Jewish left wing Website.

Again a case of before and after but not during my class struggle, but i take on board your points.

So what you're saying is today it's not politically expedient to organise seperately as jewish under the present conditions of class struggle. (This gives your criticism a historical context and one i wouldn't crirticise you for).

But in the past (and we can't rule out in the future), there are times when organising as jewish (or under any other non class form) is practically and politically useful?

Again if this is what you're initimating i can't see we're offering exceptionally different viewpoints.

The only thing i would add is that if organising under the banner of jewish socialists, gives those people a greater class confidence, or at least a greater confidence to explore, develop and realise a fuller class analysis then should we be so ready to dismiss them?

i don't think most posters were 'dismissing them', though we appear to have scared them off

nah i don't think so. we've spoken over email with the people behind that site a few times and IIRC they've not been too hot at replying to them, so i reckon it's more that.

phew

I think we have the basis for a discussion rather than full agreement, coffee. I still don't agree with separate organisatioins. Even in Russia in the 1900s, the Bolsheviks were (correctly in my opinion) opposed to the idea of a separate party for Jewish revolutionaries (the Bund). This didn't prevent them publishing in Yiddish and other minority languages, or doing specific work towards various sectors of the working class, even formulating 'minimum' demands particular to these sectors.

However, in today's historic context, I don't think that the task of revolutionaries is to formulate such demands because the age of reforms is long gone. In this period, demands can only be useful if they permit the struggle to widen as much as possible - in other words, they have to be demands that tend to unify all workers in a common fight against capital. As an example, the French students last spring dropped demands that were specific to themselves as students and took up the demand for getting rid of the CPE, which all proletarians could relate to.

And, while we are on the subject, did you notice how much the movement drew in people of all colours and backgrounds, and tended to overcome in practice the divisions between men and women? That's the mark of a real proletarian movement. It would have been totally counter-productive if the assemblies had broken up into specific groups for blacks, women, etc etc.

Particularly if they were specifically socialists or anarchists from a protestant or catholic background and were open and welcoming to people from the other 'communities' (for want of a better word).

And this does seem to be the case here with the Jewish Socialists.

Now I'm not saying I agree with all their politics, and their concept of internationalism may not be exactly like my concept of internationalism. But I don't think that's really relevant. What is relevant, is that different social groups should be able to self-organise without being automatically slagged off for it by some Libcom clever cloggs with an apparrent monopoly on theoretical correctness.

I wish people would stop implying that criticism means we wish to crush their group or some other shite. Of course they have the right to organise, and i respect it, it doesn't mean to say i have to respect the organisation, just like respecting someones right to hold an opinion doesn't mean you necessarily respect what shit they say.

I could think of nothing more embarrassing or stupid as a "catholic socialists against sectarianism", i mean the very fact that they identify themselves as catholics is "sectarian", and the patronising idea that anyone can join including protestants is laughable. Anyone can join our group as long as they are happy working under the name "catholic". I could imagine a protestant organisation doing that too, it'd be well fucking funny.

I was going to say, it's probably very unlikely, but you never know...

Christ Revol, as soon as you get those chips off your shoulder the better it will be for all of us.

Theoretical note. Nothing wrong with identity, most people have one and are perfectly happy. As long as they don't actively persecute other people what's the problem? Zizek's argument runs the risk of letting racism in by the back door. White heterosexual western males are cunts, by definition, so why shouldn't they feel guilty? What's Zizek's alternative, evenly distributed guilt? Africans feeling guilty because they didn't kick out the colonials two hundred years earlier? There's nothing sectarian in being different. I think protestant socialists against sectarianism is a great idea, it might give proddies an alternative to being orange hun retarded racists, and help rescue whatever good there is/ has been in protestant theology, if anything. If they felt proud and secure in their protestant identity, rather than paranoid lunatics seeing the pope behind every streetlamp, then they might be nicer people. Don't you think?

I think socialism in Scotland is tied in with the residue of the Protestant mindset, like everyone's equal as god made us and so on, so a lot of people inherit socialism through Protestantism, or what's left of it. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. Sectarianism is a bad thing, but that's usually stirred up by representatives of the state, so I don't see what seperately organising anarchists would have to do with it.

You are the one who bandied around words like "bigot" and "racist" I don't know how to reply politely to this bigoted short-sighted attitude. Once again you remind me of the person who told me that 'my problem' was that "All you white people are racist" I believe Revol might use the term autocritique.
Incidentally there is no need to create a positive protestant identity. The idea of religion is exclusive. "I believe this, I am right. You are not, unless you believe the same thing."
It is not about recuperating identities based upon sectarianism (yes religion is by definition sectarian, even catholicism) it is about recognising that workers, as a class, have more common interest with each other than they do with their exploiters.

I'm sorry Jef, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm being bigoted by giving protestants the benefit of the doubt? By wanting to encourage them to emerge from the sectarian swamp by organising as anarchists?

I don't think religion is by definition sectarian, the fact that you can have jewish and christian anarchists shows that up to be false.

