A concentrated way to describe much that is wrong with “woke identity politics” is this: It is an attempt to dictate what parts of reality can be talked about, and by whom—and an attempt to change the “labels” on reality, instead of transforming the reality itself, to actually eliminate and uproot very real oppression.
This has stood out very clearly, for example, around the right to abortion. The right to abortion hangs by a thread right now, and there is the real possibility of its being torn away from the women and girls for whom this right is essential to their status as full human beings. Forced motherhood is indeed female enslavement!
On this website (revcom.us) and through RiseUp4AbortionRights.org, there is powerful presentation of the need for, and concrete measures to build for, mass mobilization in defense of the right to abortion, in the face of the looming threat to this right. As an important part of this, there has been exposure of how the Democratic Party and the “official leaders” of the so-called “pro-choice movement” have themselves done nothing meaningful—and have actually worked to discourage others from doing what cries out to be done—to actively oppose the accelerating and intensifying moves by fascists, including on the Supreme Court, to gut or outright eliminate the right to abortion.
But that is not all. In this critical situation, various “woke” forces have actually attacked and attempted to undermine the crucially needed efforts by Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights to mobilize women, and others, in massive numbers to defeat the attacks on the right to abortion. They deny that forced motherhood—robbing women of control over their lives and their very bodies—is in fact female enslavement; they demand that this not be raised because, according to their warped outlook, this means that you are somehow downplaying the enslavement of Black people in this country! They insist that you should not graphically illustrate the terrible ways that women died from desperate attempts at self-abortion when abortion was illegal, because this “triggers people.” Some argue that abortion rights is a “white” concern, when in fact it is Black and Latina women who suffer the most from the denial of abortion rights and access to safe and legal abortion. These are among the ridiculous and outrageous arguments and other means with which “woke” opportunists seek to sabotage a real fight to defend the right to abortion.
What an exposure of the bankruptcy of such “woke” fools! What a clear demonstration of the need for the fight against oppression to break free of the confines and overcome the obstruction of “wokeness.”
“Wokeness” and its “cancel culture” is a stark reflection of so much that is wrong with this whole system of capitalism-imperialism and its dominant culture: the pompous posturing and puffed-up hustling for position... the eager bloodlust to tear into vulnerable individuals (whether rightly or wrongly accused) while avoiding, and attacking, the fight against the system that is the root of massive suffering... the paltry vision that cannot see beyond pitiful reforms that do nothing to stop the horrors... the seeking of illusory “safety” in the sandbox of “identity,” with its petty politics, childish games and infantile tantrums. All while the world is burning and people’s lives are being destroyed... All aiming to “get your place at the table” within this people-destroying system... All grasping for “your share” of this country’s worldwide plunder... All with the great harm this does to the masses of human beings throughout the world, and humanity as a whole.
As I’ve said before, it is a fact that through the operation of this system, people in this country—including those who are forever talking about “privilege” and “colonization”—are living off the children in Congo mining the raw materials that are essential for things that are part of everyday life in this country, including computers and cell phones. And this is just one example of the parasitism that comes from living in the USA, which has been, for generations, the most powerful oppressive and destructive capitalist-imperialist country, whose ruling class is able to pass along to people in this country some of the “spoils” from its worldwide plunder, even as these “spoils” are shared in a highly unequal way.
This “woke identity politics” and its “cancel culture” does not, and cannot, break free of—and really is just another expression of—the relations and “values” of this putrid and atrocious system. What is urgently needed is a radical break with all that.
What is needed is uniting people broadly in determined struggle to end the oppression of the half of humanity that is female, and all enslaving and degrading oppression.
Most fundamentally, what is needed is a real revolution—a movement of people fighting for radically different relations and values, aiming for the overthrow of this whole monstrously oppressive and murderous system, and replacing it with a fundamentally different and emancipating system. And a whole different culture that is an expression of and inspires people toward that profoundly liberating goal.
That is precisely what is represented by the revolutionaries who are the bold advocates and active fighters for the new communism. And this revolution is all the more urgently needed—and more possible—now, when this country is being torn apart and the way they have ruled over us for so long is no longer holding. Yes, there is the looming danger of the fascist Republican Party seizing and consolidating power, with all the horrors, on top of horrors, that would involve. And, yes, right now there is the danger of conflict between the imperialists of this country and their rivals in Russia leading to direct war between them, with all the terrible consequences that would involve, including the possibility of this war involving nuclear weapons—which, without exaggeration, could pose a threat to the very existence of humanity. All the more reason why this system, in this country, and throughout the world, needs to go—needs to be swept away through the revolutionary struggle of millions and ultimately billions of people, aiming for nothing less than bringing down all imperialist oppressors, and finally abolishing all relations of exploitation and oppression, everywhere.
At revcom.us and through the Youtube RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show, you can get the truth—a scientific analysis—about what is really going on with the big things happening in the world, why revolution is necessary to deal with all this, why this revolution is possible, what it is all about, and how you can become part of it.
If you are sick and tired of trying to survive under, fit into and make your way within this monstrous system and all the horrors it imposes on masses of people, here and throughout the world—if you want to be part of a real fight against injustice, and are fed up with having this misdirected and suffocated by “woke” idiocy and intimidation—if you yearn to put an end to all this madness—get with this movement for a real revolution.