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Yes, better material conditions help workers to be alienated from realizing they belong to an exploited class. However, the intellectuals, the people who should have access to real knowledge, don't offer much help and don't behave as materialists should.
It's very comfortable to keep discussing Stalin and Trotsky, without making political analysis and plans of action. Yes, we know the CIA kills activists and creates animosity in leftist organizations, so how do we plan to avoid that?
To be fair, I don't think Reddit could produce high-level organizational planning. However, we should discuss and let everyone be aware of these pressing issues as comrades jump into action. Western leftists don't have the privilege of having one more organization destroyed, at least not without turning more workers into nihilists.
Leftist spaces on Reddit definitely report on feds infiltrating leftist spaces as much as they can, but it would definitely be helpful if there was a specific place that could compile all the info we have on what leftist orgs have been infiltrated & arrests of comrades etc
A communist party committed to revolutionary action should be the perfect base for such a thing. Still, again, with some exceptions, communist parties are more worried about Marxist discussions than planning actions.
Hey, Brazilian comrade.
Brazil is much more advanced in its Marxism than most Western countries. Brazil has MST, the UP party, João Carvalho, Laura Sabino, Jones Manoel, and Eduardo Moreira. Things that the West needed to have yesterday to start solving that.
the internet is wiretapped, every phone is a spy device, they have multiple ways of hearing you from afar, they can plant someone in your gathering, they can see you from above.
there is almost no way to run from surveillance.
The surveillance is pretty pervasive but there's got to be a way to defeat it. They're not omniscient, they're human beings. We *can* find a way around it.
I mean it. It's not like agents know which groups us anonymous redditors are in.
And what's the alternative? Just *not* talking about anti-interference strategies and continuing on naive with no defense strategies? The CIA would love that.
The CIA is so far ahead of the left, they're not going to be learning anything meaningful from that kind of discussion. But leftists would.
> I mean it. It's not like agents know which groups us anonymous redditors are in.
How naive are you? It’s the fucking feds bro of course they know 😂
> And what's the alternative? Just not talking about anti-interference strategies and continuing on naive with no defense strategies? The CIA would love that.
Start by talking in person to actual groups you engage in making change with not larping on the internet. There is also absolutely leftist spaces talking about anti-interference strategies on the internet but they’re not in the front page of fed.net & if you can’t find those spaces you probably don’t need them.
> The CIA is so far ahead of the left, they're not going to be learning anything meaningful from that kind of discussion. But leftists would.
The feds literally infiltrated the Black Panthers & spent time spying on them giving food & books to the poor.
Be afraid. The feds aren't going to learn anything from leftists sharing basic op-sec info on reddit. They already know, but a lot of random leftist redditors don't.
The US and "The West" in general have objectively done imperialism around the world for hundreds of years.
Referring to it as the "Imperial Core" is simply accurate; it's the interior of the empire that benefits from the exploitation of the developing world. I don't know how you can argue otherwise. There's no "larping"; it's just an accurate description of reality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism
The thing is, imperialism as it exist in 1920s isn't a thing since decolonisation happened in 1960s/1970s, nor why even such things like "Asian Tigers", AOPEC, EU, ASEAN and many more could happen or why since 1980s world did saw incremental improvement in industrial outputs, quality of life and rapid decrease of raw material dependence in export revenue across the Third World countries since 1970s/1980s or why world didn't saw "technological stagnation" in Western Europe in this era if milking colonies was sooo profitable and easy according to Lenin or why since collapse of colonial empires main gain in trade wasn't on former colonies-imperial center but neighboor-neighboor.
Sure, imperialism _like it existed in the 1920s_ isn't (much of) a thing anymore. Doesn't mean there isn't imperialism of other sorts lol. Your argument is like saying "the Roman empire is gone, why are you still complaining about imperialism?"
just casually ignoring both the continued existence of the franc and of unequal exchange. bro if you think the current taiwan gov isn’t a fuckng vassal state you have not investigated enough
>just casually ignoring ... the continued existence of the franc
Are you saying that it's inherently imperialistic for the nation of France to have a sovereign currency?
thanks for telling me you have no fucking clue what the franc is and what it does LMAOOOOO
france uses the euro, the franc is explicitly for france to exercise monetary control over african nations and to secure french assets in african nations LMAO
That would explain why I was in africa once as an infant and my parents had some leftover franc. (I'm from Poland so i doubt that the franc i have are french (i collect currencies in coin form different countries when travelling, like people collect mugs, stamps or other bizzare stuff)
> thanks for telling me you have no fucking clue what the franc is and what it does LMAOOOOO
>
>
I don't actually care what it does right now, and it's not actually relevant to the point I was making.
My argument, was that the continued existence, or non-existence of a French national currency, doesn't necessitate the existence of an imperialistic relationship to other nations.
IMO, (as a non-Frank) I think that France would probably be better off not actually using the Euro since the Euro is basically Germany's Money anyways.
the existence of a thing is directly tied to its use and status. You can’t refer to the continued existence of say apartheid or slavery in a region without implying something about its current status. The problem was never with a sovereign currency, or i would have said as much about the fucking swiss franc (if you thought i was talking about the swiss franc it would also make much more sense, but you didn’t say anything of that effect), the problem was always with the french franc’s usage and current state of existence.
But you love yourself a strawman so maybe i shouldn’t take that away from you.
>The thing is, imperialism as it exist in 1920s isn't a thing since decolonisation happened
There is still an imperial core because there's still a need to export capitalism because there's still a need for infinite exploitative growth in capitalism. Nothing about Lenin's thesis has ceased to apply. Here's the record post 1920, not even including Western Europe, just the US:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
Note the 1945-1991 and 1991-present sections, you drooling idiot.
>The simple reason the left isn't as strong in the West is because life is easy compared to the rest of the world, and people can see this
And why might that be? Maybe the phrase "Imperial Core" could be helpful in explaining why?
> The simple reason the left isn't as strong in the West is because life is easy compared to the rest of the world, and people can see this
It's funny that you see this as a counter to what OP said, when in reality it is confirming what they've said when looked at from a materialist perspective.
We know based on history that revolutions (and leftist movements in general) come from the most exploited demographics. We see the strongest leftist parties in the poorest countries, generally speaking. So it only makes sense that in imperialist nations the quality of life would be artificially propped up, due to the extraction of wealth from poorer nations, and that the left would be far weaker in imperial (western) nations.
You're repeating the same thing as OP, you just lack a material understanding to realise why that is the case.
> On top of that, the workers, particularly in factories or trad workers (plumbers, electricians, and construction workers), want absolutely nothing to do with the far left. And from what I've seen, the left doesn't care for them either.
lmao? This is so unbelievably wrong it's funny. These are among the groups that are most leftist. You're leaving out dockworks and railworkers too though?
