EcoMaoism: Animal Liberationist, Environmental Mao Zedong Thought

When the liberals critique issues in society, it tends to come from a point of moralizing. This is especially the case in social issues like sex work or the decriminalization of recreational drugs. They will say that the people who have to make a living either doing sex work or selling drugs “have no dignity” or “Should have done something differently.” While I can understand why a rightist would think such a thing, this seems to ignore the reality of America being a third world country with no opportunities, human rights, or the potential for anyone to do anything productive with their lives. I have to give a side eye to these people who like to give others the impression that they are so progressive and advanced in their political analysis but then participate in blaming the people in poverty for their own survival.

In a society where not a single person is able and willing to help those who need it, people still find it appropriate to look down on those who are not fortunate, if they are not engaging in charity or other activities to help them while not wanting to address the uncomfortable material conditions that cause them to need help in the first place. Helping the poor while avoiding asking why they are poor, seems to be a form of virtue signaling and self-satisfaction, although I do think the intentions of the people involved are mostly benevolent.

The best answer to why liberals are so judgemental I can come up with, is because the culture of The United States is formed around survival in a capitalistic society. So the desire to hustle, emulate wealthy people and the focus on responsibility of every person for their life situation tends to reflect that. This has even influenced minority communities and created respectability politics and other movements to assimilate both culturally and politically into the United States. Influence from capitalist realism has even created ideologies that are freaks of nature such as conservatism in minority communities that would paradoxically be the targets of social conservatism in this society, which are obviously created in an attempt by these people to obtain a similar quality of life as white people. In such a society, it does not matter whether a person did not have a choice to be poor or not, because they cannot be your customer or provide you with any kind of economic help if they are not in an economic position to do so. Even marginalized people such as Trans people or those with disabilities, are looked down upon for their likelihood of having issues with employment or being self-sufficient in society.

The reason liberals are so judgemental of the proletariat, even when some may be classified as a member of the proletariat themselves, is because they have internalized the constructs of capitalist society as being inherent and not as man-made systems that are created artificially by humans, and because association with people who are so marginalized limits the chances of their own survival in society (at least on a subconscious level). This creates a kind of resentment to such people which stems from primitive evolutionary psychology. Because many people living under capitalism are more likely to succeed if they accept it, this reinforces the societal attitudes that promote darwinistic and reactionary ideologies. The saying “Go woke go broke” reflects this, and because liberalism is already a reactionary ideology pretending to be progressive on social issues, the people subscribing to such an ideology are unlikely to ever break free from the thought patterns that cause them to think that way.

Hundreds of years have passed, and it has been so long that the colonial white population of North America rarely even thinks about the fact that the continent is stolen from indigenous peoples, if they even realize it at all. The parts of the world that were less destroyed by colonialism have already gotten their independence, and some even continue to exist with white minorities but with indigenous people gaining some degree of self determination. Obviously self determination does not mean the indigenous people of a country oppress everyone else in a role-reversal of the colonial relationship, and this scenario only exists in the minds of settlers who think that other groups of people are just as bad as them.

People may think they are progressive or not problematic, but then they will want to go and display an American flag somewhere. They think that they are so inclusive and socially aware, only to celebrate holidays such as the fourth of july or thanksgiving which are especially problematic since the United States can only exist over the dead bodies of the indigenous people of turtle island. People may think it’s radical to invalidate the existence of the United States, but it’s even more radical to turn your nose up to the genocide of an entire continent just so you can maintain allegiance to the war machine and not have cognitive dissonance over western imperialism being the basis of your nation’s existence.

I can already hear the responses I would get. “In some other countries things are worse” or “In Native American communities LGBT are not accepted” or other half-cooked arguments based on liberalism and idealism that also completely obscure the reasons the world is the way it is. Indigenous people did not live in a unified society but without Christianity or European social structures the ways of life would not be similar to anything we have now, and they were historically forced into boarding schools where their culture was systematically destroyed and they were forced to assimilate into American ideology. Colonial states did not allow Native societies to develop on their own so pointing to modern reservations and saying “Look, they still have issues” is unfair and colonial logic that only serves to justify continued injustices. It gives the same energy as when liberals point to Palestine and say “Hey, these people haven’t built a gay utopia!” It’s the kind of discourse we should be laughing off but somehow gets listened to by those following liberal ideology, so I have to actually explain why that’s not convincing.

Regardless of the indigenous people of Turtle Island not living up to the imaginary standards of the liberals, the anti-colonial struggle is anti-revolutionary. An Israeli gay marriage taking place in the ruins of gaza is not progress. A drone strike commanded by BIPOC on third world villages is not progressing. Female landowners stealing the land from Native people the same way a man would is not progress. Even trans women contributing to western imperialist interests in the Ukraine war is not progress. The modern way of thinking given to us by Liberalism is that minorities being allowed to contribute to the imperialist war machine is progress and helps the advancement of their communities. If you truly wish to contribute to the freedom of marginalized people, you need to remove yourself from the thought process of a colonizer. The Native people continue to have their lands taken from them to this day.

On this Fourth of July, think about what you are actually celebrating.

