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How will decolonization work?
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this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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California has over 10x the population of Nevada. Should California be entitled to 10x the land of Nevadans? No, it's nonsense. The population of a people is dependent on the resources which they have access to. Americans are not entitled to their annexations, most of which is reserved for future exploitation while they suck the rest of the world dry.
Well yes, actually they probably should be. More people require more land. What entitles any group to land if not necessity? Why should a minority be allowed to claim for itself a majority of the land and resources? And more importantly, how? What is going to prevent the larger population from just taking what they perceive as their "fair share" (regardless whether this perception is true) of the land by force? Indigenous people were defeated before and their numbers were much greater and the material, organizational and technological advantages of the settler state was not as great back then as it is now.
The scales are even more tilted today, there is no reason to expect anything but a repeat of the previous result unless a different strategy is adopted, namely of appealing to a significant enough portion of the settler proletariat to recognize that the settler colonial state model no longer serves their best interest. The decline of capitalism is too advanced and the free lunch they got through robbing the indigenous population and expanding into their land is no longer sufficient. You described the brutal and genocidal methods that the settlers have used to beat the indigenous population into submission in the past, what do you think they would do today and how do you plan to guard against being starved out, having your crops burned, your waters poisoned and your land made uninhabitable? Because there are enough of them who would rather make sure no one can use that land if they can't have it.
It is also a very unwise thing to do to keep insisting that the settler majority is still able to benefit the same as before from maintaining the settler-colonial relations. You are in effect making the argument that their interest is best served by holding on to all of the land since that enables their system to continue. I believe this is not the case, i believe the colonized peoples have a chance to succeed today where they did not succeed in the past precisely because the conditions are such that capitalism can no longer be sustained through the same methods as before. Because it is becoming the best interest of more and more of the settler proletariat to ally with the colonized nations and to overthrow the existing socio-economic and political order. If this was not the case as you seem to imply, i would struggle to see any hope of success. People will not go against their material interests for the sake of moral righteousness.
We really don't care. Anything short of land back is genocide so we are going to fight against the reaction. The Americans are not ready to feel the frontiers again and the frontiers are ready to fight back. The US military collapses if the Black, Latino, and indigenous soldiers mutiny. I've pointed out that Americans occupy less than 25% of the lower 48. Winnable odds, much more winnable than any existing attempts of radicalizing the white workers. This country runs on us.
If population means share of land then we might as well give a fifth of the world to China.
And the Americans still benefit from settler colonialism. I pointed out Alaskan drilling and the hydro-electric battery being built on Yakama land against the tribe's wishes. Homesteading ended in the 70s and the American landlord class is made of those settlers who got free land. Americans as a people do not need or intend to live on a vast majority of the lands they own, we are taking them back.
If this was the case then what the hell would we all be doing on anti-Imperialism forums? The Americans do benefit from colonialism and imperialism. The contradictions with their Bourgeoisie are being hidden through the consumption granted by the empire. Even if the systems of oppression benefit settlers, they don't have any freedom to meet human needs. If they are content with finishing our genocide rather than working towards internationalism then let them be consumed by history.
i find it interesting that u fixate so much on the idea that americans benefit from imperialism which is true compared to non americans but i think its worth asking if most americans get more out of the systems than they are required to give to it, probably not. Either way whats really interesting is that u are absolutely convinced that poor/working class americans CAN NOT be radicalized atleast not in numbers because they have this privileged position but all people who live in the usa enjoy a privileged position compared to the global south, for example latin american people in the usa have a median income of around 35k whereas the same people earn 6 times less just across the border in Mexico and even less in other parts of latin america, same thing with black people the usa and africa or indigenous people in the usa and south america.
so then question is if white people can not be radicalize because of their benefiting from imperialism can other peoples? and if they can why not white people and what of asian people who are even more privileged than whites in the west but generally oppressed outside of the west. I just dont think that there is as little potential as u think in whites and that "anti colonial" struggles are not necessary anti capitalist or even anti imperialist
White people can absolutely be radicalized and we expect many to be. We just have higher expectations of settler communists than they currently set for themselves.
Many indigenous American households don't have running water or electricity. The extractive industries on their lands do. This is the contradiction we are talking about.