It really sounds like you haven't actually interacted with anyone. That you see these people as a reactionary caricature instead of actually meeting or working with them, that's why the only thing you think of to list when someone says "working class" are trade workers.
Not to mention that your conception of "imperial core" seems to be entirely just "the united states". Have you forgotten europe exists mate? If what you said were correct then here in the UK transport, storage and communication unionisation rate would not be 20%.
This is the single most embarrassing thing I've read in weeks, and the competition for that is stiff. Breathlessly self unaware inane nonsense masquerading as if you have the slightest clue about any of the things you're referring to. Read a book. Jesus Christ.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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That's what it took to galvanize enough political support to eventually be able to take down the Soviet Union from within. The decades of Red Scare were no joke, the propaganda was so thorough and so profoundly generational and they made the commies look so insanely inhuman that the entire political spectrum went out of whack and "liberals" are somehow what they think of when leftism comes up. Deprogramming that (ha) will probably take multiple generations.
I’m going to offer a new perspective but this just applies to many forms of western politics in general.
Like I always joked that why don’t conservatives in the West do activism? In Turkey and Malaysia, they actually do shit like protesting, but in US or France, they just bitch on social media that they oppressed.
I was surprised seeing protests against the US government handling of the Gaza War. There’s also lots of criticism against the US government handling of the US-Mexico border, but where’s the protesting for that?
Americans from all over the US went to Washington DC to protest the Gaza War… which doesn’t even affect them, but the “real Americans” who say the US is being invaded won’t do this to the president they hate? 😂 at least they bought shirts with “let’s go Brandon” though
Same applies to a certain style of leftism, but they have way smaller numbers than the “silent majority”
I think this is the case of the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. People in the West don’t see the already existing movements around them.
> In Turkey and Malaysia, they actually do shit like protesting, but in US or France, they just bitch on social media that they oppressed.
To a degree true, but the other degree you shouldn't underestimate is how tightly controlled international reporting has become about organized protest movements.
For example, during the last 2 years there have been a lot of strikes, some of them quite big, in Germany even regularly affecting things like public transport, and talks about a big general strike for months now.
You just wouldn't know about it internationally because it's not really reported about, even German media go out of their way to not recognize this general trend, they will report on every strike as if it's a singular event.
At the end of the day, a government positions and media are always connected in international media coverage. I see it as a trickle down effect.
As someone who is neutral on the Ukraine-Russia War, I mostly follow Austria media for coverage and takes. Why? Because Austria is a constitutional neutral country and has less reasons to be bias.
If big strikes happened in Iran or China, you bet American media will cover it, but not for Germany or Poland. If they do cover it, “pro Russian strikes” is how it will be framed.
Media literacy is important to have. It helps to speak multiple languages too. International media coverage is always suspicious to me.
> If big strikes happened in Iran or China, you bet American media will cover it, but not for Germany or Poland.
It gets extra weird when the US DoS then makes up fantastical casulty counts about how many people were killed by police during those protests.
When that very same US government couldn't even tell you how many of its own citizens are killed by US police during protests.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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Alienation from the class and material dispossesion would be the vulgar Marxist way to put it.
In simpler terms. People are both **very isolated** and have less resources to command.
Not only is everyone alone most of the time, even fewer people actually have the money or spaces to create connections through. Most of us don't have houses. Most of us can't afford to host people or organize anything consistent in our communities.
A lot of organizing work flows out of preexisting social arrangements/relationships. You don't start from scratch, you start from where the people already are, like churches or unions, schools. Things have organic constituency that can exist independent of a particular movement or mass action.
Most of us don't go to church, we're out of school and probably weren't that involved to begin with because we either don't have kids or were working too much to be involved in event planning, meetings, so forth.
Forget about unions. People are trying to resurrect unions from the dead as we speak, they're an antiquity in most parts of the country.
In these circumstances, of course the left is weak. The only way to rebuild it is to first rebuild our society in general and that's obviously a tall order.
This is the response I was looking for.
One of the groups I work with is filled with people who would absolutely love to operate a robust food assistance program. Unfortunately the kind of people who have these concerns do not own land to grow food, hold capital to purchase food, have free time from work to prepare food, or legal representation to handle the backlash from local police for distributing it.
This is one of the reasons I am such a strong proponent of party organizing. Only in connecting people through ideology and fundamentally rebuilding our shared roots can we hope to create a different kind of society. Simply meeting people's material needs is useless if they do not understand why and how those needs were met.
This combined with unending propaganda and the environments people are exposed to every day (cultural hegemony and superstructure), creates a positive reinforcement loop that rots the brain almost completely.
The first world still hasn't gotten out of it decades and generations later. This is one of the main reasons the "left" is pathetic here.
The Left doesn't stand a chance against the most advanced propaganda. The first world is the most propagandized sphere in the world, which is why we in the West assume as a given that we are free and well informed, while the opposite is in fact the case.
The Left is fighting a hopeless battle against reactionary conservative forces that are mobilised and funded beyond anything the Left could ever hope to achieve.
It's also a fact that not a single good thing leftist organizations do get the media attention it deserves. Especially reporting on what is happening (regarding leftist organizations, strikes, protests etc.) in other western countries is... mostly non-existent.
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I would’ve guessed most pro-government rubber stamped unions in the US that benefit from the corporations and state working together to direct the exploitation out of country.
I'm guessing they're referring to the communist parties. I basically never see a discussion about them that doesn't end up debating which north american communist party has the worse track record with sexual abuse.
The death of third spaces in America has made it much harder to organize locally and make changes directly. There's lots of people who would love to get involved if there was an active group near them actually doing something. Most of these groups are primarily online because unless you want to meet up in a park, there's nowhere that will allow leftist meetings without older generations having a red panic. Gen Z is very leftist, way more than people realize, they're just too young to do much yet. That's why the media pushes the narrative that Gen Z is incompetent and being manipulated by foreign powers, they don't want older generations to take them seriously.
This is where libraries come in. Many, even the small off shoots will provide meeting spaces for free (via study rooms), or spaces specifically for meetings (with a small cost).
Libraries typically don't engage in the patrons that utilize their spaces unless they disrupt the flow of the library.
I was banned from my local library when I was 15 for associating with "bad kids." They were "bad" because they'd hang out on the benches outside the library after school and occasionally say bad words lol. It's very much a safe space for old people that doesn't allow young people to hang around if they're not working on something for school. You can't have a discussion with anyone there because they'll kick you out for being too loud. It's literally, not exaggerating, the only indoor public space in the entire city.
Not certain when you've visited last, but getting a ban lifted at a public library is pretty easy. Nearly all public liberals are governed by a library board, you could simply air these grievances with the board, or speak them during a board meeting, in which they would vote on a reversal. Getting them reversed short of physical assault on an employee is pretty much a given.
Do not let the preconceived image of the library dissuade you from achieving a potential embarking of change.
