Above: Service Employees International Union members march against the Palestinian genocide; photo by Purple Up for Palestine
How come speaking truth to power keeps failing to be effective? Why is it that even after our society has undergone an unprecedented shift in consciousness, where the bulk of the masses have learned of Zionism’s inhumane nature, the Palestinian genocide only keeps accelerating? Because when a government acts as brazenly as ours now is, “truth to power” on its own doesn’t work. The pro-Palestine movement has so far failed to end this holocaust due to fundamental structural problems; it lacks the basis within organized labor which it will need in order to change the power balance.
Crucial to rectifying this problem is education; in addition to awareness of the genocide itself, there must be knowledge about the need for a strong workers movement. And the predominant parts of the “alt” media are actively leading the people away from that movement.
In more ways than one might assume, alt media impacts how people think and act. When the majority have become so heavily disillusioned with our government and media, it’s the alternative voices which are now seen by many as a source of guidance. So what happens when these voices get compromised, or when they were always compatible with the system? What happens is that much of the public stays de-mobilized, even when this same public has already become quite conscious about the realities of power.
The biggest problem isn’t the alt media figures who’ve been turned into explicit promoters of Zionism, like Russell Brand has. This is because it’s become easy for most people to see through Zionism’s most blatant lies, and a growing part of the conservative base has woken up in this way. The main danger comes from the kinds of “dissident” commentators who will explain the evil acts our government is committing, and then not provide any practical path towards combating these actions. As long as the bulk of the masses stay disconnected from the workers movement, they won’t have the tools to translate their discontent into tangible revolutionary gains. Which means many of them will react to this information about genocide, war, and corruption by simply becoming pessimistic.
We’ve seen this type of self-destructive cycle before. For a while, especially in the early 2010s, the legacy media was intensely focused on the idea of climate apocalypse. Many of the popular climate narratives from around this time were exaggerated, and this exaggeration’s psychological effects were compounded by how none of the doomists offered a practical plan for preventing doom. Capital’s narrative managers were determined to keep communism from re-entering the mainstream, and they succeeded in doing so throughout the Occupy era; what they did was propagate New Left ideas about protests in themselves being enough, de-emphasizing unions and party-building. The left-leaning people who these psyops targeted were directed away from the workers struggle, and from anti-imperialism. Today, the same tactics for managing dissent are being used again, this time against not just the left but also conservatives.
The path forward is a united front between all parts of the masses which have revolutionary potential, mobilized to defeat the war machine via class struggle. And there is a growing current of people who understand this. At this stage, the main obstacle towards bringing the rest of the masses to this understanding is the conservative alt media, which has been able to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of Obama-era politics.
The other big problem with these right-wing alt media types is that they mix truth with wrong information, much like the liberal corporate media did when it was heavily focused on climate. Joe Rogan has recognized the basic truths about the Gaza genocide sometimes, while acquiescing to the statements from Zionism’s defenders at other times. Tucker Carlson counters the anti-Russia narratives, while pushing anti-China psyops. Candace Owens mixes truthful anti-Zionist statements with anti-communist atrocity propaganda that falsely ties Lenin to the Zionist project. These kinds of distortions are certainly part of how audiences can get led away from the class struggle; but the larger issue is that these figures never call for people to get politically involved.
Somebody can enter into organizing with wrong ideas, and then come to give up these ideas, or end up doing good work regardless of how they ideologically label themselves. It’s through political practice that the masses can gain the experience to fight the ruling class effectively. But as long as the “dissident right” perpetuates a culture that’s detached from class struggle, many of the people won’t advance in this way.
To rectify this problem, we must recognize that the USA’s people can be raised in their consciousness to the same levels as that of trained Marxists. As Lenin concluded: “every effort must be made to raise the level of the consciousness of the workers in general; it is necessary that the workers do not confine themselves to the artificially restricted limits of ‘literature for workers’ but that they learn to an increasing degree to master general literature. It would be even truer to say ‘are not confined’, instead of ‘do not confine themselves’, because the workers themselves wish to read and do read all that is written for the intelligentsia, and only a few (bad) intellectuals believe that it is enough ‘for workers’ to be told a few things about factory conditions and to have repeated to them over and over again what has long been known.’” We need to apply Lenin’s advice to our technological era, where the working class overwhelmingly gets its ideological guidance from online media sources.
That so many of the people have sought out alt media proves Lenin’s point about how the workers wish to advance towards a higher intellectual level. They want to become knowledgeable about their conditions, and so have been drawn to voices that offer perspectives which go beyond the legacy media. For the educators and commentators who provide a class-conscious perspective, there is a model to succeed in the social media age. And as I’ve come to realize, this model for algorithmic and narrative success has been pioneered by Jackson Hinkle, who’s gained mass popularity in ways that alt media has failed to do. Another example we need to follow is Midwestern Marx, whose contributors have brought proletarian education to a substantial audience.
These figures, along with the comparatively successful Leninist source Infrared, have partnered to form the American Communist Party. And given how well they all understand the task of reaching today’s masses, it’s no surprise that the ACP has been able to get so far in its on-the-ground worker organizing efforts. They grasp the power of speaking to audiences in a way that the average person can relate to; of synthesizing revolutionary ideas with mass dissemination in mind, and communicating them in a digestible manner. And the successes from this have translated into organizational mobilization efforts, which is the other essential ingredient. The path to victory, both on Palestine and in all the struggle’s other aspects, is becoming clearer. We must continue on this path, and keep bringing more of the people along with us.
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