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.