Anti Fascists

"The problem with Cuties on Netflix isn't that 11 years are going to watch it and feel represented. The problem is that adults if we're being charitable are going to watch it to reflect on their youth, or if we're being uncharitable they're going to watch it while ******* it to the many provocative dance scenes done by minors."

"People in America don't care about foreign policy. For evidence to this point, look at the entire history of the United States."

"You can fuckin' support as much genocide as you want or disenfranchise as many people as you want. As long as people are getting cheap personal chauffeurs for their burritos from the local, like, Mexican joint, that's the-- That's their standard for who they're voting for."

"The main thing you want, if you want to survive difficult times, is know your neighbor. You can get more done as a group than you ever can as an individual, and the last thing that you want during socially difficult times is to not have your neighbor's number."

"Social media platforms are terrible at acknowledging context and power relations when it comes to harassment, this is why so many trans people on Twitter get banned for calling their harassers TERFs, which is categorically not a slur. Hasan’s flagrant use of the word forced them to commit to a position. They committed harder than I expected, considering my ban."

"I have one piece of advice for Poles: pursue communists with all available means. If they committed crimes, they should be held accountable. Every person who shed innocent blood in the name of a criminal ideology should be punished. … Whether they represented brown or red ideology is irrelevant. I say this with full responsibility, although – as you can probably guess – I believe the Holocaust was a unique event and cannot be compared to anything else."

"Holodomor is definitely not a genocide. [...] Stalin decided he wanted to eliminate the kulaks – the private farmers – and get them all into collective farms, and totally change the nature of agriculture in Ukraine. [...] Ukrainians were the largest number of victims, but it wasn’t directed against them, it wasn’t a plan to eliminate the Ukrainian people. [...] There were Jews who died from the hunger, as did Belarusians and Russians – Stalin used force to get people into his system, but was not trying to exterminate the Ukrainians. That is absurd. The largest number of victims were Ukrainians, but it was not genocide. One of the biggest problems we are facing now is something called the ‘double genocide theory,’ something prevalent throughout eastern Europe, where governments are trying to say that Communist crimes amounted to genocide. [...] It was not ethnically oriented, it was economically and politically oriented – these were crimes against a particular class of people, like the kulaks – or against political opponents."

"We didn’t say a word to Poroshenko about antisemitism on the day they put a plaque up for [Symon] Petliura."

"There has not been a single conviction in Ukraine against a person who committee antisemitism. This is ridiculous."

"The passage of a ban on Nazism and Communism equates the most genocidal regime in human history with the regime which liberated Auschwitz and helped end the reign of terror of the Third Reich. In the same spirit the decision to honor local Nazi collaborators and grant them special benefits turns Hitler's henchmen into heroes despite their active and zealous participation in the mass murder of innocent Jews. These attempts to rewrite history, which are prevalent throughout post-Communist Eastern Europe, can never erase the crimes committed by Nazi collaborators in these countries, and only proves that they clearly lack the Western values which they claim to have embraced upon their transition to democracy."

"For students of anti-Zionism and borderline antisemitism (and sometimes worse) there has been much to ponder in the past couple of years. Even someone as extreme as Tony Greenstein — expelled from Labour recently — has been called a Jewish tribalist by that Judaeophobic jazz musician Gilad Atzmon whom Greenstein in return calls an antisemite and a Holocaust denier. Atzmon for his part has been lionised by George Galloway who claimed to have read chapters of one of Atzmon’s appalling anti-Jewish books to his wife in bed. The other week, Greenstein was on Galloway’s Russian government funded TV show, Sputnik and no one mentioned Atzmon. Pals for now in battling the witch-hunt."

"Nazi Germany in a sense built the state of Israel at a crucial time and you can actually say that the state of Israel today is Hitler’s bastard offspring because the ideology, the ideology that permeates Israel, Jewish racial supremacy, originated in the fascist states of Europe."

"The depressing reality is that this book will be read and admired by people who don’t like Jews. It may well provide them with a vehicle to spread their hatred. ... In this book, in 2023, we have the myth that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis and consigned Jews to death. To my mind, this is a fabrication which Greenstein has created by stitching together quotes from Holocaust historians who wouldn’t recognise his work as having anything to do with their own."

"The author was only recently held by a British Court to be a "notorious antisemite". In my opinion this book is antisemitic rubbish."

"[Greenstein is] probably the rudest person I know in politics. He says many offensive things, most of the time."

"Labour is now mounting an inquiry into accusations of antisemitism in the Oxford University Labour Club. I chaired the club way back in 1984, and recall that it invited one Tony Greenstein to speak on behalf of a group called the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine. Greenstein caused bewilderment and outrage in defending terrorist violence against Israel. When a resolution was put to affiliate the club to his organisation, only two votes were cast in favour with dozens opposed. Greenstein recalls this and has more recently lambasted me and my university comrades as "the biggest collection of dimwits I recall". For good measure, he defended the IRA's attempted murder of Margaret Thatcher as a "military target"."

