Difference between revisions of "Rectification"

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Aleksandar Katai, a [[Serbia]]n soccer who played with the Los Angeles Galaxy, wife posted criticism of the Minneapolis rioters in Serbian. Someone noticed, translated the posting and criticized her. She deleted the posting. Katai's wife was in Chicago when she wrote the post, and Aleksandar may not have even been aware of the post. Riot protesters arrived at the Los Angeles stadium to call for Alexander's firing.  The management of the L.A. Galaxy forced Alexander Katai to apologize for his wife, and then to denounce her. Then they made him endorse Black Lives Matter, which he did, and then they fired him anyway.<ref>https://skugal.org/racist-violent-la-galaxy-fire-aleksandar-katai-over-wifes-shocking-social-media-posts-about-us-police-brutality-protests/</ref> Then Katai was attacked on his way out for something he didn't do, may not have even been aware of, in a language most Americans don't understand.<ref>https://nypost.com/2020/06/06/la-galaxy-releases-aleksandar-katai-amid-wifes-racist-posts/</ref>
 
Aleksandar Katai, a [[Serbia]]n soccer who played with the Los Angeles Galaxy, wife posted criticism of the Minneapolis rioters in Serbian. Someone noticed, translated the posting and criticized her. She deleted the posting. Katai's wife was in Chicago when she wrote the post, and Aleksandar may not have even been aware of the post. Riot protesters arrived at the Los Angeles stadium to call for Alexander's firing.  The management of the L.A. Galaxy forced Alexander Katai to apologize for his wife, and then to denounce her. Then they made him endorse Black Lives Matter, which he did, and then they fired him anyway.<ref>https://skugal.org/racist-violent-la-galaxy-fire-aleksandar-katai-over-wifes-shocking-social-media-posts-about-us-police-brutality-protests/</ref> Then Katai was attacked on his way out for something he didn't do, may not have even been aware of, in a language most Americans don't understand.<ref>https://nypost.com/2020/06/06/la-galaxy-releases-aleksandar-katai-amid-wifes-racist-posts/</ref>
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[[UCLA]] investigated a white professor who read [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]’s ''Letter from Birmingham Jail,'' which reportedly contains the N-word, to students in a [[political science]] class.  UCLA a town hall shaming and urged students to come forward with complaints.  The department head and other faculty charged,
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{{quotebox|"The lecturer also showed a portion of a documentary which included graphic images and descriptions of lynching, with a narrator who quoted the n-word in explaining the history of lynching. Many students expressed distress and anger regarding the lecture and the lecturer's response to their concerns during the lecture.  We share students' concerns that the lecturer did not simply pause and reassess their teaching pedagogy to meet the students' needs."<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/professor-under-investigation-for-reading-mlks-letter-from-birmingham-jail-containing-n-word</ref>}}
  
 
==Van Jones on rectification==
 
==Van Jones on rectification==

Revision as of 22:22, June 11, 2020

Self-criticism and public shaming is the core of Progressive rectification.

Yan'an rectification movement

In northern Shaanxi Province, while sandwiched between the Japanese and the KMT, the CCP began the Yan’an Rectification Movement of mass cleansing, killing many people. More than 10,000 were killed in the "rectification" process,[1] as the Party made efforts to attack intellectuals and replace the culture of the May Fourth Movement with that of Communist culture.[2][3][4] This type of repetitive massacre on such a massive scale did not prevent the CCP from eventually expanding its power to rule all of China. The CCP expanded this pattern of internal rivalry and killing from the small Soviet areas to the whole nation. The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party describes Yan'an rectification movement as,

"the largest, darkest, and most ferocious power game ever played out in the human world. In the name of “cleansing petty bourgeoisie toxins,” the Party washed away morality, independence of thought, freedom of action, tolerance, and dignity....Humiliation became a fact of life in Yan’an—it was either humiliate other comrades or humiliate oneself. People were pushed to the brink of insanity, having been forced to abandon their dignity, sense of honor or shame, and love for one another to save their own lives and their own jobs. They ceased to express their own opinions and recited Party leaders’ articles instead."[5]

Mao developed the techniques of "thought reform" (literally "washing the brain" in Chinese). Mao's tactics often included isolating and attacking dissenting individuals in "study groups." These techniques of pressure, ostracism, and reintegration were particularly powerful in China, where the culture puts great value on "saving face", protecting one's innermost thinking, and above all, identifying with a group. Individuals put through thought reform later described it as excruciating. The resulting changes in views were not permanent, but the experience overall seriously affected the lives of those who went through it. The CCP has used these same types of techniques on millions of Chinese since 1949.

