American "Left" will inevitably have to reckon with the failure of its "feel-good" activism, which has failed to produce tangible results & in many cases, deradicalized committed individuals due to its lack of meaningful impact & unnecessarily placed people under state scrutiny
https://twitter.com/Gothamist/status/1905070829211451526
The era of academic-driven, bourgeois-style protests—where participants gain social capital from civil rights actions while avoiding state repression is over...
These once-essential tactics, such as public demonstrations & protests, have now devolved into empty gestures that merely result in arrests, unnecessarily putting people in the state's scrutiny without achieving real change.
Releasing this documentary will surely lead to more individuals being targeted by the state, but for what purpose? What has the American "Left" achieved beyond narcissistic validation? It's self-therapy for the self-absorbed.
The American Left has replaced the pursuit of building real power with moral posturing. If we apply this analysis to the Student Intifada movement in the U.S., it's clear that this is moral performance—an exercise that gains no material benefit for the people in the Levant.
The primary audience here seems to be the activists themselves & the institutions they belong to, not the oppressed. Why? Because it’s easier than doing the real work— building grassroots power.
Instead, they remain trapped in a cycle of symbolic gestures and empty rhetoric, avoiding the hard, unglamorous work necessary to lay the foundation for genuine revolutionary change.
Looking back, even the encampments shifted focus from advancing the cause of Palestinians to simply "defending" the encampments & protecting student comrades. This redirection of energy away from tangible, meaningful actions undermined efforts that could have directly supported
Palestinian struggles. Instead of channeling resources into addressing the immediate needs of Palestinians or building grassroots solidarity, the focus became about preserving a physical space.
This ultimately did little to challenge systems of oppression or create lasting change. It perpetuates a cycle of symbolic activism that fails to confront the deeper issues or empower those most affected.
As the reality sets in & this movement is fully reckoned with, the true nature of it will be exposed: those with genuine intentions will engage in the difficult, necessary work, the opportunists will fade away, & the wreckers will reveal their true colors.
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