To put it as plainly as possible, if the proponents of the U.S. settler-colonialism theory are correct, then there is no basis whatsoever upon which to build a multinational working class communist party in this country. Indeed, such a view sees the “settler working class” as instruments of colonialism, hostile to the interests of the colonized people, rather than viewing all working and oppressed people as natural allies in the struggle against imperialism, our mutual oppressor.
A shame, a sad sad shame. For anyone that’s read settlers, or knows about the history of labor zionism, or prioritizes any kind of indigenous voice in their praxis, this is really bad. No peace for settlers! Settlers cannot lead the revolution! I hope we see an end to any respect given to this “settler colonialism is over” politic soon.
That would be helpful to learn from for sure. Too much of the US situation seems lacking in parallels to draw from and just has to be worked out as we go along. This may be part of what it comes down to for me, pushing back on this specific mindset to it; that it seems too simplistic to engage with the US as a whole. And I’m not convinced the article this thread is about, is working from bad faith, and not just trying to make an attempt to engage with the whole of the problem, as opposed to saying some kind of messy balkanization is inevitable. Indigenous sovereignty matters, as does black liberation, and greatly, but so does human life more generally. And 330 million people is a lot to contend with, no matter who is doing the leading and where.
I do understand your concerns. I wanted to emphasize with this post however that this rhetoric is unnecessary and chauvinistic, even if the situation is more complicated than how I’m trying to get it across. The article’s parent organization is made up of mostly white people and is using this rhetoric and basing praxis off of a settler move to innocence, when what’s necessary is seeing the “primitive accumulation” as a never ending process that predicates the settler having any right to the land or having the ability to live such lavish lives. The article’s claim that there’d be no praxis unless settlers are revolutionary isn’t true and reads as someone that organizes primarily with white people.
When focusing on doing praxis in America the focus of imperialism is important as we can smash the imperialist war machine and see the many ways it is the basis for the so called “American dream”, but if we’re dreaming of building a better America we cannot ask the natives to be once again subjegated to a new “communist” America, and in order to prevent that they need to make up the movement and not be subject to it.
I don’t see where they are asking the indigenous to be subjugated. Best I can say is I think I understand your concerns and that their analysis may be clumsy in how it engages with people who may not even think of indigenous sovereignty at all in the first place and could take it as a reason to not care. I’m not convinced it intends to be doing that, it comes across to me more as the “programmer who thinks in code talking to the customer” trope of someone very analytical forgetting to think about the audience and how it might be taken, but I could be wrong.