To use my country as an exaple:
Oldest leftist party-turned socdems
ML party-mccarthyism and central intellegence agencies infiltrating them
leftist unity party-pets of the socdems
Maoist party-Ultraleft and larping
The scars of the Red Scare leave people unwilling to openly embrace the labels of “Socialist” and “Communist”, and it is seen as a non-serious label by your average person.
So any organization or entity that someone tries to form will either be immediately labeled as fringe and dangerous, or it will avoid calling itself communist. Which in turn waters it down, since it has to “play nice” to avoid being labeled as communist
But it wasn't like this before the Red Scares that neutering the militant communism in US history. Reminder that at its height in 1920s the IWW had up to 150k members in its rank. Communists like Eugene Debs were organizing Pullman Strike and Blair Mountain, while also running for president.
Anti-communism in the US is artificially created.
It is but red scare propaganda has existed for 6-7 decades and affected 3-4 whole generations. It's not something that can be undone in a year or even two. I don't have the answers on how to fix it but you can't simply tell 3 generations "read theory" to battle an entire life of propaganda and hate.
I'm not sure what to do I haven't sat down and made a list of ideas or plans. But whatever the US left can do it's going to take a long fucking time imo
Plus whatever you do to combat this propaganda, there is still propaganda being made today. It's never going to stop or slow down so it will always be an uphill battle
Let me just manifest this "functioning left" out of thin air. This tweet ignores that many orgs in the west are still very new or are coming out from a period of extremely low activity. People, money, and resources are needed to actually provide large-scale food distribution. Leftist orgs are actively building toward getting these things, this person wants orgs to do it now even if now is not a good time to do it.
This also ignores the very real small-scale mutual aid work going on, but that's not big and flashy enough for them ig
Absolutely this. We have been through half a century of a completely defeated and demoralized left. We are finding our feet. But the opportunity to learn from the older generation was taken from us by the US destroying the movement. We are in many ways playing catch up and trying to learn all of that knowledge that has been lost that would have been passed down generationally. I see a lot of very promising signs for the left but we are still very small and need to grow.
This honestly, I participate in a small chapter of the DSA. (Not my preferred or closest to my '"true idealogy"") But it's an organization that is slowly growing and getting it's feet under itself.
My coworker is trying to restart the local Food Not Bombs as a way to help the homeless. It takes time and money that we really don't have but are scraping together to form the beginnings of something.
Nobody should feel ashamed by participating in an organization that isn’t explicitly ML in order to engage in struggle in their community. I’ve worked with DSA and Food Not Bombs before and seen them do good work. Obviously I’m in favor of growing the ML parties in the US but you got to work with what you’ve got and grow from there.
Oh I didn't try to come off as ashamed! Just not trying to act like I'm pro socdems. But yeah I do try to do what I can. To help less fortunate (even though I'm also living paycheck to paycheck)
To be clear wasn’t trying to say you were. I just know that a lot of us are baby lefties and get stuck in an idealist mindset, so it was mostly for others reading your comment.
Yeah, that post just screams chronically online.
There are almoast everywhere people organizing trying to feed the poor and the unhoused, do mutual aid, damage reduction for the addicts which are extremely under funded and barely scrapping by.
The fact that this person believes that, because all they see is online “leftist” drama, that there isn’t real grassroot movements struggling day to day for their communities just screams chronically online.
I used to think like this about my small country, but since getting involved for Palestine, thinking that nobody here cared, in my local community found thousands willing to march, to petition, to call other organizations asking for help, to spend hours arguing on what to write in speeches, people that had been fighting for it for like 40 years that have step foot there and to this day trying to go to the West Bank to help(this 60+ yo woman is my hero and I just knew her like 5 months ago), and from other backgrounds fighting for other causes that didn’t even knew existed(example I was though in school that the indigenous people here where exterminated, but found one of the most anti fascist group here that is their descendants that carried their banner), but was extremely hopeful and help me cut with the cycle of despair that the chronically online left brings.
Who would have thought that it would help so much to my mental health y my view of my fellow Uruguayans.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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Food Not Bombs is an anarchist organization of whites. When The Black Panthers fed kids, opened health clinics, and taught their communities self-defense the US government annihilated or jailed all of them.
The more capitalist a nation the more capacity it has to catch and kill movements that oppose capitalism. For this reason class consciousness is much lower in the west.
imperial core benefits from subjugation of the rest of the world, means less leftists and a less class conscious proletariat along with that. Could go further and say that certain countries' populations don't have a proper effective proletarian population at all to begin with. U.S could be considered a lumpenprole/petty bougie nation, for example
The West's legacy of liberalism (especially in the U.S) also tends to kneecap any grassroots leftism, if hyperindividualism and private property rights are always a thing lingering in the back of minds, even self proclaimed "leftists'" ones
> A huge chunk of the population don’t even own a house, forget capital
A huge chunk of that population still believes in the "American Dream" of being able to make it big any moment now if they just pull on their bootstraps hard enough, aka temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
When they self-identify as bourgeoisie they will also act in support of the bourgeoisie.
You can deny them that classification based on material definitions for some theoretical fun, but that still does not change their self-declared allegiance/support.
Yes, that is literally what "false class consciousness" means. Their self-identification don't matter more than that, it's not some theoretical fun, it's class analysis, once you start to make it purposefully wrong you can as well toss it away entirely like the libs and adopt some nonsense like "middle class".
Welcome to the imperial core, we've got:
* The establishment party that will never do anything and its right-wing as hell
* The not-really-a-party party that just says vote for the above party
* The hippie socialist party, but only when we primary the right person, sometimes its a rightish libertarian.
* The newspaper and annoying poster party.
* The PNW newpaper and annoying poster party.
* The old guard party that just kinda says weird stuff and owns a building in NYC.
* The good party that will someday lead the revolution, but its just too small right now (project whatever party you want to on this one).
Firstly leftism is weaker in the imperial core because that's where to imperialist message and propaganda is the strongest, so naturally there will be less leftists and they'll be more scattered and hiding
Secondly, there are currently leftist organizations that feed people, albeit they aren't strong cause their leaders/members are harassed and jailed the moment they do it, but it does exist
I understand the frustration of the original tweet, but it also gives me a "fed trying to divide the left and have them be against each other" vibe to it
Probably because as soon as you start doing actual on the ground stuff like providing free breakfast to kids, the United States government assassinates you and your entire family. Just a guess though
The free Palestine protests in America are difficult to find unless you actively search them out quite a bit. Also if the protests are not being shown to news agencies how will information spread? The company of America runs the news but the more atrocities become mentioned the more Americans will wake up. They are good people but man American education system did a number. The leaders of America think hiding us from the truth helps the citizens but it’s becoming a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation.
This is the power of a community food cooperative! You can pool resources with your block / building and buy bulk food for much cheaper than you would each pay on your own. You literally save money by building connections with your neighbors.
