{"id":8710,"date":"2022-12-29T01:08:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-29T06:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=8710"},"modified":"2023-01-05T02:04:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T07:04:19","slug":"the-contradictions-of-internationalism-from-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/12\/the-contradictions-of-internationalism-from-above\/","title":{"rendered":"The contradictions of internationalism from above"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n May 2022, Socialist Forum<\/a> and Reform & Revolution<\/a> both published issues about internationalism and anti-imperialism. The articles cover a wide range of views and are helpful in understanding the current state of internationalist debate on the U.S. left today. However, while thoughtful and passionate, the contradictions in the arguments presented by proponents of internationalism from above also stood out in three areas: underestimation of the strategic possibilities of confronting U.S. empire, mischaracterization of U.S. socialists\u2019 relative power, and a fundamentally idealist worldview of top-down internationalism.<\/p>\n

A more promising road forward for effective confrontation with the U.S. empire lies in disruptive collective power and coalition power. Targeting imperialism directly at key nodes of international capital can lead to both effective confrontation with empire and build greater mass movements through organizing alongside the transnational diasporic communities most deeply impacted by imperialism.<\/p>\n

Top-down internationalists misunderstand the U.S. empire\u2019s vulnerabilities and thus the possibilities for strategic campaigns in the imperial core. They emphasize that an international strategy for U.S. socialists should remain laser-focused on the U.S. government\u2019s actions, at the expense of focusing on the crimes of other oppressive regimes, because we, as socialists in the imperial core, only have so many resources and those resources are best spent opposing U.S. imperialism. As Ron J argued<\/a>, \u201cWhat can socialists who live in the U.S. really do and accomplish? \u2026.\u00a0 Would any sort of U.S. action be helpful for the people of Syria no matter what we think about this conflict? \u2026. [W]e have to act and organize, and just like how we tackle other issues we must also learn to prioritize.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true: We do have limited resources.\u00a0 And it\u2019s true, we must utilize our capacities strategically, as with all campaigns. But there are a number of practical, strategic pathways to target the U.S. empire\u2014some better than others. Implicit in the top-down argument is that what we are capable of doing and accomplishing internationally is limited to how we can oppose\u2014and thus influence\u2014the U.S. government. But while opposing the U.S. government\u2019s individual imperialist policies can be a good use of resources\u2014as in working toward lifting the embargo on Cuba\u2014influencing the policies of the most powerful empire in world history can be significantly less effective than strategically targeting the flow of the international capital that props up imperial control worldwide, including by targeting sub-imperial states. The difference is the contrast between relying on influencing existing powers-that-be over disruptive power that forces their hand to capitulate to mass movements. Instead of pursuing NGO-like interest group strategies of top-down reform, we can confront the empire directly instead of indirectly. We can target the critical nodes of international capital.<\/p>\n

International capital and U.S. empire<\/h4>\n

There are a number of ways that practical campaigns targeting international capital flows can work, and each will be specific to local conditions. Money should be the focal point of internationalist efforts that connect to local struggles. The Wet\u2019suwet\u2019en Nation targeted<\/a> the Coastal GasLink Pipeline in early January 2020 by blockading key railways across Canada: \u201cnearly half a billion dollars\u2019 worth of goods sat idle for several weeks in February, disrupting supply chains for weeks, slowly bleeding the Canadian economy. It was the only language the settler state understood: money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further examples of successful anti-imperialist campaigns that targeted international capital include the efforts of People of Red Mountain and Kayap\u00f3 Mekr\u00e3gnoti, the defeat of developers in Sunset Park, and the end of the deadly exchange in Durham. People of Red Mountain have targeted<\/a> Lithium Nevada in its race for lithium to fuel electric cars at the expense of Indigenous people and tribal land by occupying Thacker Pass, where the mining companies seek to drill. These land defenders protect their sacred land through disruptive and coalition power while also directly hindering the flow of capital to fund the green capitalist projects of the Biden Administration, which will lead to increased U.S. imperialism<\/a> where pockets of lithium exist, like at Salar de Ayuni in Bolivia.<\/p>\n

As Promise Li pointed out<\/a>, in Brazil, Kayap\u00f3 Mekr\u00e3gnoti protesters are blockading Brazilian commodities\u2019 shipping routes that \u201ccritically [interrupt] the interests of Brazilian agribusiness companies, Chinese funders, and US corporations,\u201d’ while New York community members successfully fought<\/a> off Industrial Park, a project of violence through gentrification of Sunset Park funded by U.S. municipal government and Chinese transnational capital.<\/p>\n

And in Durham, North Carolina, Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) abolitionist organizers successfully cut off the deadly exchange<\/a> of U.S. and Israeli police and made Durham the first city in the United States to ban the police from international exchanges with the enforcers of apartheid. The importance is not the tactics used to confront empire, but rather the focus of strategic action. In all of these instances, organizers targeted capital in material ways in physical locations that led to tangible results.<\/p>\n