What’s going on in both revolutionary and reactionary politics in America is a strong dislike for the current regime which is oppressive and brutal economically while taking mixed stances on social issues. Reactionaries want to create issues for all of us, but they are anti-government and say things which sometimes say similar things to comrades. It is important to keep in mind that someone is not a good person or an ally to the masses just because they hate America. Even Osama Bin Laden understood the evils of zionism and had very progressive ideas on the liberation of Palestine, but then went on to support fundamentalism and fought against the Soviet Union with CIA funding. The fact that so many people hate America does not say much about the ideologies they hold, but is more a consequence of the ridiculously long list of enemies the regime has and continues to create for itself.

Even people separate from radical ideologies hate America for reasons that are completely independent from any existing political ideology because the regime is that bad. Random people with very little interest in politics even begin to grow disdain for the regime due to imperialism and the occupation of their lands or coercion of their nations to western imperialists. There are even liberals who hate America, ironically enough.

Reactionaries and radical liberals may be doing things that damage the political systems of the regime, but they are not contributing towards the freedom of the people since they are not socialists. While an organization led by comrades should allow them to participate, the comrades of any Marxist tendency should be following materialism and should not resort to distorting its positions in favor of liberal or reactionary idealism. Appealing to other non-Marxist ideologies or reformism like this may increase popularity or membership in the short term, but it inevitably causes an organization to fall apart or simply become redundant.

The question of whether communism is purely economic is a tricky one. On one hand, the theory is mainly economic and as communists we understand that the root of all politics is economics, because we need to know how the people are going to eat and also how resources are going to be distributed in our society. However, there is something strange going on where unsavory characters are advocating communist economic systems while also upholding rightist and first-worldist ideas that are used to reinforce inequality and the continuation of capitalism. At best they completely misunderstand how such a system would affect society, and at worst they want to create a form of socialism only for the people who are already relatively privileged in society and exclude those who they are prejudiced against.

While communism is technically purely economic, the ideas of socialism create an environment that makes oppression of people by the bourgeoisie impossible. If we understand the United States to be a plutocracy and playground for the world’s bourgeoisie and also a settler-colonial nation that continues to exist at the expense of the indigenous people, then we cannot justify a socialist project that continues the existence of America in its current form or even a recognizable form. There is a reason that those who seek to overthrow capitalism are those who have the most to gain from its destruction. These are ethnic minorities, discriminated people, or those who are not allowed to live peacefully or make a living under the current organization of society. Those who are homeless or those who struggle are the ones who will truly want to dismantle the system and create something equal. The relatively privileged classes of society such as White Americans do have a lot to gain by overthrowing the bourgeois regime and establishing democratic control of the economy, but this would require allowing minorities to have a voice as well which requires them to see beyond the short-term comforts granted to them by colonial privilege and white supremacy.

So while communism on paper is purely economic, the philosophy is anti-imperialist which would make it incompatible with any pro-America sentiment and would require decolonization in Turtle Island and an end to the imperialist wars that liberal politicians continue to call for. It is also dialectical and would require the people to look deeper than blaming the oppressed peoples for their own problems, instead looking to the material conditions which drive human behavior and the circumstances that lead to society becoming the way it is. For people who have spent life under capitalist oppression and developed survivorship biases, just world fallacies and other ideas to help them cope with the brutality they lived through, this takes some mental effort. Even that is assuming they don’t participate in even more overtly reactionary politics that we see in The US, where politicians openly advocate cutting welfare and taking food and housing away from working class families and the media actively cultivates prejudices against ethnic minorities.

Communism may be based in economics, but it is a theory that makes current systems of oppression substantially more difficult if not impossible to maintain, at least on an economic level. It is not an ideology that is meant to appease reactionaries based on their conspiracies of ethnic replacement or their desire to force religion onto oppressed peoples. Communism is a system by and for the working class, and the working class includes those who are discriminated against and often looked down upon by society. Any form of socialism that seeks to exclude any segment of the working class or grant extra privilege to a white working class is reactionary, revisionist and non-dialectical.

In Japan during the times of shogunate, kabuki theater was targeted by the government for “Corrupting public morals” and “Being sexualized.” Sound familiar? Kabuki theater was also adapted and changed due to a series of bans put on Japanese society by the government and evolved in response. Sound familiar? Despite this, the performances of kabuki are so influential that the images associated with them have influenced the society of the country to the point you can see influences in modern pop culture from Japan to this day. Even foreigners are able to recognize the iconic imagery of kabuki and associate it with that country.

If we understand drag to be significant enough in society for political extremists and religious fundamentalists to have problems with it, then why is it not considered significant? And if it is a type of art theater performance and a form of self expression then why is it not considered heritage or of cultural value? The stigma put onto it seems to cause many opponents of it to try and make it disappear for impractical moralistic reasons. The intangible culture of drag shows must be protected from those who seek to destroy it, and recognition should be granted to these types of performances so they can be protected and preserved. This type of performance has influenced mainstream trends and humor already, so any attempts to stop it will inevitably be futile and ineffective and only serve to show the incompetence of the regime.