If you are expecting to read my usual Left Coast column, I tell you now that you will be disappointed. I write, today, from a place of horror—about the massacre unleashed against civilians in Israel this past week, and about the morally cretinous bloodlust reaction some who fashion themselves as being on the “left” seem to have experienced in its aftermath, but also in despair at the ghastly collective punishments being unleashed from the air on Gaza residents by Netanyahu’s far-right government and the Israeli military.
yeah this is closer to the mark for me, I get a bit skeptical when ppl start dredging up the romanovs, or all the french children dessalines killed, or whatever fantastical (or even fictional…) potential outcome, as a cautionary tale of what could happen if revolutionaries were to get carried away… like, it’s just incredibly unrelatable to be this ridden with anxiety about potential excesses when more restraint is honestly the last thing we need rn. on the dessalines thing e.g., black jacobins is pretty critical of that whole debacle bc of the geopolitical consequences for haiti but iirc james pretty explicitly rolled his eyes at the white people shuddering in horror at atrocities, it’s just such a weird thing to be concerned about