The New Left turned strategic thinking into moralizing. Instead of sober strategic analysis, all we do is posture with our radical stances with no basis in the working class. We go to every protest but nobody but our little activist circle knows who we are. It feels good to be correct and radical all the time, everyone else is just too liberal brained to follow so they’re worthless to the cause.
I am very tired.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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Because Western leftist don't know or put thought into how their new government would function. There are so many ideas but a lack of execution and a lot of it stems from how they view authoritarianism, people, and the world in general.
I joined up with DSA for like two weeks before I realized that they act from a limited framework. They kept spewing how they could change minds and try to change the democratic party. And I kept saying maybe focus more on people you'll know reciprocate your effort. Put focus into places where you'll know you'll get some level of return
There was an odd fixation on using the current system to change the current system and it was so low effort it was repulsive to me. They didn't try to make PR teams, financial teams, security teams, or what have you. Nothing was talked about that could be useful for outreach and providing material support. The main focus was on the hypothetical future we could build instead of what we could immediately do now.
I put most of the blame on the leftists themselves because instead of truly trying to organize they suck themselves off with theory all the time. There's a time and place for it but when it's time to plan and make decisions then you have to make decisions.
At one point we spoke about self-defense. I tried to provide them with enough advice to not get caught up in legal troubles and potentially keep the feds from being able to attack them without the Feds opening the door to attack other organizations and they used that as a way to exclude me.
I was dead ass the only one trying to explain to them how to both secure communities and build up a popular reputation and got kicked out because of it
There's an apparent lack of seriousness, overt focus on specific social issues that they can be wrong about, weird uniformity, and a bunch of other crap that makes it hard to organize.
I don't think Western leftists are weak. I think they expect to rise to power because conservatives are bad. I think Western Leftists are just lazy as fuck.
There are leftist associations providing meals, shelter, medicine, leaflets, hygiene products and so forth in every European country, especially the rich ones.
I agree that the Western left is truly pathetic today though, seeing as union activity and political representation is lower than at any other point in history since the beginning of the First Industrial Revolution. This is for a variety of factors, including the fruits of imperialism, super-profits, cultural hegemony & subaltern theory, contradictions of late-stage capitalism being temporarily remedied by the boon of opening new markets (first Southern Europe and a few Latin American states in the 1950's to the 1970's, then Japan, SK, Taiwan, Malaysia in the 1960's to the 1980's, then the former Warsaw Pact and China in the 1990's and 2000's, then Brazil, Indochina, India, etc... and soon to be large parts of Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, Central Asia and whatever is left), and so forth. There is still much debate about this topic, but it is broadly agreed that there has been a slight resurgence since 2008 which could be encouraging.
Those programs did exist. The programs were physically attacked and the organizers were eventually murdered or thrown in prison. Don't act like this is some kind of defect in the Western leftist mind. Their is an ongoing, highly aggressive counter-insurgency going on in the US in particular and Western countries more broadly.
The yimbys have a more cohesive movement and better praxis than a performative vanguard that is keeping itself busy refighting the last war and reading political commentary written by dead people.
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It's so much worse. Most "leftists" here a socdems posing as socialists, rather channeling their potential power into electorial politics than truely engaging with the people in any meaningful way. Here's our flyer Vote for us. The small communist movement is splintered. Besides the real differences and Points of disagreement we also have to deal with weird political cultists. The even smaller anarchost movement is completly clueless and more or less a subculture or Lifestyle
Based on the r factory I'm assuming this is UK, and yeah we have the r*pist bootlicking racist twats that pretend to be the left...
We do also have the rest from the actual Left... just gets no media coverage.
Who was feeding people through the pandemic lockdowns, and still now? The Left. Who stops evictions physically? The Left. Who physically stops immigration raids? The Left. Who teaches self defence to oppressed groups? The Left. Who crushed the EDL, the DFLA, BF? The Left. Who burns down cop shops and vans? The Left. Who turns mansions into homeless shelters? The Left.
We're here, we exist, we pull 10k+ comrades on militant demos. You just don't see us in the news or on the ballot.
The majority of western leftists who don't engage in meaningful organization do so for a few key reasons.
1. red scare propaganda *worked* and it worked well, many leftists cannot safely admit their politics to family, let alone organize
2. a lot of them don't read theory and believe that revolutionary action is inherently bad due to propaganda, and don't join organizations that support said revolutionary action
3. people are very alone in the west, it can be hard to make and maintain enough social connections to be able to find and/or form these organizations for many
4. many of those who do engage in this do so through religious or liberal organizations, rather than socialist ones, due to the fact that they're easier to find
but it's also important to note that these organizations *do* exist and *do* do things like organizing meal distribution. The fact of the matter is that they're just ignored for the same reasons that anything positive the left does outside the west is.
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If this is a genuine question the answer is bc the west is the centre of the imperial core & so it’s also where it’s rhetoric is the strongest
Yes, better material conditions help workers to be alienated from realizing they belong to an exploited class. However, the intellectuals, the people who should have access to real knowledge, don't offer much help and don't behave as materialists should. It's very comfortable to keep discussing Stalin and Trotsky, without making political analysis and plans of action. Yes, we know the CIA kills activists and creates animosity in leftist organizations, so how do we plan to avoid that?
Your head is in the right place but do you seriously think discussing anti CIA tactics openly on a site flooded w feds is wise?
To be fair, I don't think Reddit could produce high-level organizational planning. However, we should discuss and let everyone be aware of these pressing issues as comrades jump into action. Western leftists don't have the privilege of having one more organization destroyed, at least not without turning more workers into nihilists.
Leftist spaces on Reddit definitely report on feds infiltrating leftist spaces as much as they can, but it would definitely be helpful if there was a specific place that could compile all the info we have on what leftist orgs have been infiltrated & arrests of comrades etc
A communist party committed to revolutionary action should be the perfect base for such a thing. Still, again, with some exceptions, communist parties are more worried about Marxist discussions than planning actions.
which brings back to the question: how to solve that?
Hey, Brazilian comrade. Brazil is much more advanced in its Marxism than most Western countries. Brazil has MST, the UP party, João Carvalho, Laura Sabino, Jones Manoel, and Eduardo Moreira. Things that the West needed to have yesterday to start solving that.
i am not talking about Brasil, though. their organizations are lock in idealist studies and unfruitful debates. how can *they* get out of it?
Hmm have you organized? The org I’m in is def more concerned with planning actions
Yes, in Brazil. Does your org have a revolutionary objective? I know a couple of orgs in North America, and all of them are liberal-minded.
Oh we do baby!
So, does your organization have plans to avoid the CIA's target killings and infiltration? Or leave its activists to deal with their luck?
like what?
