#jakarta method

[enter-the-darkness]

For the record, if you think AAPI folk being upset about appropriation is a fucking PSYOP you are honestly just a fragile little white bitch whose never actually been affected by a US PsyOp and it shows.

Sincerely,

An Indonesian whose Dad Was Chased Out of Indonesia due to American PsyOps

[milfstalin]

By 1965, the PKI had three million party members – adding a million members in the year. It had emerged as a serious political force in Indonesia, despite the anti-communist military’s attempts to squelch its growth. Membership in its mass organizations went up to 18 million. A strange incident – the killing of three generals in Jakarta – set off a massive campaign, helped along by the CIA and Australian intelligence, to excise the communists from Indonesia. Mass murder was the order of the day. The worst killings were in East Java and in Bali. Colonel Sarwo Edhie’s forces, for instance, trained militia squads to kill communists. ‘We gave them two or three days’ training,’ Sarwo Edhie told journalist John Hughes, ‘then sent them out to kill the communists.’ In East Java, one eyewitness recounted, the prisoners were forced to dig a grave, then ‘one by one, they were beaten with bamboo clubs, their throats slit, and they were pushed into the mass grave’. By the end of the massacre, a million Indonesian men and women of the left were sent to these graves. Many millions more were isolated, without work and friends. Aidit was arrested by Colonel Yasir Hadibroto, brought to Boyolali (in Central Java) and executed. He was 42. There was no way for the world communist movement to protect their Indonesian comrades. The USSR’s reaction was tepid. The Chinese called it a ‘heinous and diabolical’ crime. But neither the USSR nor China could do anything. The United Nations stayed silent. The PKI had decided to take a path that was without the guns. Its cadre could not defend themselves. They were not able to fight the military and the anti-communist gangs. It was a bloodbath.

Red Star Over the Third World Vijay Prashad, November 2017

The fourth way that anticommunist extermination programs shaped the world is that they deformed the world socialist movement. Many of the global left-wing groups that did survive the twentieth century decided that they had to employ violence and jealously guard power or face annihilation. When they saw the mass murders taking place in these countries, it changed them. Maybe US citizens weren’t paying close attention to what happened in Guatemala, or Indonesia. But other leftists around the world definitely were watching. When the world’s largest Communist Party without an army or dictatorial control of a country was massacred, one by one, with no consequences for the murderers, many people around the world drew lessons from this, with serious consequences. This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?” In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party? Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington. Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade & The Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World Vincent Bevins, 2020

[justthekai]

The books I've read 2024 edition,, total of 18 books, 7,292 pages and 2,003,250 words!!

[alanshemper]

From The Jakarta Method:

[thoughtportal]

The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World is a 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins. It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country.

The book goes on to describe subsequent replications of the strategy of mass murder, against government reform and economic reform movements in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.[1][2] The killings in Indonesia by the American-backed Indonesian forces were so successful in culling the left and economic reform movements that the term "Jakarta" was later used to refer to the genocidal aspects of similar later plans implemented by other authoritarian capitalist regimes with the assistance of the United States.[3][4]

[thereadingmoon]

naw, not world war z having a palestinian say “all i thought about israelis my entire life was wrong” and the head of CIA say “the two biggest assumptions about the CIA is that we monitor the world for any threat against america and we have the power to do it”

mr brooks, the third world would like to have a fucking word

[wildchives4]

Reading Eileen. So far do like it better than MYoR&R

[emptyanddark]

Footnote from Bevins, Vincent. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs, 2020.

[aurazoo]

okay time to read and come up with group discussion questions all day

[kiwikoopa]

I read The Origin of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood because of the BoyBoy Book Club post and it was really good! I highly recommend it! It is a very easy read and I feel like I learned a lot.

[surpriserose]

I think the phrase "video games dont cause violence" is a lot more specific of an argument than people care to realize because the term obviously isnt about like. Stardew valley and the "wholesome games" explosion. Because those didnt exist at the time the phrase was like. Created. Around shit like doom being blamed for the columbine shooting. The "violence" in video games dont cause violence has a specific image.

