That very much depends on what the measured outcome is. For a radlib the restriction of certain capital movement maybe considered a win but we are several years into a genocide after decades of ethnic cleansing.
BDS is actually better as a minimum litmus test within the constraints of bourgeoise conceptions of empancipation.
Put it another way: there’s really only one primary thing slowing down the genocide and ethnic cleansing and that’s the resistance fighters on the ground. BDS works best as an advertisement for that.
I tend to agree and I think the core of what bugs me about boycott strategies is the level of abstraction they operate on. The line “bourgeoisie conceptions of emancipation” I think elucidates this somewhat for me. It is often too much within this point of view that you can “reform the system from within via public pressure” without actually challenging power itself. Which makes me think boycott tends to be, at its best, a form of short-term harm reduction, but it’s little better than bourgeoisie electoral reform if there’s no comprehensive strategy beyond that. Even if you whittle away over time, the dominant power is going to work to reassert itself and if you didn’t wrest control over anything, then gains can very easily be lost. As seen in the US with the FDR-era reforms degrading into what the US is today.
I would venture to say people were taught wrong about power on purpose. Taught that improvements to society came through prolonged protest, essentially, rather than violent struggle. And when they operate on the belief that protesting an unjust system for long enough will fix it, that positions them to spin their wheels on action that never seriously challenges power. Never risks actual skirmishes, but instead acts merely like participants of the system who are a bit bothered with how it’s run.
Yes, of course. If you’re in the imperial core, it’s not enough to just sit back and cheer on the resistance online. We have to organize IRL and on a public site, we can only tell people how to do that legally. And BDS is already at the edge of that in Europe. I think we need more communities here about how to organize offline and about tactics that work, sharing useful skills and so on. How to support comrades in prison, how (not) to talk to police, how to build and coordinate affinity groups, how to do good opsec, all that stuff. Just complaining about the lack of revolution is easy. We have to build one.
That very much depends on what the measured outcome is. For a radlib the restriction of certain capital movement maybe considered a win but we are several years into a genocide after decades of ethnic cleansing.
BDS is actually better as a minimum litmus test within the constraints of bourgeoise conceptions of empancipation.
Put it another way: there’s really only one primary thing slowing down the genocide and ethnic cleansing and that’s the resistance fighters on the ground. BDS works best as an advertisement for that.
I tend to agree and I think the core of what bugs me about boycott strategies is the level of abstraction they operate on. The line “bourgeoisie conceptions of emancipation” I think elucidates this somewhat for me. It is often too much within this point of view that you can “reform the system from within via public pressure” without actually challenging power itself. Which makes me think boycott tends to be, at its best, a form of short-term harm reduction, but it’s little better than bourgeoisie electoral reform if there’s no comprehensive strategy beyond that. Even if you whittle away over time, the dominant power is going to work to reassert itself and if you didn’t wrest control over anything, then gains can very easily be lost. As seen in the US with the FDR-era reforms degrading into what the US is today.
I would venture to say people were taught wrong about power on purpose. Taught that improvements to society came through prolonged protest, essentially, rather than violent struggle. And when they operate on the belief that protesting an unjust system for long enough will fix it, that positions them to spin their wheels on action that never seriously challenges power. Never risks actual skirmishes, but instead acts merely like participants of the system who are a bit bothered with how it’s run.
Yes, of course. If you’re in the imperial core, it’s not enough to just sit back and cheer on the resistance online. We have to organize IRL and on a public site, we can only tell people how to do that legally. And BDS is already at the edge of that in Europe. I think we need more communities here about how to organize offline and about tactics that work, sharing useful skills and so on. How to support comrades in prison, how (not) to talk to police, how to build and coordinate affinity groups, how to do good opsec, all that stuff. Just complaining about the lack of revolution is easy. We have to build one.