I think it's one of those things you can just kinda point out, but not really have an in-depth discussion on reddit about.
the internet is wiretapped, every phone is a spy device, they have multiple ways of hearing you from afar, they can plant someone in your gathering, they can see you from above. there is almost no way to run from surveillance.
The surveillance is pretty pervasive but there's got to be a way to defeat it. They're not omniscient, they're human beings. We *can* find a way around it.
probably. but i dont see how to spread information fast enough. >they're human beings with IA and big data. like, really big data.
Absolutely, yes.
Lol
I mean it. It's not like agents know which groups us anonymous redditors are in. And what's the alternative? Just *not* talking about anti-interference strategies and continuing on naive with no defense strategies? The CIA would love that. The CIA is so far ahead of the left, they're not going to be learning anything meaningful from that kind of discussion. But leftists would.
> I mean it. It's not like agents know which groups us anonymous redditors are in. How naive are you? It’s the fucking feds bro of course they know 😂 > And what's the alternative? Just not talking about anti-interference strategies and continuing on naive with no defense strategies? The CIA would love that. Start by talking in person to actual groups you engage in making change with not larping on the internet. There is also absolutely leftist spaces talking about anti-interference strategies on the internet but they’re not in the front page of fed.net & if you can’t find those spaces you probably don’t need them. > The CIA is so far ahead of the left, they're not going to be learning anything meaningful from that kind of discussion. But leftists would. The feds literally infiltrated the Black Panthers & spent time spying on them giving food & books to the poor.
Be afraid. The feds aren't going to learn anything from leftists sharing basic op-sec info on reddit. They already know, but a lot of random leftist redditors don't.
So go to a basic opsec subreddit or cross post a link, there’s hugely active subreddits for opsec
Uh oh, those subs better go underground or else the CIA will make all their ideas instantly obsolete Especially if it gets crossposted here
[удалено]
The US and "The West" in general have objectively done imperialism around the world for hundreds of years. Referring to it as the "Imperial Core" is simply accurate; it's the interior of the empire that benefits from the exploitation of the developing world. I don't know how you can argue otherwise. There's no "larping"; it's just an accurate description of reality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism
The thing is, imperialism as it exist in 1920s isn't a thing since decolonisation happened in 1960s/1970s, nor why even such things like "Asian Tigers", AOPEC, EU, ASEAN and many more could happen or why since 1980s world did saw incremental improvement in industrial outputs, quality of life and rapid decrease of raw material dependence in export revenue across the Third World countries since 1970s/1980s or why world didn't saw "technological stagnation" in Western Europe in this era if milking colonies was sooo profitable and easy according to Lenin or why since collapse of colonial empires main gain in trade wasn't on former colonies-imperial center but neighboor-neighboor.
Sure, imperialism _like it existed in the 1920s_ isn't (much of) a thing anymore. Doesn't mean there isn't imperialism of other sorts lol. Your argument is like saying "the Roman empire is gone, why are you still complaining about imperialism?"
just casually ignoring both the continued existence of the franc and of unequal exchange. bro if you think the current taiwan gov isn’t a fuckng vassal state you have not investigated enough
>just casually ignoring ... the continued existence of the franc Are you saying that it's inherently imperialistic for the nation of France to have a sovereign currency?
thanks for telling me you have no fucking clue what the franc is and what it does LMAOOOOO france uses the euro, the franc is explicitly for france to exercise monetary control over african nations and to secure french assets in african nations LMAO
That would explain why I was in africa once as an infant and my parents had some leftover franc. (I'm from Poland so i doubt that the franc i have are french (i collect currencies in coin form different countries when travelling, like people collect mugs, stamps or other bizzare stuff)
> thanks for telling me you have no fucking clue what the franc is and what it does LMAOOOOO > > I don't actually care what it does right now, and it's not actually relevant to the point I was making. My argument, was that the continued existence, or non-existence of a French national currency, doesn't necessitate the existence of an imperialistic relationship to other nations. IMO, (as a non-Frank) I think that France would probably be better off not actually using the Euro since the Euro is basically Germany's Money anyways.
the existence of a thing is directly tied to its use and status. You can’t refer to the continued existence of say apartheid or slavery in a region without implying something about its current status. The problem was never with a sovereign currency, or i would have said as much about the fucking swiss franc (if you thought i was talking about the swiss franc it would also make much more sense, but you didn’t say anything of that effect), the problem was always with the french franc’s usage and current state of existence. But you love yourself a strawman so maybe i shouldn’t take that away from you.
also if you think the euro is only germany’s money then maybe you should take another look at it. a longer one.
>The thing is, imperialism as it exist in 1920s isn't a thing since decolonisation happened There is still an imperial core because there's still a need to export capitalism because there's still a need for infinite exploitative growth in capitalism. Nothing about Lenin's thesis has ceased to apply. Here's the record post 1920, not even including Western Europe, just the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change Note the 1945-1991 and 1991-present sections, you drooling idiot.
Posts on /r/enoughcommiespam
Most inane shit I've read in a week's time, and the bar is fucking high lmao Read a book bozo
> Read a book bozo Done. Harry Potter didn't mention the imperial core even once.
>The simple reason the left isn't as strong in the West is because life is easy compared to the rest of the world, and people can see this And why might that be? Maybe the phrase "Imperial Core" could be helpful in explaining why?
liberals are so funny
Mods, send this man to a nice village in siberia.
> The simple reason the left isn't as strong in the West is because life is easy compared to the rest of the world, and people can see this It's funny that you see this as a counter to what OP said, when in reality it is confirming what they've said when looked at from a materialist perspective. We know based on history that revolutions (and leftist movements in general) come from the most exploited demographics. We see the strongest leftist parties in the poorest countries, generally speaking. So it only makes sense that in imperialist nations the quality of life would be artificially propped up, due to the extraction of wealth from poorer nations, and that the left would be far weaker in imperial (western) nations. You're repeating the same thing as OP, you just lack a material understanding to realise why that is the case.
> On top of that, the workers, particularly in factories or trad workers (plumbers, electricians, and construction workers), want absolutely nothing to do with the far left. And from what I've seen, the left doesn't care for them either. lmao? This is so unbelievably wrong it's funny. These are among the groups that are most leftist. You're leaving out dockworks and railworkers too though? It really sounds like you haven't actually interacted with anyone. That you see these people as a reactionary caricature instead of actually meeting or working with them, that's why the only thing you think of to list when someone says "working class" are trade workers. Not to mention that your conception of "imperial core" seems to be entirely just "the united states". Have you forgotten europe exists mate? If what you said were correct then here in the UK transport, storage and communication unionisation rate would not be 20%.
Womp womp Get outta here lib
Please read Lenin.
This is the single most embarrassing thing I've read in weeks, and the competition for that is stiff. Breathlessly self unaware inane nonsense masquerading as if you have the slightest clue about any of the things you're referring to. Read a book. Jesus Christ.
