Everyone has hot takes, let this thread be your safe space to unleash fire on us.
Class reductionism is real, but is used in bad faith too often to describe socialists you don't like.
There is also a trend of stupidpol types to internalize the concept to where things like race don't come from class but are wholly irrelevant to them.
Ooh, I'll jump onboard with land acknowledgements are masturbatory. Literally performative liberalism.
Explain? I feel like tribes do deserve control of their land, but also deserve the resources provided to well off communities.
Because a land acknowledgement provides none of those things. It's just "we acknowledge we're on stolen land" and then nothing. It's not working with tribal groups or accomplishing anything, it's just ritualized white liberal guilt.
Tbh I'm probably extra salty about them because the org I was in started doing them, yet didn't reach out to any native orgs , of which there are a couple that at least seemed good and are pretty (10-15 miles) close.
I suggested that we reach out, and a whole bunch of white nonsense about "white saviordom" and "allyship", etc. occurred. And no one reached out. One of the dumber struggle sessions in that org.
it’s just ritualized white liberal guilt.
Which was heavily used by BPoC groups as term. I for one favour it, still.
Surprisingly, non-white people can also be libs. If every lib who participated in a land acknowledgment kicked in 20 bucks every time they did it, we could buy a chunk of land and actually give it back.
I will answer with a 1h+ long podcast, reference the young lords again and a 280page book. While I agree that people can be libs even when they are in the central committee those seem to not've been libs. I appreciate the hot take of ppl pitching in when they say stuff, but no amount of wealth in real existing conditions would enable people to buy land and give it back. Those things were tried often and if they become more than sporadic will be opposed by the violence of the state.
https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/young-lords
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ylp-reader.pdf
The aesthetic and code of the military is cool. Like the preaching of honor, brotherhood, dedication, etc etc appeals to a sense of belonging. Then you have the long history of it and those strict military academies. And then on top of it, the ships and jets are such incredible pieces of technology.
Without going into detail, I’ve been around it a lot recently and most of the people in the military are just normal people and treat it like a normal job. They’re the complete opposite of how they’re portrayed as fighting for our freedoms. They’re also really diverse and most don’t give off a chud feel like all cops do.
I feel guilty for thinking this because of the amount of damage and suffering our military has caused and some of the absolute monsters who have been in the military. Even for a commie, I guess the military still appeals to a sense of duty and comradeship I have. If only it was used for civil infrastructure projects and disaster relief and not imperialism.
I know I’ll probably get flamed for this but it’s something I’ve needed to vent around similar thinking people because of conflicting thoughts.
I wish I could find the source again, but I remember seeing that the "most of the military are well-off white kids, ackshually" study was incredibly flawed, and only included kids who did JROTC or some bullshit, and excluded a lot of the rural enlistees. Again, I wish I could remember the finer details.
And the grasp is especially strong because it does offer tangible benefits during and after service. Like veterans get priority for so many well paying jobs like trade unions and federal.
My best friend's kids go to school in the district we went to, so I was back at my old high school for one of the kid's school things. It's a poor district, with a large black ad latino population. The JROTC was volunteering to keep things running and there were so. many. of. them. I started getting blackpilled as fuck, just looking around at all those kids who are offered no kind of a future at home, so they sign away their lives and futures to join our monstrous military so we can go and oppress, exploit, and murder people abroad. It was just incredibly dark.
agreed. also i am a fool for most any person wearing a uniform :admiral-biderman: :fidel-salute: :geordi-yes: :sankara-salute: 🥵
I'll link a good leftist podcast done by veterans here;
https://www.hellofawaytodie.com/
Warren is a 🐍 but even if she dropped out and endorsed Bernie at the absolute perfect moment, he still would have lost. Warren was such a non-factor in terms of actually getting votes. I don't get the folks who mock her for doing so bad at the polls but also blaming her for Bernie losing.
he still would have lost.
