maybe there's context i'm missing but i am told that this is par for the course with sakai. it smacks of american exceptionalism of the kind that apparently got jay lovestone expelled from the cpusa (but he would later be welcomed with open arms by the cia). of course the us has a proletariat and it's our (amerikkkan left) failure that our movements suck. imperialism creates opportunism, of course. but there is a proletariat to organize and the communists in this country still have to act, just like the communists in every other country.

it's convenient for the opportunists in our movements to say that because imperialism has bought off our movements, the people of the usa have zero revolutionary potential. the obvious conclusion then becomes that we don't need to learn from our failures, that we don't even need to organize, that we can do nothing but trotskyist newspaper clubs and maoist adventurists while we wait for the global south to liberate us. this is, of course, nonsense.