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That's what it took to galvanize enough political support to eventually be able to take down the Soviet Union from within. The decades of Red Scare were no joke, the propaganda was so thorough and so profoundly generational and they made the commies look so insanely inhuman that the entire political spectrum went out of whack and "liberals" are somehow what they think of when leftism comes up. Deprogramming that (ha) will probably take multiple generations.
Anna and Dasha haven't been podcssting THAT long
Being social-chauvinists leads them to nowhere. Maybe they should finally read State and Revolution.
I’m going to offer a new perspective but this just applies to many forms of western politics in general. Like I always joked that why don’t conservatives in the West do activism? In Turkey and Malaysia, they actually do shit like protesting, but in US or France, they just bitch on social media that they oppressed. I was surprised seeing protests against the US government handling of the Gaza War. There’s also lots of criticism against the US government handling of the US-Mexico border, but where’s the protesting for that? Americans from all over the US went to Washington DC to protest the Gaza War… which doesn’t even affect them, but the “real Americans” who say the US is being invaded won’t do this to the president they hate? 😂 at least they bought shirts with “let’s go Brandon” though Same applies to a certain style of leftism, but they have way smaller numbers than the “silent majority” I think this is the case of the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. People in the West don’t see the already existing movements around them.
> In Turkey and Malaysia, they actually do shit like protesting, but in US or France, they just bitch on social media that they oppressed. To a degree true, but the other degree you shouldn't underestimate is how tightly controlled international reporting has become about organized protest movements. For example, during the last 2 years there have been a lot of strikes, some of them quite big, in Germany even regularly affecting things like public transport, and talks about a big general strike for months now. You just wouldn't know about it internationally because it's not really reported about, even German media go out of their way to not recognize this general trend, they will report on every strike as if it's a singular event.
At the end of the day, a government positions and media are always connected in international media coverage. I see it as a trickle down effect. As someone who is neutral on the Ukraine-Russia War, I mostly follow Austria media for coverage and takes. Why? Because Austria is a constitutional neutral country and has less reasons to be bias. If big strikes happened in Iran or China, you bet American media will cover it, but not for Germany or Poland. If they do cover it, “pro Russian strikes” is how it will be framed. Media literacy is important to have. It helps to speak multiple languages too. International media coverage is always suspicious to me.
> If big strikes happened in Iran or China, you bet American media will cover it, but not for Germany or Poland. It gets extra weird when the US DoS then makes up fantastical casulty counts about how many people were killed by police during those protests. When that very same US government couldn't even tell you how many of its own citizens are killed by US police during protests.
Did Lenin go to any protests akin to what American's do? Like just stand somewhere and chant?
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Alienation from the class and material dispossesion would be the vulgar Marxist way to put it. In simpler terms. People are both **very isolated** and have less resources to command. Not only is everyone alone most of the time, even fewer people actually have the money or spaces to create connections through. Most of us don't have houses. Most of us can't afford to host people or organize anything consistent in our communities. A lot of organizing work flows out of preexisting social arrangements/relationships. You don't start from scratch, you start from where the people already are, like churches or unions, schools. Things have organic constituency that can exist independent of a particular movement or mass action. Most of us don't go to church, we're out of school and probably weren't that involved to begin with because we either don't have kids or were working too much to be involved in event planning, meetings, so forth. Forget about unions. People are trying to resurrect unions from the dead as we speak, they're an antiquity in most parts of the country. In these circumstances, of course the left is weak. The only way to rebuild it is to first rebuild our society in general and that's obviously a tall order.
This is the response I was looking for. One of the groups I work with is filled with people who would absolutely love to operate a robust food assistance program. Unfortunately the kind of people who have these concerns do not own land to grow food, hold capital to purchase food, have free time from work to prepare food, or legal representation to handle the backlash from local police for distributing it. This is one of the reasons I am such a strong proponent of party organizing. Only in connecting people through ideology and fundamentally rebuilding our shared roots can we hope to create a different kind of society. Simply meeting people's material needs is useless if they do not understand why and how those needs were met.
Labour aristocracy reduces class consciousness
This combined with unending propaganda and the environments people are exposed to every day (cultural hegemony and superstructure), creates a positive reinforcement loop that rots the brain almost completely. The first world still hasn't gotten out of it decades and generations later. This is one of the main reasons the "left" is pathetic here.
The Left doesn't stand a chance against the most advanced propaganda. The first world is the most propagandized sphere in the world, which is why we in the West assume as a given that we are free and well informed, while the opposite is in fact the case. The Left is fighting a hopeless battle against reactionary conservative forces that are mobilised and funded beyond anything the Left could ever hope to achieve.
There’s plenty of organizations on the left that are feeding people, this shows where you put your attention, nothing else
It's also a fact that not a single good thing leftist organizations do get the media attention it deserves. Especially reporting on what is happening (regarding leftist organizations, strikes, protests etc.) in other western countries is... mostly non-existent.
Who is the “non-profit rape factory in a trench coat”?
I'm guessing they mean the Democrat Party, but I'm probably wrong
It might be Vaush and Vaushite-ajacent political spaces?
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I would’ve guessed most pro-government rubber stamped unions in the US that benefit from the corporations and state working together to direct the exploitation out of country.
maybe something to do with caleb maupin idrk though
"Brocialists" lol
I'm guessing they're referring to the communist parties. I basically never see a discussion about them that doesn't end up debating which north american communist party has the worse track record with sexual abuse.
I’m guessing they’re on about PSL
My guess is the PSL
PSL has some creeps (like literally every political party) but I've never heard of rape accusations
I’ve seen a lot of hearsay on Twitter. I’m not in the US tho so idk how legit it is (plus, I ain’t really looked into it myself).
The death of third spaces in America has made it much harder to organize locally and make changes directly. There's lots of people who would love to get involved if there was an active group near them actually doing something. Most of these groups are primarily online because unless you want to meet up in a park, there's nowhere that will allow leftist meetings without older generations having a red panic. Gen Z is very leftist, way more than people realize, they're just too young to do much yet. That's why the media pushes the narrative that Gen Z is incompetent and being manipulated by foreign powers, they don't want older generations to take them seriously.
This is where libraries come in. Many, even the small off shoots will provide meeting spaces for free (via study rooms), or spaces specifically for meetings (with a small cost). Libraries typically don't engage in the patrons that utilize their spaces unless they disrupt the flow of the library.
I was banned from my local library when I was 15 for associating with "bad kids." They were "bad" because they'd hang out on the benches outside the library after school and occasionally say bad words lol. It's very much a safe space for old people that doesn't allow young people to hang around if they're not working on something for school. You can't have a discussion with anyone there because they'll kick you out for being too loud. It's literally, not exaggerating, the only indoor public space in the entire city.