I'm not entirely convinced, they barely kept the lid on. okay they would still have come up with a way to stop him, but it would by necessity have cost them a LOT more legitimacy and he might have been able to get the nomination before they hit him with the heart attack gun
I agree they barely kept the lid on, but I think we're vastly overstating Warren's support. It was virtually non-existent. Which makes sense, her appeal was strictly to white PMC types who have some radlib tendencies who think Bernie was "too much". That's a pretty small group of people.
I agree with this. I think the frustrating thing is that she's just such a bad faith actor in everything she does and it was upsetting to see someone who could have been an ally do the worst possible thing. Also, her supporters were the biggest scum sucking PMC losers on the planet.
I think most of my frustration stems from her supporters in MA who will then turn to you and say "a 3rd party vote is a vote for Trump".
Like....your vote for a candidate who had no possibility of winning did far more to fuck the election than my vote in one of the safest blue states in the country.
Oh boy, please forgive me for the struggle sessions I may cause as I pursue a better world.
Labeling your leftist ideology after previous revolutionary leaders(ML, stalinists, maoists, trots, whatever the fuck) is a waste of time and divides us further. If a leftist ideology leads some form of revolution in the future it will likely be an amalgamation of selected old principles and new ideas that will generate a new label (x-ists) that will be more relevant. Just call yourself a communist or an anarchist (or an-com), and know what you believe in.
I don't give a fuck about what dead fucking historical fuckers did or did not do. No discussion about the Holodomor will lead to a consensus. We live in a post-truth society and the bourgeois can afford as many scholars/think-tanks as they want. Arguing about previous communists regimes on the internet is not the best use of your time. Your 8 paragraph primary source cited essay will never convince a chud and wastes your time and energy. If someone wants to debate you about the history of some communist nation or character tell them to pound sand and argue the disparities of current material conditions. I'm not telling you to not study history, but stop having the same arguments over and over.
Everyone on this site is like "Lol don't vote for Biden it's just as bad as Trump". Both of these guys may not let us vote in the future or round us up in camps but one of them is already showing signs of authoritarianism. American leftists aren't ready for a revolution. We have no vanguard, and 80% of your local DSA doesn't even own a gun. I don't want to vote for Biden either because I'm sick of the DNC bullshit of "lesser of two evils", but honestly a biden victory buys us more time. If you live in a deeply red state, fuck it vote PSL or Green (I'm in that boat and will cast my vote in your honor for La Riva), but honestly harm reduction is a practical philosophy that we should consider. We are not ready for fight, and the absolute best case scenario is a PMC-led neoliberal victory that will cost thousands of lives and induce incredible suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Ukt9LrvhQ
Edit: The ensuing struggle session from this post proving my first point would be funny if it wasn't so goddamn sad for our cause
American leftists aren’t ready for a revolution. We have no vanguard, and 80% of your local DSA doesn’t even own a gun. I don’t want to vote for Biden either because I’m sick of the DNC bullshit of “lesser of two evils”, but honestly a biden victory buys us more time.
Ding ding ding
Oh look the Bidenist-Revisionist is here to tell us that Marxism-Leninism is obsolete despite 100% of historical successful revolutions and 100% of existing Socialist States being Marxist-Leninist
Responding like this to a good faith post in a hot take thread is real wrecker shit
Only libs, left coms and revisionists are allowed hot takes. Tankie hot takes are banned. Left unity
-You
You can have your own hot take, just don't be an asshole to someone else's hot take in a hot take thread. The purpose of a hot take thread is to get people to air ideas they may not be 100% confident in and have the community sound them out. Snippy replies do nothing but frustrate that purpose; again, real wrecker shit.
Oh wow everyone in here has the super original take that actually Marxism is obsolete and we need a new reformist type of socialism! Definitely not the same horseshit we have been hearing from the western chauvinist left for the past 200 years that has made them a joke in the global communist community and never have a single success.
