Re: <nettime> The Left Needs a New Strategy

Perhaps this thing called the Left exists in a world where actions have consequences. That would be a good reason to have a strategy.

Many situations today require it.

Consider a New York Times article datemarked Jan. 8, by a German woman named Anna Sauerbrey, under the title "Far-Right Protesters Stormed Germany’s Parliament. What Can America Learn?"

The Reichstag wasn't really stormed, it turns out, but Sauerbrey claims that QAnon and similar practices are on a threatening rise in Germany. According to her we should learn that you can't negotiate with a fringe that has gone aggressively nuts. Instead you have to crack down with force. Apparently the German secret services are now tracking AfD members personally and they've got an eye on people organizing anti-mask movements too. She puts it on the level of friend or enemy:

"Of course, attempts to win voters back, to wrestle them from the grip of the cult, must never stop. But there are no policies and no recognition politics we could offer people who adhere to a cult. Instead, to protect our democracies, we must watch them, contain them, and take away their guns."*

So, this is exactly like the police repression of the German 1960s -- except the target today would be the extreme right at the very moment when it's threatening bloody murder.

I don't know anything about it, and I'd love to hear German people tell more. Here in the US, a majority of liberals and leftists have suddenly gotten the brilliant idea that it might be necessary to do something collective about gangs of delusionary racist dudes with guns. In terms of defense, Antifa has been fantastic so far, but, uh, what if some more former marines go into serious action? Does the example of the 1930s offer any guidance? What exactly should we do right now?

Answering questions like this is crazy, when they are suddenly asked point blank, as they are today, constantly. You can't answer without a strategy.

I support impeachment, closure of media channels to hate groups, imprisonment of seditionists and seizure of arms stockpiles. I've written many times that far right uprisings are a clear and present danger. The Left can help develop a collective will in society. It would be insane to let fascists take over as a point of anti-state pride.

At the same time, friend-enemy relationships are intrinsically deadly. You don't want to become either the State or its Enemy. Life is elsewhere. You have to oppose fascism collectively - I mean nationally, in a broad consensus - and deviate *at the same time*. You have to fight back with institutional power and at the same time, turn away toward social creativity. It would be so interesting to hear more from people about that. I think that as an individual, you can only do such things if you know who you are and what you're on board with. You have to have a sharable strategy.

There is an obscene reaction in the US because of the massive unstoppable revolution coming from people of color and the young, who've had it with the system. The only way to get out of the death spiral we're in now is to shift the rules of the game, invent a new economy, change the relationship to nature and above all to each other. People are starting to see that even if doing this takes a whole lotta time, there is no alternative. The world is too damn precarious. I think the pandemic has brought a root-level realization of these ideas. At the same time it has revealed the extraordinary intersection of all sectors of society, and shown how much we all depend on others. Something quite good could come out of this moment -

If we could ever develop a strategy, a shareable strategy.

BH