[derailing thread]And jef, anyone who says children should be taken away from their parents because they speak a minority language is a horrendous racist and bigot. If you want to include yourself in that number that's fine by me. Institutional racism is not acceptable just because the victims are small numerically.[derailing thread over]

why do you take guilt as an irreducible basis for politics? and wtf are you on about, why have you just called me a cunt, you racist bigot? :?

Bodach gun bhrigh - The vast majority of Jewish anarchists (including those in the UK in the early 1900's, including Emma Goldman, including those in New York in early 1900's, hell, even including myself) do not identify with Judaism as a religion, but rather as a culture/heritage.

Having said that, there are a (slightly) increasing (still very) small number of Orthodox Jewish anarchists...but, personally, like the Christi-anarchists, although I would happily work with them, I would seriously question their anarchist politics (which, predominantly, seem to be ultra-individualist and also frequently reformist).

I'm shocked no-one has taken you to task already for this, and your previous post.

Why should you have to give them the benefit of the doubt? How on earth can you justify lumping them all as belonging to a sectarian swamp.
This is more of your complete dismissal of protestants as racist, how on earth can you justify this as anything but racism. Try replacing the word proddie in your previous post with Fenian, and then imagine how annoyed you'd have been if I said it. Then you can admit your mistake and apologise.

In what way does it do that? That shows weakness in anarchism not strength in religion. I've explained my position, do the same.

I never said that, why would you give me this position? Unless it suits your confrontational persecution complex. I am not arguing that racism is acceptable if the victims are not numerous.You have argued that it is ok if they are protestants.

Again, like in the nationalism thread, you're try to talk about the meaningless concept of a small section of a class getting greater class confidence. And you don't even care about class. Should white anarchists organise separately, and have say a White British Anarchist Federation or something? Could this, you think, increase their "class confidence" and thus be supported by you?

Bodach - I'm not even going to bother replying to that ridiculous and offensive post

Speak for yourself mate. This post is absolutely awful. What a load of weally wadical bullshit.

I'm not even going to flatter bodach's hilarious post with a reply, anything I could say would only take away from it's sublimity, the truth of multicultural relativism that can only be glimpsed in a temporal fleeting madness.

As for the jewish socialists, well apart from it's crap identity politics, soft nationalism, it also has no fecking direction, it seems to be a mish mash of socialists, social democrats and anarchists, all understood in very basic terms. It's the kind of group you might set up when your 15.

Man, I finally feel as though I've transcended libcom. Complete condescension from all quarters. I reckon this would be a good point to retire and leave you to your internet wankery. The real world awaits

Would that not be the real world quite populated by cuntish white, straight men?

Maybe if we all learnt a dead language, we could negate our inherent cuntishness.

Condescension? I've pointed out your racism, that's not condescension. You're being condescending by implying that the points - that you've completely failed to address about your racism incidentally - are meaningless "internet wankery". Bodach, I wonder if this will be the last time you claim to leave, or will you lick your wounds, regroup and live to spout sectarian nonsense another day?

yes John and just as with the nationalism thread we are talking about real people in real life situations which will not suddenly disappear with a broad wash of internet ideology. Just as this odd and fascinating desire to create hypotheticals, which seems to be your one and only party trick, doesn't cancel the realities we must acknowledge if we are to escape beyond our refined yet rather sparse political ghetto.

As you are aware there is a british anarchist federation as there is a british website dedicated to bringing together british-based anarchists, providing information on anarchist action and theory in Britain, to fill a gap in the British non-hierarchal "movement".

Given that 99.999999% of british anarchists are gloriously white we can but wonder why and who they will be organising separately from?

I care passionately about my class John. I also care that for far too long class politics has been monopolised by middle class radicals. Many working class anarchists are feeling the same way. This may or may not become more apparent and concrete at the bookfair meeting you're so tempted to go to.

How do you think you gained confidence in your class John?

can you point to jew on a map i can't seem to find it

As someone who see's themselves as belonging to the exalted millieu of "working class anarchist", may I suggest that class politics have been for too long been watered down with middle class nationalism, identity politics and other such shite. Even when class is on the agenda it is talked about in a crude patronising manner whether it's Leninism trade union consciousness, the nationalists exalting the "workers" as the soul of the nation, some gobshites in Class War affecting mockey rhetoric and Beanoesque class analysis or a bunch of activists bemoaning the unwillingness of the working class to D lock themselves to a dog on a string in a peace camp, or strap pasta to their arses and be penned in by the peelers for 6 hours.

agree with every word. Apart from the word peelers.

Although if he'd mentioned 'footpads' in the same context, that might have been more acceptable. Nah, fuck it. Smash all 19th century slang!

Brooklyn,

Golders Green,

St Paul (Paris),

so why not 'Brooklyn Socialists', 'Golders Green Socialists' 'St Paul (Paris) Socialists'? (honest question)

btw Moshehess if this discussion has come off a bit like flaming thats certainly not my intention, i just think there's likely to be a conflict between the cross-class jewish identity and the working class socialist identity at some point in the future - i.e. a jewish small businessman in your community who treats his non-jewish workforce like shit, being threatened with closure by a multinational, for example - how should you act then?