John Clarke, former major organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, recently wrote the following on Facebook:
Witnessing Joe Biden deliberately lie so as to conceal the scale of the genocide unfoling in Gaza fills you with a sense of rage. The facts that entirely refute his assertions are actually part of the public record but that’s not enough. He and his inner circle calculate that his lies will simply override the truth, by virtue of his position and the prominence given to whatever he spouts.Still, while we have to take the ability of the power structure to dominate the discourse seriously, we miscalculate if we think they’re invincible. Huge numbers are now rallying for Palestine, even in the imperialist countries. Half a million were out in London yesterday. This isn’t a mere activist periphery but it represents a strong layer of people who all have friends, family and neighbours looking to the lead they are giving.The lying methods that Biden personifies work at times of relative acquiescence but, when the anger and discord that is always at least smouldering in this society starts to impact the general consciousness, things can change. Falsehoods that can achieve their objectives at more passive times can suddenly not only fail but backfire.For all their apparent strength and, despite the horrible death and suffering they are inflicting, these bastards are treading on very thin ice indeed and they know it.
Although there is undoubtedly some truth in the above, I suspect that it overestimates the depth of the protest against the Gaza and West Bank genocide. I remember the mass protests against the murder of George Floyd and the emergence into center stage of Black Lives Matter. Has much changed since then? Do people still go out onto the streets in masses to protest how people of colour are treated by the police? Is there a growing movement towards the abolition of the police? To its defunding? If not, why not?
Clarke’s overestimation of the present depth of the protests is likely similar to the overestimation of the depth of the protests against the brutality of police methods against people of colour. As the protests recede in strength, they will not leave behind much in the way of a deposit of a critical understanding of what is happening.
Corresponding to this overestimation is the underestimation of the need for persistent critique of the social-democratic or reformist point of view since it is this view that forms the organizational basis of much of the left these days.
Until the daily issue of having to work for an employer that constitutes the daily grind of the billions of workers worldwide is connected to such protests, it is unlikely that such protests will involve the likes of Biden “treading on thin ice.”
My prediction is that, after Israel has succeeded in killing what the Israeli government considers to be sufficient numbers of Palestinians and destroying much of its infrastructure, the issue will be remembered–but not a focal point for further large-scale protests.
The Abolitionary 