c-spam reeducation thread vol II

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > c-spam reeducation thread vol II

Son of Sorrow: Aug 8, 2023

This is a bit of a walk but I hope you'll join me.

I take issue with the suggestion that communism - as an ideology or as a political force - is dead. It's alive and fighting all over the world. Certainly, one can say it's very weak or even dormant in the United States. Many of the organizations that still exist have long since degenerated, but some aren't so much "counter-revolutionary" as cryptobiotic, desiccated and waiting for the right conditions to thrive.

I also disagree fervently with the idea that mass class consciousness for the working class comes only after the temporal power of capital recedes. It's quite the reverse, as only a unified worker movement can confront the strength of capital in order to weaken and destroy it, and there is no unified worker movement without education and ideological guidance. The promulgation of class consciousness should be the #1 priority of every Marxist and wayward anti-capitalist in America. But that can't be accomplished with our small numbers in any reasonable timeline through individual word of mouth, a low circulation newspaper, or (heaven help us) posts.

In order to convince large groups of people that you and your ideology are serious, you need to be able to effect physical change on some scale that aligns with their interests. To change material conditions, you need control over material resources, and you get that through controlling productive forces. Unions are critical on multiple fronts of the struggle as they can exert limited control over the productive forces through strikes, slowdowns, etc. Returning produce stolen by the shareholders to the workers demonstrates that capital isn't invincible, that they can be defeated when we band together. However, unions as they exist today are limited by their purpose (more wealth/less hours for the workers in that union only). They can�t and won�t apply the power they wield toward broader social change through resource allocation because labor unions don�t challenge but rather operate within the confines of the existing disposition of property (eg workers and owners). Hold that thought.

Worker cooperatives get a lot of flack from doomers, including doomers posing as hardliners. The most common complaint already occurred upthread: they incentivize imperialism. I don�t agree with this on its face for the same reason that even if it were true, it would be irrelevant as there are no worker co-ops powerful enough to influence the state either way. As someone else mentioned, if this were to change, conditions on the ground caused by changes in labor organization (such as widespread adoption of co-ops) by then may well render the question moot one way or the other.

On the other hand, worker cooperatives are about as prefigurative a relation to production as you can get under capitalism. All workers at the enterprise share equal ownership and have equal say in every aspect of company policy. The organizational structure just by existing is fundamentally different than the current model of individual ownership and delegation of authority. This democratic organizing principle is so threatening to the status quo that most states in America don�t even have the legislative infrastructure to allow worker cooperatives, or indeed any kind of shared ownership and control outside of trusts. Looking at the law in several states, including mine, there�s simply no way under the law to manage the new complications and contradictions introduced with shared ownership of property. Hold that thought also.

One useful characteristic of capitalism in terms of sowing its own seeds of destruction is the boom and bust cycle. Capital thrives in crisis. It's a deeply integral part of the system that can't be removed, and every cycle completed immiserates more people closer to the core. Some will, lacking alternatives to the formal economy from which they're being kept, join the lumpenproletariat. Others might experience a significant reduction in comfort or security, or die. All of these people - the homeless and criminal, the precarious and impoverished, the loved ones left behind - have been burned by the system. In that moment, they�re often ready to turn against it. But there�s nowhere to turn, nowhere to place those energies, and so all those potential revolutionaries are ground up back into the system.

That�s three wellsprings of revolutionary potential, all of which - properly managed - could significantly advance the cause of worker power and socialism but are currently underdeveloped and/or under-coordinated. To bring these potential energies to bear requires organizing, which is to say, bringing these forces under a common cause and leadership that can direct them where they�re most effective. This is the role of the political party. A party (and the state apparatus which successful parties become) exists to represent the interests of a given class. In order to properly represent the class, the party must be of that class. Which is to say, the party must be integrated with the class to the point that their fortunes rise and fall together. You can see this clearly with bourgeois parties, though we call this material integration �corruption� because we love calling poo poo the wrong thing.*

So how do you integrate a (aspirational) socialist political party into working class interests? The answer to this lies in �dual power�, a phrase that gets abused but basically comes down to competition with the state. You can�t rely on productive forces coordinated by the state to supply you with the resources you need to weaken and dismantle that state. You need your own industries and your own resources. But you can�t really use the standard American business model since it runs counter to your own ideology at a basic level.