And arguing that video games dont cause violence had some use in attacking dominant narratives about columbine and later mass shootings. But it never went far enough because people only cared about video games and making fun of conservatives and not the real issue!!! That those dudes were white supremacist neonazis!!!! That racism is a massive motivator for mass shootings when theyre not caused by misogyny!!!!! That people were yes geniunely shocked and looking for any reasoning but also oh my god people capitalized on that shit and buried the racism unintentionally or otherwise

But it doesnt make sense to be repeating the same talking point when the context is entirely different. Video games are mainstream now your mom is a gamer. No one gives a shit if a kid plays gta. And thats fine! Video games dont cause mass shootings, racism and/or misogyny do. And those real causes matter because no shit the white supremacist american government isnt doing shit about them!!! But video games were a good target to look like they were taking action. But thats not the context video games exist in today. Fuck the united states has is reactionary domestically they dont need to do attack video games for mass shootings!! They can just blame trans people and especially trans women like they want to and fuel even more mass shootings reinforcing oppression and inequality and they dont do shit about them because random white supremacist terror helps a white supremacist country!!!! Dehumanization leads to violence, racism leads to violence and it flourishes under white supremacy!!

Like fuck "Violent video games" won so much so that the american military funds military propaganda like call of duty!!!! Video games never really mattered as soon as they were useful for imperialist military propaganda they were fine just like fucking. Idk trans people in the military. But the issue was never addressed and especially not by the video games dont cause violence guys.

Theres just no reason to use talking points from like 20 years ago. Especially when yeah video games are recognized for what they are. A medium just like movies and books. Which are also used for military propaganda. Like thats why people are asking new questions about how do video games contribute to imperialist violence and racism that fuels violence and not shit from 20 years ago thats from an entirely different conversation.

[justthekai]

finished reading my first book of '24 it was 'The Jakarta method' by Vincent bevins - I really enjoyed reading it, the insights i gained into world and American politics were amazing and I feel that it's such an important history to know and how it shapes our current world. it impacted my thoughts on globalisation/Americanisation and socialism massively and I won't ever have the same western perspective that I was taught. truly a worthwhile read for everyone. -10/10

[persimmonlions]

In the initial years after World War II, the “Jakarta Axiom” signified a US tolerance for neutral Third World nations — a policy of nonaggression. That changed after a US-backed coup in Indonesia targeted communists, killing anywhere from 500,000 to three million people.

[txttletale]

i realize that my last post might be a bit overwhelming and doesn't give a starting point, so here's a truncated version of the highlights in a vaguely recommended reading order:

friedrich engels, principles of commmunism

karl marx, wage labour & capital

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific

rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?

vincent bevins, the jakarta method

v.i. lenin, the state & revolution

v.i. lenin, what is to be done?

walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world

michael parenti, blackshirts and reds

v.i lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism

eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america

walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa

frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth

kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism: the last stage of imperialism

zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations

karl marx, the german ideology

edward herman and noam chomsky, manufacturing consent

elaine scarry, the body in pain

michel foucault, discipline and punish

ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices

christian fuchs, theorizing digital labour

[takemeinyrarmy]

BoyBoy book club⭑.ᐟ

These books have either been mentioned or recommended by the boys, list made to the best of my memory, some notes added for context + little abstract. [(A.) = Aleksa's rec; (L.) = Lucas' rec; (Al.) = Alex's rec] Reply or reblog to add more to update the list thanks! 

⊹ Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation - Silvia Federici  (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: Also 'Caliban and the Witch' by Silvia Federicci is brilliant. It's a great marxist-feminist retelling of the European witch-hunts, it's really really cool. It completely flipped my view of the birth of capitalism... She posits that capitalism is a reaction to a potential peasant revolution in Europe that never succeeded, and situates the witch-hunt as a tool of the capitalist class to break peasant social-ties and discipline women into their new role as reproducers of workers.] || Is a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization.