I’m sorry your civility politics is more important to you than not repeating revisionist tropes over and over ad Infinitum
Oh wow everyone in here has the super original take
If a bunch of people are saying the same thing, maybe you should honestly address that instead of sarcastically dismissing it. If a bunch of people are downbearing you and telling you you're acting like a wrecker, maybe you should take a step back and do some self-crit.
A million western succs have made this same argument for 200 years. They have defeated themselves by being continuously useless and wrong and never winning
So explain to the people who are broadly on your side why they should agree with you without being a smug asshole about it. Condescendingly pissing people off instead of putting in the effort to get them on board is a hallmark of liberalism, and is a big reason why everyone hates libs.
Respectability tone policing shit
There are tons of perfectly polite Marxists, I am not one of them. Some people require bullying and mockery of they will stay stuck in their ways.
Succs and ultras that parrot century old utopian tropes are even more outdated than Marxists, and maybe they require sufficient mockery before they realize they are a meme
Congrats. Before I thought you might be wrong. Now I think you're wrong and also kind of a dick. Did you get what you wanted?
In time you will come to find out I’m right, but also kind of a dick.
For your sake I hope you're right but I'm not very optimistic about that.
Respectability tone policing shit
The bare minimum standard of "don't be a huge asshole at the drop of a hat to people you ostensibly want to organize with" is not tone policing.
No one likes your type of asshole. No one wants to be around your type of asshole. Your type of asshole makes people lose interest and stop showing up. It doesn't matter how right you think you are, because if you can't do the bare minimum of getting along with fellow leftists you're fucking useless.
I don’t consider social democratic distorters to be “fellow leftists”
This is the Internet. Grow a thicker skin.
I don't think that is a fair summary of my points, nor what I said.
The science is solid, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't. Trotsky and Lenin literally fought a revolution together. Modern leftists who use their titles can't sit in the same room. As long as this is the case, we can't win.
Trotsky and Lenin fought together because Trotsky was a Marxist and a Leninist. It wasn’t until later that Trotsky began his campaign of revisionism and betrayal
You made me create an account to respond to this. I'm very tired of online MLs holding a monopoly on the claim of "all historical successful revolutions are ML revolutions." Not only is this claim just untrue, the one that follows it is laughably sad, because ML is also responsible for 100% of degenerated worker states. The October Revolution wasnt ML so dont even pretend you get that one either. Sandals is correct with this take. ML hasnt done anything in the 21st century, its frankly a bastardization of Marx. All tendencies are just following loosely in what some guy said, but the material conditions they were in are vastly different than the ones we are in. Online MLs remind me of preachy evangelicals, always saying "comrade" or preaching down on you while they have the audacity to support Stalin as a great theorist. "the law of value and commodity production continues into communism." What utter shit. Rant over.
October Revolution was Marxist and Leninist and the formulation that Marxism-Leninism was based off of, so yes it was ML.
If you are so tired of MLs having the sole mantle of successful revolutionaries then try winning a revolution sometime.
Of course all “degenerated worker states” are ML, as MLs are the only ones to create ANY worker states
Imagine making an account to post Trotskyite dribble lol
Im not a trot but go off. Lenin wasnt a "Leninist", he was a Marxist. God MLs are allergic to reading. Being proud of a degenerated worker state is peak cope and LARP. You didnt do anything in the various peasant revolutions around the world. Stop larping on the internet for 2 god damn minutes
Nobody says “degenerated worker state” except trots. That’s a trot slogan
"i can only categorize opinions i dislike as the opinions of various tendencies i disagree with." Im not here for a flame war. Im not a trot, i dont agree with perm rev, im not an ML, im not anything.
“I’m not anything”
The famous “not anything” revolution of 1965, ah of course.
Why should I be lectured on socialism by a “not anything” who disregards history and believes themselves above it?
How will you win a revolution with no allies? Congratulations, you've successfully purity-tested us. Now you're alone.
