom - e.g. this on the uprising in Sudan. Also check out Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice (CPRSJ) and Black Rose/Rosa Negra.
I've probably got a post's worth of Syria reading, so just two things for now: my comrade Omar Sabbour on how Assad has backed ISIS, and Can Paz in Chartist on how Corbyn's Labour needs to get real on Syria.
One of the rising stars of the worst kind of "anti-imperialism" is fake leftist Tulsi Gabbard, who recently announced she'd be standing for nomination for the Dems in 2020. Here Ramah Kudaimi shows Tulsi Gabbard Is No ‘Progressive’ When It Comes to Foreign Policy.
Recovering anti-racism
Racism, and divisions based on the idea of "race", play a massive role in contemporary politics. But, although there is now a mainstream norm against being seen as racist, the anti-racist movement has withered, and understandings of racism have become attenuated, as well as outpaced by the ways racism has mutated in the last decades. We need a renewal of the anti-racist tradition.
Recent reading: Ralph Leonard has a smart essay in Conatus News on anti-Muslim racism; from back in November, Matthew Lyons on demystifying far right antisemitism.
Post-truth
The postmodern crisis of truth has had a terribly corrosive effect on our body politics, seeing the rise of charlatan populisms and conspiracy theories, and paralysing effective collective action. We need to fight to recreate a culture of truth and informed deliberation.
Recent reading: "Hoaxes, hate speech find home on Instagram" by Ali Breland - having never spent time on Instagram, I had no idea about this. At Libcom: a "10 Step Guide to Detecting Conspiracy Theories & Bullshit". Essential on left-right convergence and conspiracy theory: Javier Sethness on Radical media and the blurred lines of ‘red’ fascism.
Rebooting anti-fascism
Anti-fascism, and its more narrow militant "antifa" incarnation, have had something of a revival since 2017, prompted by the far more intense revival of fascism and other forms of far right politics in the Trump/Brexit period. However, we are still not close to having the movement we need to tackle the challenge.
Recent reading: From way back in December 2016, although maybe updated since, this is a good starter reading list for anti-fascists from the Twin Cities General Defense Committee (GDC) of the IWW, a key group in the emerging US militant ant-fascist movement. Also from a while back, but I'm not sure if I've linked to it, an interview in In These Times with anti-fascist historian Mark Bray on the hundred year history of the movement. I don't agree with all of it, but this is a really interesting piece, called "Anti-anti-antifa", by AM Gittlitz in Commune. In Britain, one step forward, two steps back, with the welcome formation of Labour Against Racism and Fascism followed by its takeover by left bureaucrats and soft Stalinists. And this is really important: London Anarchist Fed's "Building coalitions outside SUTR/SWP".
Understanding fascism (and fascism's infiltration of the left)
Key to rebooting anti-fascism, and radical politics more generally, is understanding the far right, including both fascism and right-wing populism - as well as seeing how right-wing politics have been mutating and getting purchase in oppositional scenes.
Recent reading: My friend Spencer Sunshine produced this encyclopedic catalogue of what the far right and alt-right got up to in America in 2018. Christopher Matthias on The Proud Boys, The GOP And 'The Fascist Creep'. On red-brown convergence: Gabriel Levy on fascist "anti-fascism" in Russia. Alex Reid Ross's Brief But Very Informative History of How Fascists Infiltrated Punk and Metal and his From eXile to Dirtbag: Edgelord geopolitics and the rise of “National Bolshevism”.
An anti-Stalinist left
As I've written before, Stalinism, which should have collapsed with the Berlin Wall (well, actually long before then) has had something of a rebirth in the left.
Recent reading: The go-to sites for the British anti-Stalinist left, I think, are the blogs Shiraz Socialist and Tendance Coatesy. As a sample, here's Jim Denham on the Morning Star and Arron Banks, Toby Abse on the Brexit Stalinists, and Andrew Coates on Max Shachtman.
The great model for both anti-Stalinism and anti-fascism is of course George Orwell, although he is often co-opted by the liberals and Tories alike. Here's a nice post from Libcom on the Orwell quotes the right don't want you to recall.
Uprooting left antisemitism
Antisemitism on the left is not a new problem of the Corybn period; I've been blogging about it for well over a decade now.
Recent reading: I've been quite impressed by the evolution of Labour left activist Steve Cooke in taking left antisemitism seriously. For a sample of his activism, read this from November. The AWL is the left group that's least crap on this issue, including on its link to Israel/Palestine - read Martin Thomas' "How to be pro-Palestinian without being 'anti-Zionist'" (though here's a more jaundiced view from Anti-Nazis United). ANU forensically documents left and right antisemitism - here's one example, an apparent Norfolk Labour Party member, another, on Skwawkbox, and another on Chris Williamson.
Confusionism
A lot of the above falls under the category of what the French call "confusionism". Recent reading: This sharp left communist blogpost about the yellow jackets, People's Brexiteers and anarcho-Corbynism covers quite a lot of ground in this department.
Remembering our struggles
Knowing the history of our movement is essential in rebooting it in the 21st century. Recent reading: Ron Ramdin's Asian workers' associations in Britain, 1956-1980s. Black Flag on community politics and the IWCA.
Yiddish culture/Bob's beats
Finally, I'd like to have a little bit of less political stuff on this blog in 2019, including on Jewish stuff and on music. For starters, here's my friend Rokhl Kafrissen on A Very English Scandal as A Very un-Yiddish Scandal, on how the history of the Holocaust was preserved, and talking back to Molly Crabapple in My Great-Grandfather Wasn’t a Bundist
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