Saw a post today from a Blue MAGA type lib that was all about “don’t be mean to people that just decided to care about Gaza recently”. Libs starting to actually feel vulnerable about Dems being terrible genocide supporters for years, and they don’t want anyone to talk about it because it’s not “effective political strategy”. Same lib also posting about how authoritarian China/Xi is with heavy reference to Tinyman Square and genocide/disappearances etc.
If I had to be around a lib talking like this in person, I’d probably lose my shit.
When I joined an org they advised newcomers to not be snobs about it and deride people who were in the same place we had been a year or two previously. This is perhaps the biggest complaint Friends of Former Non-Marxists have. In Truffaut’s breakup letter with Godard, after May '68, he tore into his former friend for haranguing people in June for the same opinions he himself had had in April. (Truffaut continued to have shitty politics for the rest of his life, as far as I know.)
But, fuck, these last several years have made it well-nigh impossible for me to accept that advice. Covid was the biggest one for me, but the events that should have been major inflection points for anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention just keep coming.
I guess I’ll go reread “Masses, Elites, and Rebels.”