The Great Awokening

A white woman accosted on the street with a demand to kneel and apologize for her whiteness.[6]
See also: 2020 Antifa riots

A Maoist rectification campaign erupted out of the Antifa riots.[7] Whites were asked, if not demanded, to kneel and publicly disavow their white privilege.[8] Calling police to report crimes or threats to life and safety was deemed "racist".[9] The mayor of Minneapolis was shamed before a leftist mob of mostly white people for not agreeing to disband the Minneapolis police.[10] A New York Times columnist urged white people to text “relatives and loved ones telling them you will not be visiting them or answering phone calls until they take significant action in supporting black lives either through protest or financial contributions.”[11]

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees told an interviewer “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America.” Brees and his family received death threats. Brees publicly asked for "forgiveness" for saying Americans should respect the flag.[12] Even Brees wife wrote an apology: “WE ARE THE PROBLEM. I write this with tears in my eyes and I hope you all hear our hearts.”[13]

Aleksandar Katai, a Serbian soccer who played with the Los Angeles Galaxy, wife posted criticism of the Minneapolis rioters in Serbian. Someone noticed, translated the posting and criticized her. She deleted the posting. Katai's wife was in Chicago when she wrote the post, and Aleksandar may not have even been aware of the post. Riot protesters arrived at the Los Angeles stadium to call for Alexander's firing. The management of the L.A. Galaxy forced Alexander Katai to apologize for his wife, and then to denounce her. Then they made him endorse Black Lives Matter, which he did, and then they fired him anyway.[14] Then Katai was attacked on his way out for something he didn't do, may not have even been aware of, in a language most Americans don't understand.[15]

UCLA investigated a white professor who read Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, which reportedly contains the N-word, to students in a political science class. UCLA a town hall shaming and urged students to come forward with complaints. The department head and other faculty charged,

"The lecturer also showed a portion of a documentary which included graphic images and descriptions of lynching, with a narrator who quoted the n-word in explaining the history of lynching. Many students expressed distress and anger regarding the lecture and the lecturer's response to their concerns during the lecture. We share students' concerns that the lecturer did not simply pause and reassess their teaching pedagogy to meet the students' needs."[16]

Van Jones on rectification

Van Jones and Barack Obama
See also: Revolutionary vanguard

CNN analyst Van Jones was a founding organizer and leader[17] of the communist revolutionary organization, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM). The organization had its roots in a group protesting "U.S. Imperialism" during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The leftist blog Machete 48 identifies STORM's influences as "third-worldist Marxism (and an often vulgar Maoism)."[18][19]

STORM's own literature describes its "Maoist orientation"[20] which conducted "a group reading of Mao's On Practice and On Contradiction."[21] The group studied Lenin's theories of the state, revolution, the party, and "the political ideas of Mao Tse-tung."[22] STORM's own history further states, "We also pushed at or went beyond the limits of the traditional Marxist canon, studying such topics as revolutionary feminism, the Palestinian liberation struggle, transgender liberation, methods of evaluation, self-care for cadre and revolutionary mass [community] organizing."[23] STORM was extensively involved in the community organizing movement.[24]

In Reclaiming Revolution, STORM editors discussed their self-critical evaluation of accusations other groups made [25] that STORM considered itself the revolutionary vanguard of Marxism. They write,

We did not understand clearly enough the distinction between cadre organization, revolutionary parties, revolutionary organization and vanguard organization.[26]

STORM repented of this grievous Marxist error as a "lesson learned,"

We were a cadre organization that was working to build revolutionary mass organizations and to lay the groundwork for a future revolutionary party (or parties) by building a broad revolutionary internationalist trend.[27]

STORM's error was not being clear to members that they were an "advance guard" organization, and not a "vanguard organization."[28]

Rectification study

Jones wrote on his experience with Maoist rectification in Reclaiming Revolution:

We contrasted Alinsky organizing models, SNCC's grassroots model and Marxist-Leninist methods of mass work. We worked to develop a basic understanding of Marxist and Leninist histories, theories and politics. Members also worked to identify the features of the current historical period and discussed what it would take to build towards a revolutionary period.

Outside of the organization, a group of movement veterans, intrigued by STORM's interest in Marxist politics, organized a series of study groups. STORM members, along with other young leftists, thus got a chance to study Marx's critique of capitalism and revolutionary strategy together with trained communists.

This rectification[29] was an important period in STORM's political development and consolidation. All of STORM's members developed a basic understanding of and commitment to revolutionary Marxist politics - with a particular emphasis on the historical experiences of Third World communist movements. Our understanding of these politics and histories, though still relatively crude, was extremely significant in the development of our work. For the first time, STORM had a shared ideological framework, giving us a common basis for developing our political analysis, our structure and our program.

During this time, we developed our analysis of and approach to the current historical period. We came to believe that the central role of revolutionaries today is to help build "resistance struggles" in oppressed communities around immediate reform issues and to use this resistance work to lay the groundwork for the development of a more clearly revolutionary struggle. We called this approach "Moving From Resistance to Revolution." See "STORM's Politics" for a more thorough discussion of these points.

Applying the Lessons of Rectification

We now believed that revolutionary Marxist politics would be central to the development of a successful liberation movement in this country. We also thought that we needed to build an organization that maintained its commitment to these politics.

But our new political commitment to Marxist-Leninist politics raised many questions about our structure and potential for relevance and growth. Most young activists around us - particularly women and people of color - were hostile to revolutionary Marxism. Would new members undermine our new political unity and commitment to red politics? Would there be political differences too large to resolve without divisive struggle and destructive arguments?