Also I am not alone. I have a billion communists throughout the world on my side. I am participating in the real communist movement. It’s you who is alone
Dude there are more Chinese Marxist-Leninists on Earth right now than there have ever been chauvinist western leftoids like you in all of history
You are irrelevant unless you join the real movement
My allies are Marxist. You are “not anything” so you are clearly not my ally
I am a Marxist. Its just i dont like labeling myself. Clearly youre more concerned with appearances than anything else. I hope you get around to reading Marx some time :)
Marxists should be open and clear with labeling themselves and their position. Your aversion to labels is a personal distaste, not a political program or stance.
You are just a distorter too ashamed by actual existing socialism (because you believe rightwing lies to some extent) and thus try to hide and obscure your beliefs.
man youre so obviously a wrecker its insane. "actual existing socialism" MLs can barely identify capitalism of course they cant identify socialism. Read some books man, i promise you you can understand Marxism, its not that advanced.
The only wreckers in here are the ones trying to slowly suffocate Marxism of all its revolutionary ideals and replace them with reformist Biden bullshit
"reformist Biden bullshit" What?? Who said anything about Biden? Fuck Biden
https://hexbear.net/post/34978/comment/277201
The OP of this thread that you chimed in to defend
I mean yeah i dont agree with that part at all. Electoralism is blatantly a dead end. See, we have common ground. I was less defending him and more attacking your ML= successful socialist revolution.
Ok and the only successful revolutions in history have been Marxist parties using Democratic Centralism... so if electoralism isn’t valid and we have to have a revolution....
You are so fucking close but your brain is still poisoned with rightwing lies about AES states
Marxist revolution =/= Marxist-Leninism. I am a lot farther than you lmao. Please dont preach your ML bullshit at me.
No you aren’t you are stuck in infantile ultraleftism that I was years ago lol. You are in the baby stage still
Marxist revolution = Leninist party and Marxism = Marxism-Leninism
Look, until you square away things like the law of value and commodity production still being in operation of "actually existing socialist states" then im not on board with your idea of "socialism" aka state capitalism. DAE leftcom infantile. Get a new response. Lenin was talking about Dutch-German leftcoms. Wasnt talking about Bordiga.
This site is apparently ultra/trot? Or just in the “hot takes (read: liberal takes)” thread
Ultra bullshit. There will be markets and commodities as long as there are capitalists and imperialists. Only one the majority of the world has gone socialist can the transition to higher stage communism begin.
The conditions of the USSR and PRC have not been adequate to move to communism. FFS read Lenin
Oh good so you support international socialism. Glad were on the same page.
Yes, which has not yet occurred so your whining about Stalin not abolishing the commodity form are detached from reality and are just utopian ramblings of wreckers and ultras
And you support a dead end into revisionism which inevitably leads into the resurgence of capitalist relations. Miss me with that bullshit.
Damn glad the western dengoid has arrived. Read some theory. I love when Deng busted the communes and turned all the peasants into Nike shoe slaves! That was epic socialism! Get real.
imagine thinking the US is going to lead the way with communism. Youre detached from reality if you think any movement will get off the ground in the US. Only way is if the US is continually destabilized and cant meddle in the affairs of other nations for a while. So thank you for telling me you totally know me and my ideas. Chapos dont read theory, its painfully clear.
yeah i agree with your first point. Thats where we have common ground. But CPC raising living standards isnt socialism. It just isnt. Socialism isnt worker enrichment, its the abolition of classes. So i totally understand where youre coming from with the second point. Of course lifting people out of poverty is good, but dont confuse it with socialism/communism.
Yeah it’s me the revisionist, not the guy who was saying Marxism is obsolete and we need to vote for harm reduction LOL
GET YOUR SHIT SORTED OUT CHILD
where did i say its obsolete? You fucking clown. Jesus christ Western MLs get the wall.
Ugh these MLs are too divisive and LARP too much! That’s why they get the wall!!!!