⊹ The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff  (A.) || This book looks at the development of digital companies like Google and Amazon, and suggests that their business models represent a new form of capitalist accumulation that she calls "surveillance capitalism". While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian order as the endpoint of the development.

⊹ Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia -  Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (L.) || In this book , Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari set forth the following theory: Western society's innate herd instinct has allowed the government, the media, and even the principles of economics to take advantage of each person's unwillingness to be cut off from the group. What's more, those who suffer from mental disorders may not be insane, but could be individuals in the purest sense, because they are by nature isolated from society.

⊹ Open Veins of Latin America - Eduardo Galeano (A.) (Intro to LATAM history, infuriating but good.) (Personal recommendation if you know nothing about LATAM.) || An analysis of the impact that European settlement, imperialism, and slavery have had in Latin America. In the book, Galeano analyzes the history of the Americas as a whole, from the time period of the European settlement of the New World to contemporary Latin America, describing the effects of European and later United States economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. Throughout the book, Galeano analyses notions of colonialism, imperialism, and the dependency theory.

⊹ The Origin of Capitalism - Ellen Wood (A.) || Book on history and political economy, specifically the history of capitalism, written from the perspective of political Marxism.

⊹ If We Burn - Vincent Bevins (L.) || The book concerns the wave of mass protests during the 2010s and examines the question of how the organization and tactics of such protests resulted in a "missing revolution," given that most of these movements appear to have failed in their goals, and even led to a "record of failures, setbacks, and cataclysms".

⊹ The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins (A.) [Aleksa’s recommendation for leftists friends] || It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country.

⊹ The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - William Dalrymple (L.) [Not read by the boys yet, but wanted to read.] || History book that recounts the rise of the East India Company in the second half of the 18th century, against the backdrop of a crumbling Mughal Empire and the rise of regional powers.

⊹ The Triumph of Evil: The Reality of the USA's Cold War Victory - Austin Murphy (A.) || Contrary to the USA false propaganda, this book documents the fact that the USA triumph in the Cold War has increased economic suffering and wars, which are shown to be endemic to the New World Order under USA capitalist domination.

⊹ Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism - Yanis Varoufakis (L.) || Big tech has replaced capitalism’s twin pillars—markets and profit—with its platforms and rents. With every click and scroll, we labor like serfs to increase its power.  Welcome to technofeudalism . . .

⊹ The History of the Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: This might be misconstrued since I'm not a massive fan of Trotsky... but... his book "History of the russian revolution" is amazing. It's so unique to have such a detailed history book compiled by someone who was an active participant in the events, and he's surprisingly hilarious. Makes some great jokes in there and really captures the revolutionary spirit of the time.] || The History of the Russian Revolution offers an unparalleled account of one of the most pivotal and hotly debated events in world history. This book presents, from the perspective of one of its central actors, the profound liberating character of the early Russian Revolution.

⊹ Rise of The Red Engineers - Joel Andreas (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: It's a sick history book, focusing on a single university in China following it's history from imperial china, through the revolution and to the modern day. It documents sincere efforts to revolutionize the education system, but does it from a very detailed, on-the-ground view of how these cataclysmic changes effect individual students and teachers at this institution.] || In a fascinating account, author Joel Andreas chronicles how two mutually hostile groups—the poorly educated peasant revolutionaries who seized power in 1949 and China's old educated elite—coalesced to form a new dominant class.

⊹ Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment - Yanis Varoufakis (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: The book I mentioned earlier - "adults in the room" - is amazing. There's a great description of Greece's role in the European economy [as an archetype for other, small European countries] and the Union's successful attempts to discipline smaller countries to keep their monetary policy in line with the interest of central European bankers. I'd definitely reccommend it!] || What happens when you take on the establishment? In Adults in the Room, the renowned economist and former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis gives the full, blistering account of his momentous clash with the mightiest economic and political forces on earth.

Edit: Links added when possible! If they stop working let me know or if you have a link for the ones missing.