The Challenge of Autonomy: Prospects for Freedom Going Into 2021

1. Intro: Do For Self Politics vs. Hypothetical Radicalism

“And i prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight…”

– Harriet Tubman

“Freedom is something that you have to do for yourself.“

– Malcolm X

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Young people getting active in the streets today are entering a desert of political options and conversations. A degenerate political left represents the only well-known alternative to openly fascist Democrats and neo-nazi-courting Republicans, a left that has grown so petty bourgeois (middle class) in its class character that it has very little relationship to the physically existing world, as outlined in section 1. For those of us who actually want to make this thing materially viable, we need to focus on building the actual material infrastructure for self-determination, independent of police and State assistance…

[see pdf for full text]

We put this together in three parts: 1. an introduction 2. an analysis of the events of 2020 and how they show us the limits and “prospects for freedom” available in the foreseeable future, and then 3. a list of concrete, tried and tested baby steps that serious comrades can start from scratch with. We speak from generations of experience and successful communal structure – not from our own personal opinions, left-wing jargon, dreams, theories or books alone…

[see pdf for full text]

No one is going to get us ready for what’s coming except ourselves. No one is going to get us free except each other…

Let’s each and every one of us, wherever we are right now, whatever we’re working with no matter how few or how poor, analyze our situation, form a plan, and start right now. And let’s see it through!

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Historian Uncovers the Dark Colonial Roots of Humanitarianism

During building of the Congo-Océan Railway, men working in forced labor as porters carried supplies over difficult terrain. Stanford historian JP Daughton says that what was intended as a project to lift people out of poverty cost the lives of tens of thousands of indigenous laborers and dislocated communities. Archives nationales d’outre mer

By  Samuel Huneke
The Humanities at Stanford

Modern humanitarian endeavors are generally perceived of as works by good-willed people, selflessly striving to improve the lives of the less fortunate.

We have little reason to think that these individuals might be motivated by the same hubris that led 19th-century Europe to establish empires across the world.

Stanford historian JP Daughton wants to change that.

An associate professor of modern European history, Daughton’s research interests span imperialism and the history of humanitarianism. His latest work traces the roots of modern humanitarianism to a set of colonial development projects in the early 20th century.

Most histories of humanitarianism jump from international efforts to end slavery in the early 19th century to post-World War II humanitarian and refugee efforts. But Daughton says this approach misses a key point: Defenders of empire in the 19th and 20th centuries regularly saw imperialism as a fundamentally humanitarian enterprise.