Members of The Workshop for Intercommunal Study discuss the significance of the recent “Unite the Right Rally” and counter-protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.  We examine the politics of struggles to remove racist monuments, some of the contemporary mechanisms for the reproduction of structural white supremacy and their relation to capitalism, and the significance of these events for Left politics–electoral, and otherwise.

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Time Guides:

0:03:12 – The significance of these racist monuments as well as the dangers and possibilities of a politics with these symbols at its center

0:19:36 – The existence of neo-nazi groups and how white supremacy operates in our society today

0:44:57 –   The connection between structural white supremacy inherent to the dynamics of contemporary capitalism and our national political context, with the Trump phenomenon and the imploding Democratic Party.

1:01:03 – What is the strategy of the Left to end white supremacy and confront capitalist collapse?

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“My meaning of disinformation is a real historical break in political discourse so that what begins to happen – and it is reflexive rather than conscious or planned by any particular entity – is that another history starts to emerge which itself is detached from actual history. That [detached] history takes hold and becomes the status quo in a particular nation state… What ultimately happens is that there is no longer a political vocabulary to deal with political realities, so consequently, problems can’t be solved. And the status quo, which is increasingly an unequal status quo, is exacerbated. And that’s where we are. We have intense income inequality in this country [the U.S] that is not being dealt with; we have endless war in this country that is not being dealt with, and we have absolutely no language to address these issues.”

Listen to the full interview below.

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