"Done so and voted – in favour of course. Please try to make sure that people on BIN [Boycott Israel Network] vote and to vote yes. It will be quite good for us that a JC [Jewish Chronicle] poll comes out in favour of working with the EDL [English Defence League]!!!"

"[T]his guy has problems - he thinks he's me - put this Zio out of his misery otherwise he might self harm."

"In Britain, however, such anti-Israel attitudes have moved from the radical fringe closer to the mainstream and have even begun significantly to infiltrate the Labor party. Tony Greenstein, chairman of the Labor Committee on Palestine, has for instance been one of the more persistent advocates of the "Zionism is Fascism" myth as well as the thesis of Nazi-Zionist collaboration. Interestingly enough, one of Greenstein's discussion documents on Zionism (entitled "Anti-Semitism's Twin in Jewish Garb") was hailed by an organ of the neo-Nazi National Front as "excellent." Such strange convergences between the Left and the Right are by no means new in modern history, though there is something peculiarly grotesque in the spectacle of self-confessed Nazis expressing their approval of Jewish left-wingers who equate Zionism with fascism!"

"The climate crisis is the greatest threat facing humanity. Given the number of imperialistic wars, white supremacist terrorist attacks, mass extinctions, concentration camps, genocides, and brutal government repression with which we as a species are currently occupying ourselves, that is truly saying something...Right now, our future is in flames, and some of those politicians are standing on the hose."

"Fight Like Hell establishes Kim Kelly as a true champion for the working class."

"No one is more passionate about workers' struggles than Kim Kelly, and it shows."

"(How are you feeling about the future of the labor movement?) I am so stoked, man. I am so proud of us, and I’m so certain that we’re going to win. It’s going to take struggle and time, and things aren’t where they should be yet, but they used to be way worse. We’re in a position where more people are interested in unions and organizing and taking their power back. That is nothing if not its own revolution."

"Kim Kelly vibrantly brings struggles and sacrifices of badass working-classs heroes to life and we need to hear these voices now more than ever"

"Kim Kelly has written the most important book on labor published in a generation"

"Sex workers have always been a vital part of the labor movement and are often left out of the conversation just because of what their job is or where they came from or where they’re living. There’s so much that organized labor can learn from sex-worker organizers because they’ve had to deal with all the same bullshit that any other worker deals with—horrible wages, bad bosses, unsafe working conditions, labor laws that don’t work for them—on top of the stigma and the whore phobia and ignorance and prejudice around their work. If we’re going to stand up for workers and cover workers’ stories and say, “We care about workers,” we need to care about all workers. An injury to one needs to be an injury to all."

"From the moment I read Kim's work the first time, I knew Mother Jones would have loved her...By the time Kim made waves in the labor movement with her piece "Everything You Need to Know about General Strikes," I was hooked...She has a writer's intellectual curiosity and a reporter's nose for the truth, and it shows in this book...While there are many who wish we would forget, Kim's thrilling and incisive look at our history reminds us of a fundamental truth: the labor movement belongs to all of us."

"Earlier on in the pandemic, there was such a contrast between the workers who had to keep going to work even before we had vaccines [and those who didn’t]; they had to keep going out and delivering food or making food or cleaning streets or doing all this essential labor that was momentarily recognized as essential work. We had a hot minute where some people got a couple extra dollars that they badly needed and some people got cheered on from the window—all that weird appreciation theater. And then all that went away, and the workers still had to keep going to work. I think there’s been that shift in the way a lot of workers see their lives, their labor, the value they are bringing to society and their employers, and what they’re getting back in return—and the math ain’t math-ing there."

"the history of labor struggles in health care, education, media, sports, and nonprofit work have shaped our world in incalculably important ways, and have been brilliantly covered by authors like Sarah Jaffe, Maximillian Alvarez, Gabriel Winant, Micah Uetricht, Britni de la Cretaz, Elizabeth Catte, Steven Greenhouse, and many others."

"Unions still exist, and they’re an option, and they’re a great way to build power with your coworkers. On top of all that, we saw and are continuing to see workers at Amazon and Starbucks—these incredibly well-known corporations that I think a lot of people have accepted as being part of the fabric of their daily lives—go up against the bosses and say, “We need more from you, because you are literally hanging out in space while we’re trying to pay our rent.”"

"The United States' labor laws are outdated, the National Labor Relations Board is still a husk of itself, understaffed and weakened after decades of neglect-and yet, there is a great and mighty wave of organizing happening regardless. (p. xxvii)"

"So many of these workers newly recognized as "essential" toiled in industries that lack labor protections, were not and still have not been paid a livable wage, still cannot access affordable health care, and are still disenfranchised by a deeply flawed system that places people of color and undocumented workers at increased risk, whether there's a pandemic raging or not. People incarcerated in jails and prisons were forced to manufacture masks, gowns, and hand sanitizer for use outside the walls, even as the virus turned these grim facilities into death traps, and many there have had to dig graves for those who were lost to its grip. Those in the medical field-doctors, nurses, hospital technicians, hospital janitors and laundry workers, funeral home owners and morticians-were placed in extreme danger by personal protective equipment shortages. The entire affair exposed the rotten, hazardous conditions that have been allowed to fester thanks to capitalist cruelty and federal malfeasance, and by hitting the streets and raising the alarm, workers are now fighting back. (p. xxvi)"

"Every worker today stands on the shoulders of giants, people you will meet here like Lucy Parsons, Cesar Chavez, Bayard Rustin, Eugene V. Debs, and Walter Reuther. But others remain unfamiliar to the average working person, and could have never envisioned the world we're in now. Some things haven't changed; bad bosses and capitalist bloodsuckers continue to do their best to keep boots on our necks and their hands in our wallets."

