Warning: Cynicism
I am a part of a left org that has been putting efforts into showing support for Palestine. A lot of demos, speaking at city council meetings, pressuring agencies to support a ceasefire, etc.
I’m considering bringing it up to comrades that maybe this has run its course. The IDF has been moving South and is now in Rafah. The only thing the US has done is issue “concerns” that have been ignored; the US has not stopped funding the war. How much destruction is there left that we as American activists are even trying to prevent?
Tell me I’m wrong. I want to be wrong. I just see comrades putting their efforts into this for emotional and not practical reasons at this point.
Basically every great achievement for the proletarians of the world seemed impossible right up until it was possible and then, in retrospect, it is very easy to lapse into complacency and assume that it was inevitable all along.
Vietnam took on the fucking United States and won.
The Bolsheviks took on the aristocracy and the capitalists of the world and won.
We must guard against cynicism foreclosing on the opportunities that may be presented to us in the present and in the future. If the Viet Minh allowed this to happen, Vietnam would still be a colony. If the Bolsheviks allowed this to happen, Russia would still be a Tsardom.
Here’s a quote from Mike Davis in an interview to chew on:
Viet Minh and the Bolsheviks didn’t just hold peace rallies and protests. Not that I’m implying anything. Just something to think about.
Absolutely. No disagreements here.
Tbh the world has failed Palestinians and it continues to fail them. This fact eats away at me and I find the lack of action is personally devastating to me. But I think that I’m only feeling a small fraction compared to Palestinians themselves. Maybe it’s useful to frame what I’m feeling about the situation as a crash course in deep solidarity idk.
Ultimately we have to contain our need to see action lest it develop into adventurism. And this is coming from someone who suffers from crippling depression and who has to wrestle with a not-insignificant part of me whose overwhelming urge is to do an adventurism (doesn’t help any that I have enough knowledge to achieve this, either.)
But individual actions almost invariably achieve very little. It’s only when we act collectively and in a sustained way that we are able to achieve change. The task at hand has always been to build knowledge, build the movement, and build the party. Rallies aid in this by educating, agitating, and organising (as insignificant and insufficient as it may feel).
If we can direct this urgent need for things to be different towards being the most committed socialists and to contributing the most towards our organisations and parties (and towards being the most upstanding member of these that we are capable of being) then that’s the best place to put all this energy.
We’ve gotta build the foundation before we can build the structure. I wish that we were further along than we are but the working class has always been in desperate circumstances and I try to remember that fact because if I historicise this experience in the context of the past then it reminds me that I’m just feeling the desperation more acutely but it has always been right there.
Idk. I don’t have any real answers and I’m just rambling at you but I guess I just wanted you to know that I think about this a lot.