Why one 19th century racist liberal was more politically advanced than all of today’s white nationalist “leftists” put together – Part Four

And now, these clowns. 

Pictured here undisguised and au naturel, these are individuals and organizations who call themselves “Marxist” of some sort – “socialists,” “communists,” “Marxist-Leninists,” or even “Maoists” – while frantically waving the good ol’ red white and blue banner of parasite amerikkka. 

But even in the full camouflage of their self-designated “Marxist” regalia these jokers are easy to spot. Just ask them, for instance, about Ward Churchill.

You’ll get (a) silence, (b) grudging support for “free speech” but silence on the substance of Ward Churchill’s remarks on amerikan Little Eichmanns, (c) wild and vociferous support for “free speech” but silence on Little Eichmanns, or (d) some of (b) or (c) tacked on to an all out denunciation of the substance of Ward Churchill’s words. 

To simplify, here’s what you won’t get: (e) Ward Churchill is right about the amerikan Little Eichmanns he fingered, and upholding this correctness is the obvious primary political task of revolutionaries in the Ward Churchill struggle. 

It’s a litmus test of foolproof design and construction. Query an alleged “Marxist” of any of the variants above about Ward Churchill, and if you don’t get (e) straightaway, then for sure you’ve got yourself an all-amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “leftist.” 

The test derives its infallibility from the fundamentally white nationalist politics of these “leftists” that confer upon the white nation an exceptionalism the sweeping dimensions of which are all but unimaginable to mere mortals. Amerikans, for these “leftists,” are just simply and comprehensively exempt from any charge of Little Eichmannism, period, end of discussion. By the laws of physics or those of logic, and most probably both, Amerikans simply cannot be guilty of any of the crimes committed by their white nation – just can’t happen, dude, so do not even go there. 

We’ll clarify how we’re interested in the concept of “guilt.” We have no interest in metaphysical concepts determining who gets to sit at the right hand of god or who winds up damned for all fucking eternity. Our interest is in “guilt” as a shorthand class analysis: those who are “guilty” of crimes against the world’s truly oppressed and exploited are just those who are much more likely than not to line up as enemies of the oppressed and exploited. Again, Maoists are in large part about the business of determining friends and enemies of the oppressed, and the concept of “guilt” can often be helpful as a broad indicator in this enterprise. 

For the white nationalist “leftists”, the corollary to the immunity of Amerikans from Little Eichmann guilt is of course that Amerikans are and have always been the indisputable friends, allies, and all round good buddies of the most oppressed and exploited. That’s cause, it goes without saying, Amerikans are and have always been exploited and oppressed themselves. Amerikans are the oppressed and exploited, don’t you know. If Amerikans are “guilty” of anything at all, it’s that they have “false consciousness” and don’t realize just how very, very oppressed and exploited they really are. But even that isn’t really their doing – it’s the “brainwashing” they get from “the imperialists.” So, see, guiltless again. 

Well, that’s their class analysis and are they sticking to it! Talk about your Homeland Security and your Star Wars Defense Shield …  Amerikans are nothing if not safe under the impenetrable ideological protection of these “leftists.” Bring up 400 years of amerikans siding with their reactionary leadership in oppressing and exploiting entire nations – doesn’t matter. Genocide of the First Nations? Doesn’t matter. Slavery? Nope. The fact that the whole empire was built on stolen land by an enslaved Black nation? Oh, they’ll say, white Amerikans didn’t benefit – some of them didn’t get as much of the plunder as others – and where’s the fairness in that? Well name one instance in 400 years when Amerikans, in anything approaching a majority, stood on the side of one of the multitude of oppressed nations that the whites have attacked and plundered. They can’t, but it doesn’t matter – there was still a “ruling class” that didn’t hand out the loot fairly. 

Or you can try economics. What about the fact that almost all Amerikans are in the world’s richest 15% – where did that come from? Hard work and thriftiness, don’t you know. It doesn’t mean they’ve profited from the ruthless Amerikan empire building they’ve consistently supported? Nope, they’re still exploited – they’re not trillionaires yet, are they? Well what about the fact that most Amerikans are in the world’s richest 10% while nearly half the earth’s population lives at subsistence levels or less? Doesn’t this make you even a tiny bit suspicious that Amerikans might be guilty of sharing in the plunder of the oppressed nations? Why on earth would it? 

