chapotraphouse

Or family and friends. People need to remember that if you decide to come at them, they will come at you even harder and will not hesitate to kill everyone and everything you love for even having the pretense to challenge their monopoly on violence.

I don’t. No one needs to convince me that it’s scary, risky, and dangerous to be a target of the empire. It’s also something unavoidable to anyone who’s ever called themselves a communist. The state can kidnap or kill any of us at any time, and we’re watching them do it every day. No combination of magic words exists that will protect a party committed to the revolutionary overthrow of a state from being targeted with state violence.

I don’t demand that anyone throw away their lives because I say so, and no one should take me seriously if I did. What I won’t do is stand shoulder to shoulder with the empire and disavow anyone with the courage and integrity to risk their lives taking direct action to bring about the change we all spend every day hoping someone else will bring.

I’m not the leadership of PSL. I can only assume they believe they have a good faith reason to think there’s some tactical benefit to saying whatever they’re saying rather than just saying nothing. I don’t see it. I hope they’re right. I hope it’s not just useless capitulation, and I hope they’re getting whatever they think they need to out of it, but I don’t see it. I don’t need to look at the replies to their statement to know that not a single person believes that PSL members genuinely oppose violence in pursuit of liberation. What would be the point of them if they did? CPUSA already exists.

Edit: I recognize that “do not support” is different than “disavow” as another commenter pointed out. That’s true, and I’m sure it’s something they gave a lot of thought to. I’m still not convinced the audience reading it would interpret them differently or believe either.

I'm assuming the manifesto about the guy's alleged motives circulating elsewhere on here is true. I have no objection with the facts that PSL is not currently affiliated with this guy, PSL did not plan or sanction this specific action, or that PSL does not encourage individual lawbreaking. I'm not expecting or encouraging PSL to put out a statement that says "this was good, and we like it!", or whatever "support" would look like for an action they played no role in and had no prior knowledge of.

PSL chose to put out a statement, and I think it's worth considering what they were trying to accomplish by doing so. I think a straightforward reading of the statement would conclude that it was done for PR rather than legal reasons. If there were any evidence tying PSL to the alleged crime, this statement would certainly do nothing to limit their liability. Edit: I'm not a lawyer. Maybe someone more qualified than me knows of some legal value to a statement like this. If done for PR reasons, I think a straightforward reading of the statement implies an intent to avoid negative attention from Zionists or the state.

Put plainly: it hasn't and it won't. The only statement that an antizionist revolutionary communist party might make that has a small chance of avoiding negative attention from Zionists or the state is "we're not a party, we hate communists, we oppose revolution, and we love Israel". Even then, I would expect the likely response to be something along the lines of "stop resisting and get in the van, scum".

Negative attention from Zionists and the imperial state is the unavoidable cost of having a conscience during this ongoing genocide. It is a perquisite to any kind of success. Mahmoud Kalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Moshen Madawi are all proof that those who condemn terrorism, obey every law, and engage collectively in peaceful protest will get black bagged by the empire all the same. Until Palestine is free, I'm not personally going to spend my limited time on this earth announcing my criticism of Hamas's optics or Hezbollah's tactics, or accuse them of undermining the cause by being unpalatable to the people that already want them dead. "Collective action is more powerful than individual action". Yes. Sure. Good. Individual action is still better than no action. The day I see any collective action from imperial citizens that materially changes the ratio of dead Palestinians to living settlers more than this guy allegedly did is the day I'll say "this fool should have simply done that instead". Until that day comes, I don't have a word of condemnation for someone who sacrificed more than I ever have for Palestinian liberation whether I think he did it "the right way" or not.

Pretty much this. This guy wasn't a Hamas fighter blowing up an IDF tank, he was a random person who targeted two other random people.