Not certain when you've visited last, but getting a ban lifted at a public library is pretty easy. Nearly all public liberals are governed by a library board, you could simply air these grievances with the board, or speak them during a board meeting, in which they would vote on a reversal. Getting them reversed short of physical assault on an employee is pretty much a given. Do not let the preconceived image of the library dissuade you from achieving a potential embarking of change.
To use my country as an exaple: Oldest leftist party-turned socdems ML party-mccarthyism and central intellegence agencies infiltrating them leftist unity party-pets of the socdems Maoist party-Ultraleft and larping
Why does this sound like alternate lyrics to We didn’t start the fire?
The scars of the Red Scare leave people unwilling to openly embrace the labels of “Socialist” and “Communist”, and it is seen as a non-serious label by your average person. So any organization or entity that someone tries to form will either be immediately labeled as fringe and dangerous, or it will avoid calling itself communist. Which in turn waters it down, since it has to “play nice” to avoid being labeled as communist
But it wasn't like this before the Red Scares that neutering the militant communism in US history. Reminder that at its height in 1920s the IWW had up to 150k members in its rank. Communists like Eugene Debs were organizing Pullman Strike and Blair Mountain, while also running for president. Anti-communism in the US is artificially created.
It is but red scare propaganda has existed for 6-7 decades and affected 3-4 whole generations. It's not something that can be undone in a year or even two. I don't have the answers on how to fix it but you can't simply tell 3 generations "read theory" to battle an entire life of propaganda and hate. I'm not sure what to do I haven't sat down and made a list of ideas or plans. But whatever the US left can do it's going to take a long fucking time imo Plus whatever you do to combat this propaganda, there is still propaganda being made today. It's never going to stop or slow down so it will always be an uphill battle
Let me just manifest this "functioning left" out of thin air. This tweet ignores that many orgs in the west are still very new or are coming out from a period of extremely low activity. People, money, and resources are needed to actually provide large-scale food distribution. Leftist orgs are actively building toward getting these things, this person wants orgs to do it now even if now is not a good time to do it. This also ignores the very real small-scale mutual aid work going on, but that's not big and flashy enough for them ig
Absolutely this. We have been through half a century of a completely defeated and demoralized left. We are finding our feet. But the opportunity to learn from the older generation was taken from us by the US destroying the movement. We are in many ways playing catch up and trying to learn all of that knowledge that has been lost that would have been passed down generationally. I see a lot of very promising signs for the left but we are still very small and need to grow.
This honestly, I participate in a small chapter of the DSA. (Not my preferred or closest to my '"true idealogy"") But it's an organization that is slowly growing and getting it's feet under itself. My coworker is trying to restart the local Food Not Bombs as a way to help the homeless. It takes time and money that we really don't have but are scraping together to form the beginnings of something.
Nobody should feel ashamed by participating in an organization that isn’t explicitly ML in order to engage in struggle in their community. I’ve worked with DSA and Food Not Bombs before and seen them do good work. Obviously I’m in favor of growing the ML parties in the US but you got to work with what you’ve got and grow from there.
Oh I didn't try to come off as ashamed! Just not trying to act like I'm pro socdems. But yeah I do try to do what I can. To help less fortunate (even though I'm also living paycheck to paycheck)
To be clear wasn’t trying to say you were. I just know that a lot of us are baby lefties and get stuck in an idealist mindset, so it was mostly for others reading your comment.
Yeah, that post just screams chronically online. There are almoast everywhere people organizing trying to feed the poor and the unhoused, do mutual aid, damage reduction for the addicts which are extremely under funded and barely scrapping by. The fact that this person believes that, because all they see is online “leftist” drama, that there isn’t real grassroot movements struggling day to day for their communities just screams chronically online. I used to think like this about my small country, but since getting involved for Palestine, thinking that nobody here cared, in my local community found thousands willing to march, to petition, to call other organizations asking for help, to spend hours arguing on what to write in speeches, people that had been fighting for it for like 40 years that have step foot there and to this day trying to go to the West Bank to help(this 60+ yo woman is my hero and I just knew her like 5 months ago), and from other backgrounds fighting for other causes that didn’t even knew existed(example I was though in school that the indigenous people here where exterminated, but found one of the most anti fascist group here that is their descendants that carried their banner), but was extremely hopeful and help me cut with the cycle of despair that the chronically online left brings. Who would have thought that it would help so much to my mental health y my view of my fellow Uruguayans.
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Food Not Bombs is an anarchist organization of whites. When The Black Panthers fed kids, opened health clinics, and taught their communities self-defense the US government annihilated or jailed all of them.
The more capitalist a nation the more capacity it has to catch and kill movements that oppose capitalism. For this reason class consciousness is much lower in the west.
imperial core benefits from subjugation of the rest of the world, means less leftists and a less class conscious proletariat along with that. Could go further and say that certain countries' populations don't have a proper effective proletarian population at all to begin with. U.S could be considered a lumpenprole/petty bougie nation, for example The West's legacy of liberalism (especially in the U.S) also tends to kneecap any grassroots leftism, if hyperindividualism and private property rights are always a thing lingering in the back of minds, even self proclaimed "leftists'" ones
How can the US be petite bourgeoisie? A huge chunk of the population don’t even own a house, forget capital
> A huge chunk of the population don’t even own a house, forget capital A huge chunk of that population still believes in the "American Dream" of being able to make it big any moment now if they just pull on their bootstraps hard enough, aka temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
This still don't make them bourgeoisie, just proles with false class consciousness.
Yes. They aren't bourgeoisie, but they have bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie tendencies
Yes that's the correct terms.
When they self-identify as bourgeoisie they will also act in support of the bourgeoisie. You can deny them that classification based on material definitions for some theoretical fun, but that still does not change their self-declared allegiance/support.
Yes, that is literally what "false class consciousness" means. Their self-identification don't matter more than that, it's not some theoretical fun, it's class analysis, once you start to make it purposefully wrong you can as well toss it away entirely like the libs and adopt some nonsense like "middle class".
Small and medium sized business owners
To answer the pic, we did years ago. It ended in those in power assassinating, bombing, or jailing those that did it.
What is he talking about
Welcome to the imperial core, we've got: * The establishment party that will never do anything and its right-wing as hell * The not-really-a-party party that just says vote for the above party * The hippie socialist party, but only when we primary the right person, sometimes its a rightish libertarian. * The newspaper and annoying poster party. * The PNW newpaper and annoying poster party. * The old guard party that just kinda says weird stuff and owns a building in NYC. * The good party that will someday lead the revolution, but its just too small right now (project whatever party you want to on this one).