Name 1 time Leftcoms will ever be the ones holding the guns lol perpetual losing cucks
I support the real communist movement, with hundreds of millions of proletariat and worker states.
You support hot air. Miss me with that bullshit
The only way that veganism will be adopted on a large scale in the United States is through the improvement of lab created meat and dairy products. Most people want their cheese and hamberders and plant-based alternatives to these have always been mostly awful imitations.
Have you tried not eating meat and dairy? It's shockingly easy and you really won't miss it.
You can't restore those conditions without flatly ending factory farming.
I've generally avoid meat, so I definitely know it's possible, but I think the problem for most people is that a vegan diet in the USA currently takes a ton of work to plan and maintain (compared to omnivorous at least) and they just don't have the energy or willpower to deal with that.
Lab meat has to be cheaper and just as high quality as the real thing.
I mean, I thought that, too, until I actually did it. I spend less time cooking, I spend less money on the food I cook, and aside from checking labels on packaged foods the effort is pretty minimal. I look up three recipes Sunday afternoon, multiply the ingredients so I won't have to go out to the store multiple times, and cook in two or three day batches.
I just don't see how this is more complicated than "dump hundreds of millions of dollars into lab meat" compared to, say, "dump hundreds of millions of dollars into teaching people how to cook".
It’s not your responsibility to read a hundred dense books of theory and condense them into a 10-point plan. You can just improve the lives of people by advocating for public housing, healthcare, schools, and unions.
It is however your responsibility to be familiar with the fundamentals of Marx and Lenin if you wish to speak authoritatively within leftist circles. There are like 1-2 hour podcasts that will summarize everything, there’s no real excuse for ignorance.
Without knowing the basic fundamentals and context of a situation one will only talk nonsense. Comrades must not talk nonsense.
We should reaching out/be more welcoming to ex military, when the time for revolution comes, those that have practical leadership, communication and weapons training need to be on our side and their experience will be invaluable.
The mentality of "you're forever damned as a war criminal because you did supply chain management for the Navy for a few years" is utterly incompatible with basically all leftist critiques of the criminal legal system. You can't talk about prison abolition on one hand and then say Bobby the forklift commander gets the wall. You can't talk about how horrible it is to ruin someone's life with prison over a mistake they made as a 19-year-old and then say someone's life is forfeit because they enlisted at 17 and didn't have the balls to go AWOL.
And all of that is before you get to the practical considerations you mention.
Yeah this is one of those things that tears left wing movements apart. Like even if the state was in total collapse, there will be a military and they will absolutely have all the stuff to kill you that you will never be able to obtain. If you think there can be a revolution without the military on your side you're delusional. Even countries with weak and small militaries overthrow their left wing governments all the time. Venezuela only stands because PSUV has a hold on the military.
Tbh pepper are going to have to get over their concept of individual moral culpability for participation in systems of oppression, otherwise those systems will never be challanged.
There's not only the whole we need them argument but also the argument that some people do shitty things without knowing they're shitty. I was a dumbass liberal/conservative edge-rider for most of my life and I assume many others on this forum were at one point too. To look at someone for their past misdeeds and unequivocally denounce them for not being pure is just an extension of excessive whole cancel culture libshit. If someone does and is still doing bad shit, or did bad shit and can't be made to see what they did was wrong, fuck em. If someone joined the army thinking it was a way out of poverty or a legit life path, then found the error of their ways/was told and convinced of the error of their ways, give them the chance of redemption
all you have to do is break it and its ability to crush socialism abroad
It's hard to imagine this happening without turning the country socialist. Balkanization is technically possible, but is difficult to imagine absent the type of change that could lead to just becoming socialist.
Left Unity, when understood as a guiding ideological principle rather than a tactical consideration, does more harm to the movement by accepting the liberal pluralist position that your political ideology is catered to your individual personality, feelings, lived experience, etc. and denies the material basis of politics and of theory as constantly advancing and adapting with this material basis.
