This genocide can only be ended through class struggle, & alt media is leading the people away from this

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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This is just the start of the crackdown. How we respond now will determine how ready we’ll be for what’s coming.

Art by Debashish Chakrabarty

What do you do when your government has shown it only intends to keep attacking the people more viciously as time goes on? When the assaults on freedom, and the methods of these assaults, are going to get exponentially more extreme with every step? That’s the nature of our situation in the United States, and it’s crucial that we respond to this situation in a way which ensures the survival of our revolutionary organizations.

There’s already widespread understanding of the criminal and dictatorial actions our government is taking. The bulk of the people have been exposed to the atrocities against the Palestinians, and even on the right, there’s growing opposition to the Trump White House’s war efforts. The administration’s use of ICE to attack the First Amendment is there for everybody to see, and our society isn’t simply accepting this as normal; Mahmoud Khalil, and the other pro-Palestine activists who’ve been persecuted, have become major parts of our discourse. These are evils that can’t be ignored, because they represent an extremely clear threat to our liberties. And there is a growing awareness about the connection between this repression, and the third world war which our rulers are determined to advance. 

Just because there’s widespread consciousness about these things, though, doesn’t mean the people are equipped to respond to them. One of the biggest dangers is that mere knowledge of today’s ruling class activities will become seen as a substitute for revolutionary action; that “speaking truth to power” will be what dissident politics overwhelmingly focuses on, as opposed to building collective organizations and actually mobilizing the masses. Given how much our society has become disillusioned, it’s now the best option of our ruling class to propagate such attitudes; to encourage complacency among the people, even though many of them have actively rejected the ruling class ideology. 

This is the attitude that’s propagated by the types of “alt” media which have been captured or compromised. The core problem is that these sources don’t emphasize the class struggle, which is the only means through which we’ll be able to overcome these attacks from our imperialist dictatorship.

Much of the masses already understand that class is at the essence of our society’s problems; the popular support for Luigi Mangione has shown this. There’s already such widespread consciousness because for the last two decades, this country’s working class has been living in a perpetual depression. The question is whether the reaction to these conditions will lead to a sustained, cohesive mass mobilization against this campaign of war and repression. 

It’s the working-class response to Luigi that’s personally given me much more hope for such an endeavor to succeed; the workers have come to so strongly reject the ruling system, with a large percentage of them openly supporting a man who’s taken extreme measures to combat this system’s violence. The masses absolutely can be mobilized, because they have a desire to fight back in ways which often go beyond anything the controlled opposition voices talk about.

This is the limitation on the state’s efforts to manage dissent. And should we sufficiently build up the institutions for popular revolt, this will let us guide that mass energy in a way which overwhelms the crackdown. Among these institutions, there’s absolutely a role for orgs that are specifically focused on antiwar activism, the civil liberties struggle, or other particular aspects of this fight; but to overcome the state’s attacks, it’s essential that we also build independent worker organizations. Ones that give the workers their own source of power, beyond the unions. Making the unions stronger and more populated is one aspect of this task, but for the workers to gain victory, they’ll need an organizational force which the proletariat fully controls. I’m certainly not talking about dual unionism, which only sets back the cause; I’m talking about building a modern Bolshevik party.

That’s the logical conclusion of the desire to combat our government’s fascistic activities. George Mavrikos, former General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions, observed that “The struggle of the workers’ movement against the fascist formations is an indispensable condition for the workers’ counterattack…With this perspective, the class-oriented trade union movement must realize that fascism is synonymous with capitalism, ‘flesh of its flesh’ and its gold reserve. Then, the authentic anti-fascist struggle is also an anti-capitalist struggle.” This is the practical reality that’s being obscured by many of today’s “dissident” voices; there’s an absence of emphasis on the class struggle, and this leaves us unequipped to combat the war on dissent. There is a popular desire to fight back against the destruction of our liberties, and to defeat the war machine. But this energy needs to be channeled towards the workers struggle, rather than being redirected into discourses which are detached from this struggle.

A force that’s been greatly furthering this effort is the American Communist Party, which has become a notable source of material support and leadership for workers. ACP of course isn’t the vanguard yet; but it’s building ties with the unions, and guiding the workers movement, in ways that U.S. communists haven’t done for decades. For this reason, it’s most certainly on the list of orgs that the repressive apparatus seeks to make illegal. The state has as much of a reason to go after ACP as it does the Cop City or Gaza protesters, which it’s already quite far along in persecuting. The main reason why ACP hasn’t so far been subjected to the same treatment is that COINTELPRO hasn’t had enough time to build a case against it. Because at least at this stage, our ruling class at least needs to have some sort of pretext for charging political targets, even if that pretext comes from total lies.

The other big threat to our orgs is violent vigilantism, cultivated through efforts to radicalize individuals into physically assaulting designated enemies. This is an idea that certain detractors of the ACP have felt comfortable openly discussing, and we should take these statements seriously. It’s a form of terrorism where the state weaponizes anarchists or “communists” against the people who are doing the most effective work. And it’s an example of how the most sectarian forces within the left can come to collaborate with fascists during the class struggle’s most pivotal moments.

There are countless other weapons our enemies could use, including ones that involve importing the same violent methods which have been employed abroad. I’m talking about bombing residential areas, or actually using snipers instead of just putting them on rooftops as a warning. These most extreme dangers should be treated seriously too, and within our training and studying, we must account for the risk that we’ll be faced with them. Should we reach a stage where state violence on that level becomes normal, though, it will mean the ruling class has exhausted its other options for fighting the people. It will mean the state, in its desperation, has decided to take actions which will turn more of the masses against it.

If our revolutionary orgs have gained enough mass backing by then, and have become internally trained to a serious degree, then we’ll be in place to outmaneuver our foes. As we advance these projects, all the while we must make sure to create backup structures; to establish clandestine networks that can keep our operations alive, even if we get forced underground. For the time being, though, we must put all we have into fighting for our freedoms. However intense the enemy’s offensive becomes, we must never simply surrender, and assume we can win while neglecting crucial areas of the struggle. We’ll only prevail through principled, consistent solidarity, assisting all who our enemy targets and always working on behalf of the masses.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.