This brings me back to worker co-ops. Working toward legal and legislative changes that enable worker co-ops in each state is potentially a very effective way to establish an initial foothold for a party. It wins you visible victories and empowers the type of people you want to empower, who in turn owe you for their own success and will need you if they want more of it. This is expressed through increased political donations and endorsements, both of which give the party more resources (material and human) with which to pursue greater change.

This will obviously involve electoralism, and I ask that you swallow your bile for just a moment. Electoralism is a useless busybox within the bourgeois parties, this is true. It is not true everywhere, and is in fact crucial for an actual democratic system. You don�t necessarily need to have people in local and state government to affect smaller changes - ballot measures can do this - but if you want to be a real party with a real seat at the table, you must get party members elected to office. The more measurable victories you secure, the higher your profile and the more growth potential your organization has. That�s how you get the snowball rolling.

To bring it together in summary, one way for workers to secure a degree of political influence that can be leveraged into greater power is the formation or revitalization of a workers� party with the specific short-term goal of creating legislative support for a collective model of ownership in the form of cooperatives (worker, housing, etc.). If successful, the party can leverage those new laws and policies along with now-expanded resources to organize and fund new co-ops and communes, hopefully igniting a self-sustaining cycle.

This growth will provide legitimacy when reaching out to other organizations such as labor and tenant unions and mend some long-broken fences by supporting those unions with resources and legislative action. If successful, those relationships will grow to the benefit of all, strengthening unions, strengthening co-ops, strengthening the party. This additional strength gives a free hand to organize and fund charity groups and popular fronts, further strengthening bonds of solidarity and mutual reliance with everyday working people. These mutually beneficial relationships allow for building and sharpening a mass line and ideology that will guide all future action.

It�s important to note that the plan here doesn�t end with �we have co-ops now so it�s socialism.� The thing about history is that it rarely turns on some immediately obvious fulcrum or point of contention. History and power changes in fits and starts, instigated by random crises that often aren�t even obviously related. You can�t predict that. What you can do is make sure that there is a strong, capable workers� organization that is fully prepared to exploit those moments, seizing opportunities of crisis and uncertainty to take another bite out of the machine. As I mentioned earlier, capitalism is hot and cold running crises, so they�re already doing most of the heavy lifting. Imagine if a capable socialist party had existed to harness and guide the early energy of, say, the 08 crash, or Trump, or the COVID response, or the George Floyd protests. Imagine what it could do with climate change disasters.

So with a plan in mind, the most important question is one that was asked earlier in this thread and in the original re-education thread: how can I, a neurotic online weirdo, contribute to the cause? The answer is simple but difficult: you have to get directly involved. You have to leave your house and fund your own local projects while trying to coordinate with others doing the same thing. You have to communicate and discuss very charged, important subjects with people you don�t know. There�s tons of long, tedious, and sometimes back-breaking effort. It�s very difficult and requires the sacrifice of time, comfort, and money. If that sounds worth it to you in exchange for a better world, then here is a step-by-step instruction:

1. Start researching every left and �left� organization in your area. Where they meet, what they�re about, who�s involved.

2. Armed with this information, go to meetings, actions, rallies, etc. The purpose of this is to get to know everyone, so you will be talking and listening, what we in the biz call �having conversations�. The more anxious among you are balking at this but one thing that may help to remember is that when you show up to a volunteer action or organizational meeting, AND (very important) you can act normal, they will be delighted to have you. You will be considered an asset.

