I have to caulk it up to young people learning about socialism and communism for the first time, but they're only reading Marx and Lenin.
Like hey guys, they lost pretty hard. Maybe we shouldn't do exactly the same thing and in fact there's decades of work outlining what we should do instead?
Yes! Their positions and actions are suspiciously very demobilising.
No unity even in the most basic stuff. No willingness to hold a constructive conversation. Things have to be done in their way or you're labeled an enemy. Doctrine above humanity. Incessant nitpicking.
How do they intend to build socialism if they can't even have an honest, good faith conversation?
A "leftist" earlier this week told me that Joe Biden is responsible for Dobbs because it happened in 2022. That's a cosplaying Republican. The red hat will be back on his head end-of-day November 3rd.
I can understand looking back to them for some useful stuff. "Commieblock" housing served a purpose at the time, for example. They brought huge masses of people into an urban environment with indoor plumbing, electricity, and climate control, which were not a given in their previous living situations. They were meant as an interim solution to last a few decades. For what they set out to do, they were a great success. The only problem was that the followup to better options was never done.
But the Leninist/Maoists can never leave it at pulling out successes like that. It's almost always "America bad", "Holodomor isn't real", or "Cuba only sucks because of sanctions".
america is bad, research by anticommunist historians after the fall of the soviet union lead to the irrefutable conclusion that holodomor isn't real (holodomor means intentional genocidal famine, not just that there was a famine that lots of people died in) and cuba has problems but the main reason it sucks is because of sanctions.
Famine because of bad policy is not a win, either. That's the best case interpretation. However, there are plenty of tankies who will tell you there were no mass deaths at all.
may i see the tankies saying there was no mass death during the famine? I have never in many years of interacting with communists heard someone say that.
Is what we've been doing in the US working very well? Maybe the democrat party should look at why nobody is fired up to vote for them, even though the alternative is people like trump. It should be very easy to appeal to normal people, but even with cartoonish opposition, the democrats can't bring themselves to much better. All I'm saying is you're asking some tiny minority of the electorate (socialists) to introspect, when you're better off asking the same of the people and parties that actually have power.
Cynical tinfoil hat moment but — making concessions to voters to beat the GOP means giving away valuable capital (physical and political) that those at the top would rather retain for themselves. It would certainly explain how both sides only ever get worse instead of better, and how ejections continuously come down to 51/49. They don’t have to be any good, they just have to be 1% better than the other one. A race to the bottom.
This is why I pull largely from my half crazed redneck version of leftism. Cant make an authoritarian out of someone who doesnt listen to aurhority outside of his fucken clan. I will listen to cops and be polite because I dont want the dumbfuck gorilla with a gun to shoot me. Makes it harder to spread the ideas of militant unions.
Your vote for Dems is what endangers the vulnerable like those in poverty. You consent to wealth and income inequality with your vote, and can only blame yourself for not improving your country.
I did that in 2016 and it didn’t progress shit. It made it worse like it will if we do that this year. I organized and pushed leftists in primaries and I was beaten by "moderates." Specifically, nobody had a chance against the incumbent. It fucking sucks but I don’t want a declared fascist putting more assholes on judicial benches or pushing anti-trans, anti-women policies.
I’m with you on both parties sucking. But please, grow up. If you want to help, do it before the nominees are set. And don’t drag others into your misguided principles.
wtf have I done? I already said. Organized and gotten people elected to school boards, city council, and our mayor too. We primaried for state and federal elections but didn’t get our candidates. We didn’t pout and waste our votes on people who had no chance of getting elected. We sucked it the fuck up and tried to make sure Republicans didn’t get elected.
I don't believe you at all. Any person informed enough to do what you said knows voting for Democrats only makes out situation worse by consenting to neoliberal capitalism. None of the hundreds of people affiliated with the Green party I've met have said that, so you're lying.
voting for Democrats only makes out situation worse
Tell me you're not a pregnant woman who needs obstetric care of any kind or a capitol policeman or trans or Hispanic or a person who's trying to get sick days from their union or a Ukrainian
by consenting to neoliberal capitalism
Yes, everyone knows that simply not consenting to the system suddenly makes it go away. Just ask anyone who's ever been on a traffic stop -- you just have to tell the policeman you do not consent, and all of a sudden, everything changes, and it works out better that you didn't go along with the system.
If only the civil rights movement had been privy to this knowledge, they could have done their decades of work to make the system better much more simply and easily
Tell me you’re not a pregnant woman who needs obstetric care of any kind or a capitol policeman or trans or Hispanic or a person who’s trying to get sick days from their union or a Ukrainian
Dems can't fix that or they won't be able to run on it anymore. They have plenty of opportunities especially the super majority under Obama.
Yes, everyone knows that simply not consenting to the system suddenly makes it go away.
Never made that argument, bad gaslighting attempt. Green part hits even 5% and Dems start doing what you want.
If only the civil rights movement had been privy to this knowledge
This actually goes against your argument, civil violence was the only reason anything happened for that movement, and you're advocating for voting for Dems and not getting in the streets.
My interest is growing the Green party so it is in my interests to vote for her, and convince others to do the same so Dems will feel threatened enough to help poor people.
If you want the Green Party to grow, then you should do the best you can to prevent Trump's lackeys from totally hijacking the executive branch and instilling actual literal fascism.
You know, the more of your comments I read, the more I'm pretty sure you're a Russian troll
Hey wait a second that link only details democrats' plans to beat 3rd party candidates in this election, not a plan to instill actual literal fascism, gutting environmental regulations, and ensuring that no one can reimpose those regulations for as long as this country remains this country
Hey wait a second that link only details democrats’ plans to beat 3rd party candidates in this election, keep third parties off the ballot because they are anti-democratic
You're not a "raging leftist" if you vote for Biden. At least vote PSL or Green use a brutal domestic terrorism campaign as leverage to blackmail politicians into overturning first-past-the-post as part of a multi-prong strategy that, even as extreme as you are, still includes a pragmatic hedge in the form of a vote for the lesser of two evils
Of course nobody should be terrorizing anyone. What I’m riffing off of is a perspective someone shared that basically you don’t protest with a vote for a loser, you protest by agitating for systemic change.
In the meantime while the broken system is in place, you feed it a minimally shitty input.
Reasonable people can definitely disagree on this.
One thing that may be interesting to think about: some percentage of the time an argument is made disingenuously to try to siphon off votes. An entirely genuine recommendation of an identical strategy is fair – as I said reasonable people can disagree – but perhaps calls for some introspection.
It’s too bad when your strategy mirrors that of your worst enemy! So the far leftist could perhaps instead chain himself to legislators’ doors (vehement objection to the system) while consenting to acknowledge reality with a disgusted harm reduction vote for the marginally less-bad elderly man.
The best available choice isn't always one that you want to make. It's fine to hate the idea of voting strategically, I hate it too, but it's naive to think you can positively affect the system by going with the option you want the most.
No, we can say with absolute certainty that (barring any issues with mortality) either Trump or Biden will win this year. I assume others will vote for those two for the same reason I assume that the sun will rise tomorrow.
ETA: I was right about the sunrise. Check back in a few months to find out if I was right about the president!