Dreddout posted:

We don't have the luxury of waiting for hypothetical technology

Karl Barks posted:

hmm interesting, and how do you do that

Karl Barks posted:

this argument happens every time someone brings up co-ops, literally no one thinks this or has ever claimed it. co-ops, trade unions, etc are all just important tools to build class consciousness. it's a bunch of alienating pedantic academic BS when people bring up that point. sorry for getting feisty.

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

a book club is not the means of production

Venom Snake posted:

whats that quote from orwell or some other guy about the intellectual having a contrived self defeating notion of what socialism is and the actual workers supporting socialism defining it as "my life being less awful"

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I saw somebody have a meltdown and declare they were post-left because what has leftism accomplished in the last 30 years? That's a sentiment I can understand, but nobody even knows what the post-left is.

MizPiz posted:

Are there any good terms for "bootlickers who are rejected by the power(s) they're sucking up to"?

Graphic posted:

I honestly think most hardline sectarian socialists are brainwormed to a degree, it's just the Trotskyist brainworm is so specific to that movement thanks to the circumstances of his decline and demise. The majority of organized Trot groups are insular and paranoid of outsiders and decry anyone who doesn't agree with their exact interpretation of Trotskyism as pseudo-left or whatever. The irony in this is that it causes most of them to ignore one of the basic tenets of Trotsky's political strategy: the united front. The movement would be worthy of the man himself if Trotsky had just been forgotten by Stalin and ended up dying from the flu or something instead of being martyred.

The whole western leftist sectarian scene in general is a joke. People forget that all the 20th century tendencies we're all following and the differences between them were born and fleshed out in a time of vibrant socialist struggle, of imminent revolutions, imminent world war, etc. When the revolution was nearly at hand, it was actually a good time to talk about what exactly the goals of it should be and what the aftermath would be. That we're LARPing these same ideological disagreements when we can't even get Walmart unionized is kind of silly. Unite now and we can kill each other over what communism should look like once we actually have a chance of making it through to the other side. And that communism isn't going to look like anything implemented in 20th century peasant societies; communism for 21st century first world countries where 80% of people work retail and service industries will have to be something new. Eventually we're all going to have to let go of our favorite 20th century dude and forge our own Somethingism that works for us.

Karl Barks posted:

presumably in any super hierarchical centralized state, i would be at the top, so i'm thinking about switching sides

smarxist posted:

reckoning with race and gender inequality is vitally necessary to building working class solidarity to eventually overthrow the fucks up top and it pretty much would have to be bold and meaningful

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Whiteness is a racialized representation of a particular class interest which only meaningfully exists in settler states. It's not some kind of universal truism, it was historically constructed through the process of imperialism. This always ends up confusing these discussions, because when I say it's riduculous to assume whites will never agree to reparations, I'm talking about white-skinned people who have been desettlerized and not the "White" settler class. For socialism to be possible America has to be decolonized, and that means the colonizers themselves.

Whiteness can only be a fluid concept in the first place because it represents a particularly constructed settler culture, and not any kind of "real" tradition or community. Settlers still exploit each other just as they exploit natives, coolies, slaves, whatever have you - but it's still undeniable who is the settler class and who is the servile class.

Reparations are only a "dead end" if you're not willing to start from the point of deconstructing whiteness and the settler mentality.

Graphic posted:

Graphic posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqO7lu94Ix4

is there socialist country/western music

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

well that and literal crimes, like alice walton that keeps on running over and murdering people while drunk and getting away with it. make people hate the rich just like the far right has successfully stirred up race hatred, except it'd be easier because the rich are actually loving you over.

basically go full fake news disingenuous poo poo. the right has done it perfectly.

Graphic posted:

yeah that works.

the other aspect of it is pretending to be neutral. every socialist entity is SOCIALIST NEWS/ANALYSIS, while half of the goons of the right puts on the "I'm an independent that takes everybody to task!" act purely for the sake of uninitiated people seeing them while channel surfing or a clip on a social media feed while still being extreme right without conceding anything to even the center-right. I say be a communist and pretend to be centrist, completely in name only, and see what happens.

GunnerJ posted:

I am a centrist: both the extremes (anarchists and MLs) need to meet in the middle imo.

freckle posted: