Commentator: That's the spirit!
The spirit of young America!
The regime is history.
Hello and welcome back to Non-Compete, I'm Emerican Johnson, and today's video is a little bit informal.
I don't have a script; just thought I would rap with you a little bit,
...and talk to you about ideology.
What does the word mean?
What does it mean to leftism?
And what is *my* ideology?
I've had a lot of questions about what I believe, and what specific kind of flavor of leftist I happen to be,
so I'm going to tell you some of the basic sort-of
tenants of my philosophy, my ideology,
and how I see it fitting into the wider world of leftism.
And so, let's talk about the word leftism to begin with.
First of all, I am very much, and I've said this before; a big believer in leftist unity.
I am more than willing and happy to work with leftists of all stripes as long as they are principled,
and ethical, and thoughtful about the ideas that they bring to the table. So that's a big kind of first point I want
to make, is that in presenting my ideology to you, I'm not saying that it is the only true path to leftism.
You know, there are things that I have definitely evolved on, and I'm constantly
trying to challenge myself and my ideas, and...y'know, build my ideology into a better version
as I move forward, so this is where I'm at right now; it's kind of a snapshot of my current ideological views.
So without further ado, I will now introduce you to my personal ideology, which I call
"Intersectionalist Anarcho-Communism"
...and that's sort-of a three legged table; all three of those elements are equally important,
and you can't neglect one aspect of this ideology; if you do, then in my mind, it all falls apart.
So I'll just kind of walk you through; I'll give you a little fly-by overview of what
each of those elements really means, and then that'll be the end of the video, 'cause
*Emerican making awkward and uncertain noises*
Yeah, that's them...that's what this video is 'bout.
*slide whistle noise plays while the camera zooms into Emerican's beautiful face*
First of all, intersectionalism; this is the idea that power structures are interwoven,
and oppressive patterns feed off of each other and interlock.
Things like racism, and sexism, and transphobia, and homophobia, and all of these different
oppressive social patterns, power structures; they're all locked together,
so you can't just fight one aspect of oppression on its own; all of these different activists,
and liberation movements; we all need to be working together,
and that we need to be fighting all forms of oppression with equal gusto.
So you can't have this idea (in my mind) of what is called, "Class Reductionism".
Class Reductionism is basically the idea that all forms of oppression stem from Capitalism,
and that if we get rid of Capitalism, then all the other forms of oppression,
and all the other forms of bigotry will just disappear from society.
...and I don't buy into that.
Now, I do think that Capitalism has a role to play
with all other forms of oppression, and it goes both ways. Like I said, it's all interwoven.
You can't just fight racism and end all racism;
then you'll still have the problems of...well, you can't, first of all, you can't get rid of racism
if Capitalism still exists, if sexism still exists, if homophobia still exists, because like I said,
they all feed into each other, and we need to be working to liberate people on all fronts.
Moving forward to Anarchism.
Anarchism is the belief that the state should be abolished; that a state is not necessary.
Now, the state is not synonymous with government; we as Anarchists do believe that there does need
to be government, that there does need to be organization, that there does need to be social systems
that we build, to regulate, and organize, and support society, but the state we define as a non-consensual
entity that has power over you, so take for instance, the state that I am a citizen of: the United States of America,
I never signed a piece of paper that said, "Hey, I agree to be a United States citizen;
I consent to you taking these taxes from me; I consent to you using those taxes to build a war machine
and go and invade other countries, and build a prison system
that locks up all these people who are essentially innocent."
I never consented to any of that.
It's also important to realize that the state perpetuates the status quo; it reinforces these
oppressive power structures.
States are usually oppressive by design, because
they're usually developed by the ruling class, by the ruling gender, by the ruling ethnicity, to secure
their position of power. So as a state abolitionist, I advocate for all government being consensual,
having a flat hierarchy as much as we can possibly manage, so that all people are as equal
as we can possibly manage to make things.
Next, we come to Communism.
*Counter-revolutionary jam plays in the background as military officials get their groove on*
And Communism is simply the belief that we need to abolish Capitalism and make it illegal for
Capitalists to steal labor value from workers; to make all means of production owned by the people who work for
those institutions and those entities, and putting the power into the hands of the workers.
So really, my ideology, I think is pretty simple and there's one thread that kind of ties all of these
ideological elements together, and it's the idea that we need to be
dismantling these power structures that put one group in a higher position than all the other groups,
whether that be by class, or by race, or by gender, we need to be ending exploitation, whether that be
Capitalist-Imperialist exploitation of people in developing countries,
whether that be exploitation of women, whether it be exploitation of people who are in ethnic minority groups,
and finally just liberation. Just liberating all of the oppressed people of the world, lifting all people up.
I'm a strong believer in that idea that the rising tide will lift all the boats.
Even though I've basically...I like to say I've won the demographic lottery.
I am a white, straight, man from the United States of America. In terms of the way that society is set up
right now, I am in the highest class group in almost every conceivable way, right?
I'm not wealthy, but in every other way, in the color of my skin, my gender, and all these other ways I
should be the one that's, y'know, benefiting the most from these power structures and this exploitation.
Yeah, I could go, and I could have a pretty comfortable life; I could make good money, and I could ignore all the
problems of all the other people in the world and, you know, be okay.
I could have my air conditioning, and my Netflix and...just ignore the problems of everyone else.
But when I imagine, when I have this vision of what society could be like, and what my life could be like
if I lived in a society that was truly egalitarian, and that truly gave opportunities to everybody.
I just see so much potential in that idea, and I see so much potential in my species, in humanity,
if we were to come together, and work together, and build a society that doesn't revolve around
exploitation and theft, and pushing people down.
We're limiting ourselves by having these kinds of divisions and this kind of exploitation.
I really believe that, and I believe that the fastest way for us to grow, and the fastest way for me...
...to have a better life, even though my life in the grand scheme of things is pretty good,
it can be better, and the way for it to be better is for all of you,
no matter who you are, or what you look like,
or how you identify yourself, all of you to have the same opportunities and the same advantages that I have.
And I don't feel like I'm giving anything away.
I don't feel like white men are losing anything,
by sharing more of this pie.
There's enough for everyone to succeed; to thrive.
And that is what I'm seeking through my ideology.
So there you have it!
That is my ideology:
Intersectionalist Anarcho-Communist!
Would love to hear what you think about this; is there anything I missed, is there anything you
disagree with, anything that you think is really important that I should be paying attention to?
Leave a comment and let me know.
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