"I love telling people about the time when a group of disabled activists got tired of waiting for the government to actually enact regulations that were part of the 1977 Rehabilitation Act and occupied a bunch of federal buildings around the country."

"he (my father) instilled in me the unshakable idea that the union was a good thing to have and that when your boss was doing you wrong, you could count on the union to have your back. Every worker deserves to feel that way (p. xxiv)"

"None of us is an island, and every labor story is also a disability story, a queer story, a Black story, a women’s story. We’re all in this together because ultimately everyone either is a worker or was a worker or will be a worker at some point in their life. There have been efforts over the decades and centuries to separate workers on the basis of race, gender, nationality, or ability, and that’s always been bullshit. It’s just a boss’s tactic to keep us apart because when we come together, we’re strong."

"On the Korean battlefield, the Chinese People’s Volunteers and the Korean People’s Army fought shoulder to shoulder to help each other like brothers. Fighting together for three years, the Chinese People's Volunteers and the Korean people and the Korean People’s Army built up a militant friendship sealed in blood. The feeling of internationalism between our two peoples became even more profound."

"Born at a time when human history was moving forward by leaps and bounds, I was unable to keep pace with the tempo of this great epoch. The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921, but at that time I had not got in touch with Marxism and did not know the following fundamentals: the scientific laws of social development, analysing problems from the standpoint of class struggle, and revolution as the conscious action of the organized masses."

"There was a certain degree of lopsidedness in the development of the iron and steel industry. People stressed the construction and development of processing and material industries but neglected the raw material industry to some extent. The raw material industry provided the foundation for the material and processing industries. If the foundation were unstable, the development of the processing industry would be impeded."

"History is always moving ahead in a wavelike fashion, and the people of today outpace those of yesterday in their continuous forward advance."

"I reached the age of 23 in 1921. Having been a cowherd, a child labourer, a dyke worker and a soldier, I had been through extreme poverty and experienced the hard life of workers, peasants and soldiers. In the process, I cultivated some simple class feelings for the oppressed."

"I was prepared to destroy myself, but I would never do anything to harm the people’s army led by the Party."

"He was a man who struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. He was loyal to the Party and politically incorruptible. He led a simple life and maintained a down-to-earth style of work. These qualities which have won him our lasting respect also set an example for our future generations. It goes without saying that he had his weaknesses, too. For example, being very strict and forthright, he at times gave way to rashness. But he was bold enough to admit his mistakes and correct them."

"As World War I was then going on, the European and American imperialists had slowed down their aggression against China, and China’s industry was growing at a relatively high speed. This gave rise to such deceptive bourgeois patriotic ideas as “a prosperous nation with a mighty army” and “save the nation through industrial development”. They had an influence on me. But my chief motive in joining the army was to earn money to help provide for my poor family."

"The appalling poverty I experienced in my childhood and youth tempered me. In later years, I often recalled the plight of my childhood with a view to preventing myself from becoming corrupt and forgetting the hard life of the poor. That is why I can still vividly remember the ordeals I went through as a child."

"The Mandarin language lessons taught included such messages as cultivating self-confidence and valuing time. I was one of the trainees, and in less than two years made some progress in language study. Talks were also given on the dismemberment of China by the foreign powers and on building China as a prosperous nation with a mighty army."

"I was born into a lower-middle peasant family on the 10th day of the 9th moon on the lunar calendar in 1898. All my family had at that time were a few thatched huts on eight or nine mu (hectre) of fallow and hilly land. We planted sweet potatoes and cotton on the fallow land and palms, tea, China fir and bamboo on the hill. Working hard and living frugally, the eight of us — my granduncle, grandmother, my parents and four boys barely managed to make ends meet."

"I was deeply influenced by my grand-uncle who had been a member of the Taiping Army. He often told me stories about the Taiping forces. The Taipings, he used to say, had food for everybody, the women unbound their feet, and the land was shared out among the tillers. This instilled in me the idea of taking the landlords’ riches to relieve the poor, of wiping out the landlords and finding a way out for the poor."

"When soldiers become conscious of what they are doing and are organized, they constitute a mighty force."

"High mountains, dangerous passes, deep ravines, The enemy cavalry sweep the length and breadth at will; Who dares stop them, astride a horse, gun at the ready? Only our General Peng Dehuai."