A "Left Unitarian" will always say that it is not the right time to bring something up, don't be schismatic. They have a "holier than thou" approach to conflict. They disavow it and see themselves as above it, and scold those in conflict for keeping us divided, ignoring that we are already divided by our disparate ideologies. The "Left Unitarian" wants the unity without the principled ideological struggle that precedes it.
I hope it's clear I'm not talking about hosting a site meant for an ecclectic leftist userbase and keepin a lid on vicious infighting as a tactical and strategic decision for running a good leftist forum. I also don't think joining broad orgs like DSA is a bad thing or linking up with orgs of different tendencies for certain campaigns. This is not about some abstract idea of "ideological purity," but this view does recognise that, although there are issues that are debatable and hard to agree on, at the end of the day there are correct ideas and incorrect ideas and Left Unity can, when someone takes it up as an ideological project, use an onslaught of thought terminating cliches (e.g. infighting is just an arbitrary purity test, united we are stronger than if we are divided, we aren't in or close to power so we can't afford that kind of conflict) to silence principled comrades trying to help people see their incorrect ideas and the value in the correct ideas.
A “Left Unitarian” will always say that it is not the right time to bring something up, don’t be schismatic.
Eh when done right it's more "we can argue, but let's stick together and keep our eye on the immediate prize."
Paralysing your local DSA with endless struggle sessions because they refuse to recognise Amerikkka as an illigitimate political formation and start training for a Protracted People's war is the other extreme; another unprincipled vice that should also be avoided and criticised.
Paralysing your local DSA with endless struggle sessions because they refuse to recognise Amerikkka as an illigitimate political formation
In my mind this is the far more common (and thus far more dangerous) issue. Too many people forget that radicalization is a process, you have to give people a pipeline from wherever they are to the left, and presenting yourself as too radical too soon will turn people off.
One thing the right has dialed down to a science is how to get people from moderate political positions to blood-and-soil extremism. One of the #1 things they don't do is putting all the radical stuff front and center right off the bat. They give people breadcrumbs to follow.
Depends on your context I guess. My only experience with this kind of wrecking in the name of purity has come from liberals believe it or not who think we can't continue to function until we have fixed some internal problem with respect to demographics or whatever. The left part of the org fails to recognise this as opportunistic wrecking because they haven't fleshed out their politics and are operating off their own activist common sense and take the bait. In trying to unify with these people and keep them happy, a wedge was deiven through the org and it was paralysed. So I guess sometimes it's not either too much unity or too hardline but both really. As an ML I'd identify the problem as a lack of Marxist analysis and unity in the leadership.
Many of us develop our politics online before and whilst we organise in person. That was the case for me, and if it were not for all the online discussions I participated in and read I don't think my views would be as developed as they are now. It loosened me up for views that were being presented to me in person and made me aware if an entierely different universe of discourse. Posting does serve a propagandistic function in a kind of low-grade, stochastic way; people dont change their mind with a single argument but after a position has been normalised to the point that they begin to seriously consider it and its merits. I also believe having a correct theory is necessary for good political action, which is the definition of praxis.
Name one modern example of Social Democrats contributing to a socialist movement and not just diluting it or fighting it
Yeah they also started infighting with the “Stalinists” that lead to their defeat so idk if that’s a good example
Libs are more likely than anyone to come over to the left, and while they should be dunked on for their bad opinions we too often turn that into the type of vitriol that makes it harder to get them on our side.
A lot of apolitical folks are going to stay apolitical no matter what. Even during some of the worst times in human history a lot of people are more concerned with getting by than with investing in a political solution.
You don't get to call your movement a science if the most recent theory you can cite is 100 years old. Physicists give Einstein credit for relativity; they do not actually read Einstein's works.
Do you think Xi JinPing received a PHD from reading Das Kapital over and over again?
No? Who said I think that?
Xi JinPing can cite theory that's less than 100 years old, so he can call what he's doing science.