3. Don�t just go to official actions and events. Almost all these groups meet up after meetings and actions for drinks and/or food and/or whatever. Show up to these. Make jokes, have nice conversations, get to know the people and the cliques and what everyone wants. Make friends. Again, for the social maladroits scared to go out: they want you to be there with them.

4. Start fishing. You�ve helped out with projects and showed up at actions and participated in meetings and hung out with the participants socially. You�ve identified what the various people and groups are about, and they know you. It�s time to start putting together your own clique with the people who are most aligned with you. Some of this will happen naturally through regular friendships, of course, but you can�t rely on just that. You need numbers.

5. If one or more of the organizations you've now investigated aligns with your vision, great! Keep doing what you're doing. If not, it's time to decide if you�re going to try to strike out on your own with a new party, or if you�re going to salvage an existing one by seizing leadership positions. For example, I�m of the opinion that a workable strategy is a radical takeover and redirection of CPUSA, starting with the local clubs. It has the international relationships, labor contacts, donor list, and institutional knowledge developed by the old heads just laying around waiting for a new faction to gather democratic support to take it. Unlike something like the Democratic party, CPUSA and other legacy left organizations are actually democratic and don�t have the kind of internal structure necessary to confound all attempts at this. It�s how the cops were able to infiltrate and undermine them in the first place!

6. You have your org. Now you just have to dedicate a large chunk of your life and finances to it. That�s what it takes! Fundraise for a property to act as a base of operations and start developing and executing your own projects.

7. If you won�t do any of that, maybe because you're a baby bitch who just wants a finished product handed to you for no work, then what you should do is start giving a non-trivial percentage of every paycheck to a group who is willing to do it. We�ll start at 10% and adjust (upward) based on your circumstances. There is a place for the Plinkeys of the world and it is financing the movement.

* A brief tangent: Bourgeois state agents (such as politicians) can�t be corrupt because their purpose was always the advancement of bourgeois interests. You can only call it corruption if you believe the purpose of the state is to advance working class interests and is being abused (a naive thing to believe!).

# ? Oct 16, 2023 19:51

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# ? May 9, 2024 14:07

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

Son of Sorrow posted:

This is a bit of a walk but I hope you'll join me.

I take issue with the suggestion that communism - as an ideology or as a political force - is dead. It's alive and fighting all over the world. Certainly, one can say it's very weak or even dormant in the United States. Many of the organizations that still exist have long since degenerated, but some aren't so much "counter-revolutionary" as cryptobiotic, desiccated and waiting for the right conditions to thrive.

I also disagree fervently with the idea that mass class consciousness for the working class comes only after the temporal power of capital recedes. It's quite the reverse, as only a unified worker movement can confront the strength of capital in order to weaken and destroy it, and there is no unified worker movement without education and ideological guidance. The promulgation of class consciousness should be the #1 priority of every Marxist and wayward anti-capitalist in America. But that can't be accomplished with our small numbers in any reasonable timeline through individual word of mouth, a low circulation newspaper, or (heaven help us) posts.

In order to convince large groups of people that you and your ideology are serious, you need to be able to effect physical change on some scale that aligns with their interests. To change material conditions, you need control over material resources, and you get that through controlling productive forces. Unions are critical on multiple fronts of the struggle as they can exert limited control over the productive forces through strikes, slowdowns, etc. Returning produce stolen by the shareholders to the workers demonstrates that capital isn't invincible, that they can be defeated when we band together. However, unions as they exist today are limited by their purpose (more wealth/less hours for the workers in that union only). They can�t and won�t apply the power they wield toward broader social change through resource allocation because labor unions don�t challenge but rather operate within the confines of the existing disposition of property (eg workers and owners). Hold that thought.

