Kaffe
Look for the Indigenous peoples who or once were living in your immediate realm. Find their names, then search for their website.
In my profile there’s a mega link to the Chunka Luta Library, you can peruse that for texts but the required section should pass enough information to get an idea of the movement’s past.
Turtle Island is also a regional cultural concept alongside the Medicine Wheel, though Turtle Island is from a myth and the MW is a religious practice, and while generally respected, does not have meaning for most of the Indigenous peoples of TI. It’s not very representative of a continental movement unless multiple cultural elements from many peoples are being represented (consensually).
Perhaps when revolution comes and we give the Indigenous people and Blacks self-determination, maybe they would prefer to be represented as several separate nations/states.
Nobody will be “giving” us anything, you just won’t be able to tell us what to do anymore.
Do the native peoples want to strive for Pan-Indianism? And if so, what does Pan-Indianism mean to the native peoples and what do they want (and/or not want) from being unified?
Unity is a tool, a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. This question is too abstract to provide meaningful discussion unless you are attempting solve a specific issue, like defending a resource from exploitation or extirpation.
Something like pan-Africanism can be spoken about more broadly because African states are mostly run by Africans themselves, unity would be a specific tool to prevent continued exploitation of the continent as a whole.
So I guess the question is why are we trying to build an identity around a unity practice that does not exist? Detached from practice it comes off incoherent, at best. AIMs symbolism is also subject to criticism from the masses AIM operated in, and its successors seek to operate in. Inform yourself with the masses, test, criticize, change, cycle.
I think that sub would do better focusing on the history of existing flags or editing flags of existing movements given their conditions.
First, what does proletarian even mean when capitalism is still in the takeoff stage?
You’re right that workers in the domestic system at that time, the pre-cursor to the proletariat, would not have the means to settle the colonies unless a corporate sponsor really needed their specialties.
Second, who is boarding a packed, disease-ridden sailing ship for a perilous months-long journey besides those with few other options?
All ships were disease ridden then, they are still disease ridden today, look at cruise ship statistics. The deadliest route to California from the US was a boat to Panama, taking the train across the isthmus, then a boat to San Francisco, an expensive itinerary - because it was the fastest. Highest rates of death occurred in this route due to disease. It was the poor and cheap who took overland wagons (which still cost a lot).
Some light class analysis of settlement eras.
Pre and Early US Period (1620s - 1780): Averaging a 1000-10,000 settlers per year, mostly “Adventurers” (literally venture capitalists who sponsored colonies, merchant and/or soldier background), share-owners - people like the “Pilgrims” who signed onto a company of Adventurers’ plan to work the land and share profits with the company, the indentured servants of the above classes, contracted workers (mostly sailors or those hired onto the company for x many years), and a small amount of slaves (slavery picked up heavily in later years). Servants were outnumbered by the above classes, they did a lot of the heavy labor in the early years, but generally were wealthier and more privileged the more the colonies developed. Predominantly servants were obligated to shares of their master’s stake in the colony after completion of their contract, they are somewhat of an indirect “partner” in the colony itself. The colony would trade for goods with natives and traveling fishing ships and send the proceeds back to the companies/pay dividends to investors. The Cromwell Revolution and Colonization of Ireland would bring military veterans, later sons of the upper peasant and lower noble classes, to the colonies and they would be purchasing land from the share-owners. “Modern real-estate” is actually Anglo-America’s first big industry. Most of these people were English, Scot, Dutch, or perhaps protestant Irish upper class, religion was a big factor at this time. In the 1700s a lot of the settlers were actually already settlers in the Caribbean, like Alexander Hamilton. These people were leaving the Caribbean colonies because there were many slave revolts and the European population down there was outnumbered by African and native slaves 5-10x.
“Antebellum” US (1780-1864): 10k-300k yearly ramping up over time. Just under half were from Ireland, mostly peasants (and some Scot/Anglo settlers) whose crops were blighted. The rest were largely from Germany, northern Europe, and Britain, again likely Bourgeois or wealthier peasants as many Germans had the wealth to immediately join the “frontiers” while most Irish were stuck in the port cities. This would be the time Marx was contemporary to. Workers in England were privileged from the wealth pouring in from the slave colonies, India, and Ireland, but Marx was still able to get many of them to fight their own direct interests by refusing to help the Confederacy (the slave colonies).
Pre Civil Rights US (1865-1965): Peak settlement occurred in the 1880s-1920s. It was at first uniformly from north and western Europe, during the peak they were mostly from southern and eastern Europe. Settlers hailing from the north and west were still of usually upper-class extraction, a continuation of the trend above, where many are immediately settling the “frontier” in so-called “Indian Territories”. Many of the southern and eastern settlers would have been expropriated peasants, or peasants who suffered from crop failure (a condition the USSR would finally solve). At this time though, many of these “immigrants” were not actually intending to settle, they were teen boys and young men who would work in the US for some years and send money back and usually later returned (we are talking more than half returned). So much of the workforce in the port cities was once again “indenture”-ish workers, this time as migrants, which would expand after 1965 when “immigration” came heavily from Asia and Latin America. Some plant a foothold with property or citizenship. There are still millions of these workers in the US from the high-earning H1-Bs to the low-earning produce workers. Even most US states are stocked by “internal” migrant workers from other states who are often paid to relocate.
Literally US state media
their stances are so swagged out
I don’t have the book on hand but Jonathan Ross has calculations in the book China’s Great Road that show China’s labor terms of trade (how much labor-time does China give to trading partners vs how much does it receive, a ratio of 1 would mean equitable trade).
China from the 50s to the early 2000s had terms of trade <1 (net exporting labor) with nearly all countries, as China started as the poorest on earth per capita. China was giving other global south countries more labor than it consumed from them.
Starting in the 2000s China was taking in more labor from some countries in the GS than it received, but this can be due to the fact that China was able to keep a some of its own dead labor (MoP) due to its socialist economy (and socialist bloc trade), shifting more of its labor toward new domestic production because production in socially important sectors became less labor intense with automation. China is still net exploited by the Imperialist bloc.
However, China is not comfortable with this relationship, which is why it has been exporting capital to the poorest countries to free labor-time in the GS in sectors like Cobalt and Lithium that are extremely labor intense unless an Imperialist corp has coerced state, or has been allowed private, security over investments, i.e. only western owned mines are allowed heavy machinery. China is rather selling the machinery to the country instead of purchasing the rights to consume the resources directly as the West does. Some will think “but capital exports (in this case machinery, loans) are Imperialist”, but you’ll actually see even in Lenin’s time that Imperialist states invested predominantly in trade partners bound by military pacts, the US exports mostly to other Imperialists bound through NATO, OCED, and defense pacts in TW, ROK, Japan, or if it’s in the GS they ensure they are able to exercise sovereignty over purchased land from them.
This is not without contradictions. China’s investments in the GS are often benefiting the existing anti-worker, anti-Indigenous, classes’ interests. Such is the case in Latin America and many African states such as Congo. Again though, often the 3W state has to relocate people (not a pretty process, and is class warfare) to expropriate land because it is easier to take from their own citizens than from the Imperialist countries who bought or stole existing mines/factories/farms due to Colonialism.
the dems represent their interests well enough
