4 Comments

During protest-line battles, often comical, between Minutemen (like Jim Gilcrest, not the Minutemen of the 60s and 70s) and immigrant rights groups (of which I was one individual in Orange County), in the middle of all the mutual heckling and taunting, one of Gilcrest's closest comrades berated me for "hating America." To which I replied that I don't hate America, but passionately believe there is a lot wrong with its policies that needs changing, to which he replied by reaching out to shake my hand, in one of those rare moments of finding common ground. And there are other cases I witnessed where talking to Minutemen about mutual concerns over jobs, for example, despite differences about how to deal with those concerns, built momentary bridges of understanding that broke with the usual tribal protest scripts that all sides followed. Denying the common humanity of whole groups of people is a terrible idea; recognizing it is how you can organize and build movements--as in successful labor organizing, building the "links in the change," as Phil Ochs sang.

Expand full comment

What surprises me about the pro-Russian Left is how it ignores its Ukrainian counterpart. I'm not exactly internet savvy but I'm able to get information from the Ukraine based Committee of Resistance and Operation Solidarity (available in multiple languages) that refutes these conspiracy claims. Keeping to the present, on-the-ground leftists (ranging from socialists to anarchists) confirm the killings in Bucha were NOT staged. Moreover, the involvement of fascists is not denied, but that they have control of the Ukrainian government and armed forces is emphatically denied by the Ukrainian Left, and this is the hard Left including the local version of AntiFa!

Expand full comment