Looking around us, we didn't think it was possible to build an explicitly Marxist organization. And after the previous period of division and power struggles, it seemed risky to bring new people into our but recently - and delicately - cohered group.

To deal with these issues, STORM adopted a two-tiered membership structure with a leadership "Core" and a "General Membership." All Core Members had to be explicitly committed to revolutionary Marxist politics. General Members did not, although they could not be hostile to red politics either. Instead, General Members had only to support STORM's Points of Unity, which were not explicitly Marxist.

411: Political Education Committee

In 1998, STORM created 411. For the first time, STORM had a formal committee in charge of providing structured training for both the Core and the General Membership. 411 was also responsible for orienting new members. 411 was important in collectivizing STORM's commitment to Marxist politics.

411 facilitated political education trainings in every membership meeting. It also conducted bi-monthiy weekend "intensives." We began with Marxist "basics," laying a foundation on which to build an understanding of Third World communism. We studied philosophy, wage exploitation, capitalism, imperialism and globalization, Lenin's theories of the state, revolution and the party, and the political ideas of Mao Tse-tung and Antonio Gramsci.

Later sessions covered more "contemporary" issues, including Marxist feminism, transgender liberation, and the Palestinian liberation struggle. We continued to study the Marxist tradition, including dialectical materialism and member-initiated studies of Mao's "On Practice" and "On Contradiction". We also had skills trainings (e.g., revolutionary organizing, self-care for cadre, evaluation). Members were also expected to attend SOUL's Revolutionary Sunday Schools to study the history of Third World revolutions.

STORM's methodological approach to political education was distinct. To make the material more accessible to our members, 411 used interactive methods rather than traditional left study methods like reading and lecture.

In general, members had a low level of discipline with regards to political education. They often failed to read. Attendance at in-depth training sessions, held outside of meetings, was inconsistent. Members were busy in their mass work, leaving little time to schedule adequate training sessions.

We devoted what time we had to learning basic concepts. We rarely got beyond interactive, but often shallow, pedagogical methods and tools. As a result, members often developed only a crude understanding (sometimes not much deeper than a slogan) of complicated political ideas.

411 designed these trainings and workshops as introductions to the basics of different political theories. But these introductory sessions were the only spaces within STORM for political discussion. This left more advanced members with virtually no organizational time or space for deeper, more nuanced study or discussion. It also left members with little opportunity to discuss the material's applicability to their mass work. This lack of deeper discussion became a problem for STORM's political development.

See also

References

  1. US Joint Publication research service. (1979). China Report: Political, Sociological and Military Affairs. Foreign Broadcast information Service. No ISBN digitized text March 5, 2007
  2. Twitchett, Denis and Fairbank, John K. The Cambridge history of China. ISBN 0-521-24336-X
  3. Borthwick, Mark. (1998). Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3471-3
  4. Apter, David Ernest. (1994). Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-76780-2
  5. http://www.ninecommentaries.com/english-2
  6. https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1267734418241830912
  7. https://justthenews.com/nation/culture/forced-apologies-and-public-shaming-doctrinal-deviation-sweep-american-culture
  8. https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/06/03/brain-washed-whites-convulsing-from-white-guilt-make-pledge-of-allegiance-to-black-people-929304
  9. https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/06/08/minn-official-tells-cnns-camerota-wanting-to-protect-your-home-comes-from-a-place-of-privilege-931770
  10. https://youtu.be/eACIjK36mek
  11. https://summit.news/2020/06/09/new-york-times-columnist-demands-white-people-ditch-family-members-who-dont-support-black-lives-matter/
  12. https://www.dailywire.com/news/drew-brees-caves-asks-for-forgiveness-for-saying-americans-should-respect-the-flag?itm_source=parsely-api
  13. https://nypost.com/2020/06/07/drew-brees-wife-brittany-issues-apology-we-are-the-problem/
  14. https://skugal.org/racist-violent-la-galaxy-fire-aleksandar-katai-over-wifes-shocking-social-media-posts-about-us-police-brutality-protests/
  15. https://nypost.com/2020/06/06/la-galaxy-releases-aleksandar-katai-amid-wifes-racist-posts/
  16. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/professor-under-investigation-for-reading-mlks-letter-from-birmingham-jail-containing-n-word
  17. Revolutionaries in High Places- Van Jones, by adamfreedom March 23, 2009.
  18. Obama File 72 Obama Appoints "Former" Communist To White House "Green Job", Trevor Louden, April 06, 2009.
  19. Machete 48
  20. Reclaiming Revolution: history, summation & lessons from the work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), Spring 2004, p. 23 pdf.
  21. Ibid, p. 25 pdf.
  22. Ibid, p.15 pdf.
  23. Ibid, p. 25 pdf.
  24. Ibid, pp. 8, 10, 15 pdf.
  25. Reclaiming Revolution, p. 10.
  26. Reclaiming Revolution, p. 40.
  27. Ibid. Also p. 42.
  28. Ibid, p. 33.
  29. "Rectification" is a term used in the communist tradition to describe an organizational effort to get back on track, to rectify past errors.