You're reading an awful lot into what I said that isn't what I said. I was complaining about people who've only read Marx and Lenin then go around shouting down every other idea because it contradicts an "immortal science" that the person doing the shouting is not engaged with.
You’re asking for a sort of new universal Revolutionary Science when the foundational solution has remained the same since Marx’s time
I mean, the analogy was Marx to Einstein. Nobody's thrown out that foundation either, even if we've found better ways to explain it since then.
How come your revisionism is 100 years old too? You are literally Kautsky verbatim
The amount of effort required to learn theory is too high.
It's too hard to convey the dialectics of modern capitalism and principals of historical materialism in any sort of convincing way in a short time frame.
A lot of people in America will never accept Materialism as a starting point.
illiterate Vietnamese peasants taught each other Marxist theory orally! it's all about material conditions
Here's a hot take: I have no doubt some illiterate peasants all over the world taught themselves theory, but I doubt that most revolutionaries in any given leftist conflict were all that politically educated. Most people in general aren't politically educated, a number of leftist revolutions started off more as independence struggles (e.g., Cuba, Vietnam), and you don't need to read 500 pages of Marx to want to fight the imperialists who killed one of your family members.
The takeaway for modern times is that theory is good, but we'll undoubtedly have many comrades who are uninterested in it even if they're highly motivated to go out and make a better world.
yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I feel like here have to be some interesting lessons in the relationship between anti-colonial struggle and Marxism-Leninism that I would like to learn more about
The big link I see is an overlap of immediate goals that arise from an overlap of motivations. If you're in a colonized country that's run by an imperial capitalist stooge, whatever your ideological starting point is, you want better conditions for ordinary people and your immediate goal is to overthrow said stooge. Then, as your struggle matures, you find out that capitalist states generally oppose you and ML states are willing to help you, so naturally you make friends with your allies and listen to their ideas on political theory.
Counterpoint: it's never been easier to learn theory with the internet, podcasts, audiobooks, and forums for discussion and clarification
I agree with you, but even for a self-identified leftist actively engaging and trying to learn, there is SO MUCH out there and I'm just now barely feeling like I have a slightly decent grasp on these key ML concepts - and that's after dozens of hours of reading, several books, and dozens of hours of podcasts.
I know my historical materialism is still very weak, and I haven't even begun to properly dig into the Cuban and Chinese revolutions.
My point is you can't expect the average person to spend hundreds of hours reading and listening to theory when Liberal/Conservative/Fascist viewpoints are so easily packaged and disseminated, backed by years of strong propaganda.
I think it can be extremely hard to understand and support socialist revolutions throughout history without that understanding when you're coming from a standard western Liberal point of view.
My point is you can’t expect the average person to spend hundreds of hours reading and listening ... I think it can be extremely hard to understand and support socialist revolutions throughout history without that understanding when you’re coming from a standard western Liberal point of view.
I would push back on this view a little in a few ways. First, I don't think the average person should have to delve deep into hundreds of hours of theory, that should be done mostly be members of a vanguard party who then make it their project to make the useful parts of this theory and history easily digestible in service of furthering their aims. If an average person thinks that North Korea is bad, but can be convinced that China is good and support an anti-war campaign, then that's a win because that is the issue relevant to your org. However, if a member in your cadre is saying these things, it is also understandable because we can't be expected to know everything, but that is where being part of an org helps because your comrades will help educate you when you speak from ignorance. Just keep an open mind an noticed when your comrades are trying to help you learn in good faith so you don't have to feel like you need the "perfect" view before being able to do anything at all.
CounterCounterpoint: the attention economy has rotted the ability of modern people to focus enough to read dense text in hundred-year-old vernacular that references issues that were contemporary when they were written but that anyone today, outside of niche history nerds, has zero context for, and rather than get with the times and publish updated versions or contemporary applications and contexts, the modern left would rather bully people for not being able to muster the attention required to digest it because they derive more smug satisfaction from having read theory than they would get from helping people who won't or can't read ancient academic texts to understand the core principles discussed in them
rather than get with the times and publish updated versions or contemporary applications and contexts
Note that revolutionaries like Lenin, Mao, and Che didn't just translate Marx into their local languages -- they did exactly what you're suggesting and updated the core concepts for their time and place. They weren't dogmatic, they were practical.