You can even lead them through a whole exercise in economic comparison. Like this. Take “poverty.” The white nationalist so-called “left” likes to think amerikans are “exploited” rather than guilty exploiters, so they like to talk about how much “poverty” there is in amerika. Let’s talk specifics then. In 2006 the U$ government designated the “poverty level” for a family of three as $15,769. By this definition there are something less than 40,000,000 people “in poverty” in the u$. That’s the total number of individuals “in poverty” in the u$ – wage earners, unemployed, adults, children, etc. (Note that these stats will inflate the number of “impoverished” individuals because they don’t reflect just the “poverty” of the white nation of amerika but lump in the captive oppressed nations as well. We can live with that overestimation for our purposes here.) 

Ok, take that $15,769 for a family of three. Let’s figure a rough average of the “poverty” population by taking the midpoint of that ”poverty” income – $7884 (half of $15,769). Now we need individual incomes for this exercise, so we’ll divide that estimated average by 3 (the number of family members) – that’s $2868. So roughly estimated, the average individual “in poverty” in the u$ has a yearly income of about $2868. 

Before proceeding, some may have already noticed something odd. The World Bank, which keeps stats on world poverty, sets the definition of poverty at $2 a day, or $730 a year. Almost half the world lives at that level. That’s subsistence level. Nothing to lose, you might say, but their chains. So right off the bat we’re defining “poverty” for amerikans by a different standard. Just more Amerikan exceptionalism. Amerikans can still be “in poverty” while receiving almost four times the income of the great mass of the world’s truly exploited. But that’s only the beginning. 

Take our $2868 for an average ”impoverished” individual in the u$. Now go to the Global Rich List. That’s why we needed individual incomes here, because the Global Rich List tells you in a flash how an individual income stacks up against incomes in the rest of the world. So plug in $2868. That 14.93 that you get tells you that an individual with that income is richer than 85% of the world – that individual is in the world’s richest 15%. That’s the average “impoverished” individual in the u$. 

That individual’s income is roughly midpoint for the 40,000,000 “in poverty” in the u$. Half of those 40,000,000, or 20,000,000, have a higher yearly income. The other 20,000,000 have a lower income and may not be in that world’s richest 15%. But out of a u$ population of 301,139,947, at least 281,139,947, or 93%, are. Including, as we’ve just seen, at least half of those that the white nationalist “left” likes to prate about as being “in poverty.” And the other half of the u$ “impoverished”? Well we won’t take you through the calculations here, but it will turn out that many of them are still in the world’s richest 15%, and every single one is in the world’s richest 20%.

And we can refine this much further. Like, most of those 93% of amerikans in the world’s richest 15% are actually in the world’s richest 10%. Like, even amerikans with a nominal income of $0 can still get more than $2 a day somehow – free food, free housing, etc. – and even these individuals are better off than many Third World workers. Like, the $7884 midpoint used in this example is extremely generous to the white nationalists. Many more families will be closer to the $15,769 income than to $0. And as these variables are refined the proportion of amerikans in the world’s richest 15%, including those “in poverty”, will inch precipitiously close to 100%.  But we’ll just stick with the broader brush for now.

So, anyhow, here’s the white nationalists’ prime and shining proof that amerikkkans are victims of amerikan imperialism rather than its blood-guilty benefactors. That small minority of the white nation that this “left” claims as living in “poverty.” And look, we can easily and clearly demonstrate to them that this showcase population is actually mostly a part of the world’s richest 15%. And so we ask, again, does such an example even raise a reasonable suspicion that amerikans might be on the imperial bankroll, is it enough to even warrant some further investigation into whether amerikkkans might have benefited all along from national oppression, might be sucking off the Third World even as we speak, and might have some material basis such as material gain for their 400 years of reactionary behavior? 

The all amerikkkan white nationalist so called “leftists” wouldn’t so much as bat an eye.

Now our goal here is still to weigh the level of political advancement of these individuals and organizations along side that that of another white nationalist, William Lloyd Garrison. That comparison will now have to wait for Part Five, but that’s ok since we’ve spent this time wisely in sizing up these quack “leftists” in the detail required for a comparison of substance and consequence.

Sources:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh06.html

http://web.worldbank.org/

1 Comment(s)

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI