J. Sakai's Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat (OCR)

http://www.akpress.org/2002/items/settlers

http://www.prairiefire.org/Crossroad.shtml#Pubs

The pdfs don't do the graphics in this book justice:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/10/1779013.php

True.

So, everything is hopeless, eh? Because the the United States' colonial origins and its development at the expense of slaves and Indians, there is no hope for substantial social progress involving the majority of the population and certainly no hope for socialism, ever. So the only thing to do is hang around anarchist, Maoist, and Afrocentric bookstores and cultural centers and grumble about how hopeless things are instead of, say, forming militant unions and reaching out to workers of all races and ethnicities for support. Or embracing the multi-ethnic, multi-racial anti-war movement.

Who finances this stuff? The FBI? Army Intelligence? The Bush family? The CIA? Because if the people who churn this demoralizing stuff out are not receiving paychecks from the ruling class they are getting ripped off; they should file a grievance with the Labor Department.

Yes, this book is full of alot of hyperbole and cynicism, but it does encourage a militant perspective towards U.S. history and institutions. White liberals get all bent when the term "white" is thrown around, get over your white issues dude, nobody's asking you to give up your privilege just yet.

Is that where you get your ideas from, out of your bottom? Re-read my post, and you won't find any defense of priveleges. And don't put any words into my mouth, or claim that you can read my mind like your fellow frauds on the Art Bell Show.

I hope Scooter doesn't get so scared when he gets up on the stand that he starts outing even low level flunkies like you, who probably get paid out of his petty cash box.

Meyer, you should read Sakai. He was a militant cross-ethnic union organizer. The book arose, partly, because he was having a hard time creating unity between the people of color and the whites, who were sometimes being reactionary. He was trying to figure out why class unity wasn't happening.

Immigration.

The pictue at the left, taken out of context, is racist; it comes from a time in the 19th century when Irish people were not considered white - as the book it was taken from points out. For you to reproduce a cartoon depicting an Irish man as a semi -ape shows that you have about as much sensitivity as the SOS crowd.

The picture on the right is also stupid when it is taken out of context; it implies that today Irish-American people are brutal, racist cops or admirers of such. Many of the cops in Chicago and Boston are Irish; this says about as much about Irish people as the fact that many LA cops are Latino says about Mexican-Americans. In other words, nothing.

To remedy your ignorance and prejudice and to learn how many low-income Irish people still live in the US, I recommend that you read All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald. In it he describes his upbringing in a South Boston housing project. It may enlighten you.

The point of howirishbecamewhite.png that the Irish *became* white. They didn't start out as "white", but became white by participating in oppression, often by joining the police forces (a common stereotype).

"But don't let it be a black and a white one

Cause they'll slam ya down to the street top

Black police showin out for the white cop" - NWA

killyoutodayloveyoutomorrow.png is about "multiculturalism" and its relationship to war and cultural appropriation.

Sakai does talk about how immigrant European workers, namely those in the I.W.W., reached out to workers of non-European nationalities. Sakai discusses the positive aspects and limitations of the I.W.W. What concerns Sakai is that a lot of so-called reaching out is a cover for ideological unity with people supporting imperialism.

Settlers deals with the idea that the plundering on which America is built is just a thing of the past. Sakai does talk about slavery and the colonial oppression of indigenous people, but that is part of a larger argument showing that the whole of the "Euro-Amerikan" nation has thrived on the backs of the oppressed since its birth. I'm not sure what I think of this yet. I've see critics of Sakai arguing that the bourgeoisification of the "Euro-Amerikan" workers happened later than Sakai says. This debate goes beyond what you're saying about colonial origins.

I don't see any cynicism in Settlers having skimmed the book, mostly negative examples of what not to do. I imagine Sakai would criticize talking about "multi-ethnic, multi-racial" movements without mentioning nations and imperialism or even the "ethnic" composition of opposition to the war and even Bush. One can defend privileges by ignoring them.

"Because if the people who churn this demoralizing stuff out are not receiving paychecks from the ruling class they are getting ripped off; they should file a grievance with the Labor Department."

I looked and so far I haven't found any criticisms of Settlers that amount to more than stuff like this. The real division is being sown by people covering up national oppression for the sake of uniting with liberals.

Sakai's conclusion leaves something to be desired since it is so short. That is a limitation of the book and does not mean we should kick all of this history under the rug. This is an excerpt from the last page of the text.

"The thesis we have advanced about the settleristic

and non-proletarian nature of the U.S. oppressor nation is a historic truth, and thereby a key to leading the concrete struggles of today. Self-reliance and building mass institutions and movements of a specific national character, under the leadership of a communist party, are absolute necessities for the oppressed. Without these there can be no national liberation. This thesis is not "anti-white" or "racialist" or "narrow nationalism." Rather, it is the advocates of oppressor nation hegemony over all struggles of the masses that are promoting the narrowest of nationalisms -- that of the U.S. settler nation. When we say that the principal characteristic of imperialism is

parasitism, we are also saying that the principal

characteristic of settler trade-unionism is parasitism, and that the principal characteristic of settler radicalism is parasitism."

I don't see anything about Sakai's argument that is race-based. It's all about class and nationality.

The Irish became cops and firemen in large numbers because they were forced to become "super-patriots" or in order to become part of a society that originally treated them like second-class citizens.

Pete Nice says:

"The Irish became cops and firemen in large numbers because they were forced to become "super-patriots" or in order to become part of a society that originally treated them like second-class citizens. "

While that seems to agree with Sakai's argument, that wasn't the only path for Irish people. Far from being cynical, Sakai stresses the possibility of alternative courses of action.

"What international solidarity means can be seen by Patricio Corps, the hundreds of Irish soldiers in the U.S. Army who broke with the Empire during the Mexican-Amerikan War. Revolted at the barbaric 1848, they defected to the Mexican forces and up arms against the U.S. Empire. In contrast, the the Irish-Amerikan community here for equality with other settlers was nothing more or less than a push to join the oppressor nation, to enlist in the ranks of the Empire. The difference is the difference between revolution and reaction.

"The victorious U.S. Army inflicted barbaric punishment on any of these European soldiers who had defected that they later caught. Some eighty Irish and other Europeans were among the Mexican Army prisoners after the battle of Churubusco in 1847. Of these eighty the victorious settlers branded fifteen with the letter "D," fifteen were lashed two hundred times each with whips, and then forced to dig graves for the rest who were shot

down.(66)" (pages 48-49)

I already know what the point of the book is, and was probably familiar with it long before you ever heard of it. What I stated in my post was that the picture was racist when taken out of context - which it was. Does it betray a certain mindset on the part of you? Yes, I think it does.

You sound like a cop of one kind or another to me. One of the principal aims of the old Cointelpro program was to stir up ethnic and racial divisions in the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the prisoners' rights movement, and other movements threatening to the state. In other words, the cointelpro agents worked to exacerbate racial and ethnic divisions, not to solve them. Sort of like what you are obviously attempting to do, Mr. Provocateur.

Tell me, do you get the same size stipend that the Cheetos boys get? They probably get paid more, because their assinine remarks at least have the virtue of providing us with a few laughs and this gives them a larger audience. Your audience, for the most part, is going to consist of people like you - rigid, dogmatic, literal minded, neurotic, boring, simple-minded, seething with rage over some bad aspects of your upbringing which you think you can solve by pompous political posturing and begging people to treat you like a victim. I don't know you, but I can't help believing that you are either a phony or a punk in the pay of the cops. Perhaps both.

Settlers does not stir up "ethnic and racial" tensions. It examines divisions based on nationality that already exist. The book also praises Europeans who opposed settlerism and the American state.

How is a movement that contains the settler politics Sakai criticizes a threat to the state? Sakai doesn't say people of different races should not work with each other.

If someone tells you not to unite with the Democratic Party ideologically, are they being paid by Bush? What is the point of statements like this? Instead of criticizing the book you're making personal attacks and sowing paranoia.

The subject of my post was not the book; it was the author of the posts that included the racist depiction of Irish people and that promoted the old Cointelpro tactic of dividing the left by exacerbating conflicts and differences within the left. The poster seemed like a cop to me; he still does. I guess everyone has to make a living; I don't see a bright future ahead for him as a book critic.

Zinn's books on US history take a very different approach; I guess this proves that he is a settler historian trying to defend his privelges by pretending to be on the left. What we need is a Stalinist/Maoist purge, complete with executions and self-criticism sessions to root out these reptile fake leftists and make the official ideology of Settler mandatory thought for everyone.