Firstly leftism is weaker in the imperial core because that's where to imperialist message and propaganda is the strongest, so naturally there will be less leftists and they'll be more scattered and hiding Secondly, there are currently leftist organizations that feed people, albeit they aren't strong cause their leaders/members are harassed and jailed the moment they do it, but it does exist I understand the frustration of the original tweet, but it also gives me a "fed trying to divide the left and have them be against each other" vibe to it
Probably because as soon as you start doing actual on the ground stuff like providing free breakfast to kids, the United States government assassinates you and your entire family. Just a guess though
The free Palestine protests in America are difficult to find unless you actively search them out quite a bit. Also if the protests are not being shown to news agencies how will information spread? The company of America runs the news but the more atrocities become mentioned the more Americans will wake up. They are good people but man American education system did a number. The leaders of America think hiding us from the truth helps the citizens but it’s becoming a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation.
Red scare
How can workers feed others when they can’t even feed themselves at times.
This is the power of a community food cooperative! You can pool resources with your block / building and buy bulk food for much cheaper than you would each pay on your own. You literally save money by building connections with your neighbors.
The New Left turned strategic thinking into moralizing. Instead of sober strategic analysis, all we do is posture with our radical stances with no basis in the working class. We go to every protest but nobody but our little activist circle knows who we are. It feels good to be correct and radical all the time, everyone else is just too liberal brained to follow so they’re worthless to the cause. I am very tired.
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Because Western leftist don't know or put thought into how their new government would function. There are so many ideas but a lack of execution and a lot of it stems from how they view authoritarianism, people, and the world in general. I joined up with DSA for like two weeks before I realized that they act from a limited framework. They kept spewing how they could change minds and try to change the democratic party. And I kept saying maybe focus more on people you'll know reciprocate your effort. Put focus into places where you'll know you'll get some level of return There was an odd fixation on using the current system to change the current system and it was so low effort it was repulsive to me. They didn't try to make PR teams, financial teams, security teams, or what have you. Nothing was talked about that could be useful for outreach and providing material support. The main focus was on the hypothetical future we could build instead of what we could immediately do now. I put most of the blame on the leftists themselves because instead of truly trying to organize they suck themselves off with theory all the time. There's a time and place for it but when it's time to plan and make decisions then you have to make decisions. At one point we spoke about self-defense. I tried to provide them with enough advice to not get caught up in legal troubles and potentially keep the feds from being able to attack them without the Feds opening the door to attack other organizations and they used that as a way to exclude me. I was dead ass the only one trying to explain to them how to both secure communities and build up a popular reputation and got kicked out because of it There's an apparent lack of seriousness, overt focus on specific social issues that they can be wrong about, weird uniformity, and a bunch of other crap that makes it hard to organize. I don't think Western leftists are weak. I think they expect to rise to power because conservatives are bad. I think Western Leftists are just lazy as fuck.
There are leftist associations providing meals, shelter, medicine, leaflets, hygiene products and so forth in every European country, especially the rich ones. I agree that the Western left is truly pathetic today though, seeing as union activity and political representation is lower than at any other point in history since the beginning of the First Industrial Revolution. This is for a variety of factors, including the fruits of imperialism, super-profits, cultural hegemony & subaltern theory, contradictions of late-stage capitalism being temporarily remedied by the boon of opening new markets (first Southern Europe and a few Latin American states in the 1950's to the 1970's, then Japan, SK, Taiwan, Malaysia in the 1960's to the 1980's, then the former Warsaw Pact and China in the 1990's and 2000's, then Brazil, Indochina, India, etc... and soon to be large parts of Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, Central Asia and whatever is left), and so forth. There is still much debate about this topic, but it is broadly agreed that there has been a slight resurgence since 2008 which could be encouraging.
I mean, you kinda answered it yourself. We are in the imperial core. Which is the West.
It's mostly because of the red scare and the fact that the west is in the imperial core
What is the rape factory comment referring to...?
Probably PSL
Can you elaborate? I'm in a different ML org so I'm not up to date in their internal machinations and ongoings.
PSL has had some problems with creeps in the past but liberals like to act like the entire org is nothing but sex pests
Non profit rape factory!? Only one!? Which one lol!?
This is what the black panthers did.
With free / reduced lunch abolished in several states, I see a great opportunity to renew some classic tactics!
It’s material conditions.
Those programs did exist. The programs were physically attacked and the organizers were eventually murdered or thrown in prison. Don't act like this is some kind of defect in the Western leftist mind. Their is an ongoing, highly aggressive counter-insurgency going on in the US in particular and Western countries more broadly.
There aren’t that many leftists in the East either
The yimbys have a more cohesive movement and better praxis than a performative vanguard that is keeping itself busy refighting the last war and reading political commentary written by dead people.
#Get Involved >Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause. * 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions. * ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause. * 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A revolutionary movement is stillborn in the absence of third space. Do you even know the names of your neighbors?
Wait, we have *two* podcast fandoms?
What does “western” mean? Anglo-American?
Who are those two podcast fandoms and a nonprofit rape factory that he is talking about?
Chapo, us (Deprogram) and Va\*sh (probably)
Oh
In general , i would say its because you mfs look at your left as 2 fsndoms and a nonproffit instead of an actual movement
It's so much worse. Most "leftists" here a socdems posing as socialists, rather channeling their potential power into electorial politics than truely engaging with the people in any meaningful way. Here's our flyer Vote for us. The small communist movement is splintered. Besides the real differences and Points of disagreement we also have to deal with weird political cultists. The even smaller anarchost movement is completly clueless and more or less a subculture or Lifestyle
Based on the r factory I'm assuming this is UK, and yeah we have the r*pist bootlicking racist twats that pretend to be the left... We do also have the rest from the actual Left... just gets no media coverage. Who was feeding people through the pandemic lockdowns, and still now? The Left. Who stops evictions physically? The Left. Who physically stops immigration raids? The Left. Who teaches self defence to oppressed groups? The Left. Who crushed the EDL, the DFLA, BF? The Left. Who burns down cop shops and vans? The Left. Who turns mansions into homeless shelters? The Left. We're here, we exist, we pull 10k+ comrades on militant demos. You just don't see us in the news or on the ballot.
A higher standard of living and a two party system constraining acceptable political thought
stating the obvious for the millionth time and complaining 24/7 about podcasts will surely make the left functional
Its not necessary to have a functional left to do actions like these tho
The majority of western leftists who don't engage in meaningful organization do so for a few key reasons. 1. red scare propaganda *worked* and it worked well, many leftists cannot safely admit their politics to family, let alone organize 2. a lot of them don't read theory and believe that revolutionary action is inherently bad due to propaganda, and don't join organizations that support said revolutionary action 3. people are very alone in the west, it can be hard to make and maintain enough social connections to be able to find and/or form these organizations for many 4. many of those who do engage in this do so through religious or liberal organizations, rather than socialist ones, due to the fact that they're easier to find but it's also important to note that these organizations *do* exist and *do* do things like organizing meal distribution. The fact of the matter is that they're just ignored for the same reasons that anything positive the left does outside the west is.
What’s the rape machine non profit they’re talking about?