One of the biggest challenges for a developing anti-imperialist, at least in my experience, is learning to differentiate between those who actually want to end the oligarchic empire and those who just want the empire to act a bit more cosmetically nice than it does.
These are two COMPLETELY different positions, especially because the latter is pure fantasy: you cannot have a globe-dominating unipolar power structure that doesn't use violent force to maintain that world order. Yet the two often wind up moving in overlapping circles.
I've never had trouble knowing what my own position is toward the empire, but I've often struggled figuring out who shared that position. There was a long unfolding process of going "Ohh, we're not on the same page at all. You want entirely different things from what I want."
Most of the sectarian fighting you see on Left Twitter splits along those lines: those who want to end the oligarchic empire, and those who want the oligarchic empire to be a bit nicer. These two positions are ultimately irreconcilable, so those factions will never get along.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