No it's definitely something I struggle with. People don't want big words thrown at them, they don't want the only life they've ever known challenged. Unless they are already on the path to radicalization from real world experience, they will ignore most things you say.
No future revolution will ever be lead by Leninists, MLs, Maoists, Trots, etc, etc. We'll simply retrospectively name future revolutionary actors after their contemporary leader(s). The aforementioned tendencies may be influential in guiding future revolutionary action, but they are inherently insufficient in scope and tactics for the 21st century. The world is not as it was.
100% of revolutions have been lead by Leninists, but for some reason that stopped in 2000 and now a magical new force will manifest. There have been almost 40 successful Leninist revolutions, there have been almost 0 successful non-Leninist socialist revolutions.
Sure bud, whatever logic you need to be revisionist
Have there been any successful Leninist ones recently (past 20 years)? I'm genuinely asking, because none come to mind.
The Venezuelan revolution did not begin Marxist-Leninist but became ML after gaining power and that’s the only reason they are still in power.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Socialist_Party_of_Venezuela
PSUV is a Marxist party that stresses the importance of anti-imperialism and has strong ties to Cuba. They reformed their party after gaining power to become democratically centralized, a Leninist party structure. Maduro is said to study Stalin for policies.
The PSUV is a coalition of various left wing groups. It is overall not a ML party and does not claim to be one. There are very likely MLs within the party but they do not dominate it.
And why has the actual Communist party, who are self declared MLs, distanced themselves from Maduro and recently have claimed they are being attacked by the state?
"Settlers" is a FBI op. Literally a perfect manifestation of COINTELPRO. Divide the working class, play up existing divisions, and encourage sectarianism.
Settlers makes a lot of great observations and analysis but it definitely tends to spawn settlers-brain idiocy like saying all white settlers should be rounded up and forcibly settled (lol) throughout the global south. It's also kind of paralyzing in that it makes it seem as though your movement cannot include white people unless they're fine with constant self-flagellation, which is never going to be a significant number of people. If you live in a place that is majority white and you believe that 90% of whites are irredeemable, how can you ever expect to achieve revolution? Solidarity seems impossible if you take everything in Settlers to heart. It's very much a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's why I think it is, or might as well be, an op. Because following it to its conclusions is a recipe for splitting and not getting anything done in a majority white area.
Also Settlers brain is very real and very funny. You can tell who has had their mind blown by it recently by their sudden change in language choices.
Shout out to Black Hammer and their anti-anne frank campaign lmao
Yeah. I definitely agree with the White Proletariat is fucked in many ways, but man that book from the way people describe it seems very American Maoist. I should read it to confirm it myself.
Counterpoint: Settlers was awesome for making me pissed off at white people. I just ignored all the Third Worldist conclusions Sakai wanted me to come to.
Ironically if the book was written more dispassionately it probably would've been taken more seriously. Instead it's basically like "if you're white shut the fuck up and maybe you can be the janitor of the revolution but only if you're wholly submissive to those of us who really deserve it" lol. Moralizing only serves bourgeois interests.
Moralism is ineffective when you're already post-morality. :stirner-shocked: Our local movement had a bunch of the self-flagellating types and all the more radical people dutifully fucked off to do something more useful.
Yeah like I'm Proletarian. I have white privilege but no class or material privilege. Self-flagellation is probably kinky to PMC mayos who already have everything material that they need and want, but that ain't me lol. Show me solidarity and I'll fight with you, but don't expect me to degrade myself. Being super sorry about people that look like you isn't ever going to help marginalized people. Tbf though it seems like very few white people can find a middle ground between racism and self-flagellation.