Worker cooperatives get a lot of flack from doomers, including doomers posing as hardliners. The most common complaint already occurred upthread: they incentivize imperialism. I don�t agree with this on its face for the same reason that even if it were true, it would be irrelevant as there are no worker co-ops powerful enough to influence the state either way. As someone else mentioned, if this were to change, conditions on the ground caused by changes in labor organization (such as widespread adoption of co-ops) by then may well render the question moot one way or the other.

On the other hand, worker cooperatives are about as prefigurative a relation to production as you can get under capitalism. All workers at the enterprise share equal ownership and have equal say in every aspect of company policy. The organizational structure just by existing is fundamentally different than the current model of individual ownership and delegation of authority. This democratic organizing principle is so threatening to the status quo that most states in America don�t even have the legislative infrastructure to allow worker cooperatives, or indeed any kind of shared ownership and control outside of trusts. Looking at the law in several states, including mine, there�s simply no way under the law to manage the new complications and contradictions introduced with shared ownership of property. Hold that thought also.

One useful characteristic of capitalism in terms of sowing its own seeds of destruction is the boom and bust cycle. Capital thrives in crisis. It's a deeply integral part of the system that can't be removed, and every cycle completed immiserates more people closer to the core. Some will, lacking alternatives to the formal economy from which they're being kept, join the lumpenproletariat. Others might experience a significant reduction in comfort or security, or die. All of these people - the homeless and criminal, the precarious and impoverished, the loved ones left behind - have been burned by the system. In that moment, they�re often ready to turn against it. But there�s nowhere to turn, nowhere to place those energies, and so all those potential revolutionaries are ground up back into the system.

That�s three wellsprings of revolutionary potential, all of which - properly managed - could significantly advance the cause of worker power and socialism but are currently underdeveloped and/or under-coordinated. To bring these potential energies to bear requires organizing, which is to say, bringing these forces under a common cause and leadership that can direct them where they�re most effective. This is the role of the political party. A party (and the state apparatus which successful parties become) exists to represent the interests of a given class. In order to properly represent the class, the party must be of that class. Which is to say, the party must be integrated with the class to the point that their fortunes rise and fall together. You can see this clearly with bourgeois parties, though we call this material integration �corruption� because we love calling poo poo the wrong thing.*

So how do you integrate a (aspirational) socialist political party into working class interests? The answer to this lies in �dual power�, a phrase that gets abused but basically comes down to competition with the state. You can�t rely on productive forces coordinated by the state to supply you with the resources you need to weaken and dismantle that state. You need your own industries and your own resources. But you can�t really use the standard American business model since it runs counter to your own ideology at a basic level.

This brings me back to worker co-ops. Working toward legal and legislative changes that enable worker co-ops in each state is potentially a very effective way to establish an initial foothold for a party. It wins you visible victories and empowers the type of people you want to empower, who in turn owe you for their own success and will need you if they want more of it. This is expressed through increased political donations and endorsements, both of which give the party more resources (material and human) with which to pursue greater change.

This will obviously involve electoralism, and I ask that you swallow your bile for just a moment. Electoralism is a useless busybox within the bourgeois parties, this is true. It is not true everywhere, and is in fact crucial for an actual democratic system. You don�t necessarily need to have people in local and state government to affect smaller changes - ballot measures can do this - but if you want to be a real party with a real seat at the table, you must get party members elected to office. The more measurable victories you secure, the higher your profile and the more growth potential your organization has. That�s how you get the snowball rolling.

To bring it together in summary, one way for workers to secure a degree of political influence that can be leveraged into greater power is the formation or revitalization of a workers� party with the specific short-term goal of creating legislative support for a collective model of ownership in the form of cooperatives (worker, housing, etc.). If successful, the party can leverage those new laws and policies along with now-expanded resources to organize and fund new co-ops and communes, hopefully igniting a self-sustaining cycle.

This growth will provide legitimacy when reaching out to other organizations such as labor and tenant unions and mend some long-broken fences by supporting those unions with resources and legislative action. If successful, those relationships will grow to the benefit of all, strengthening unions, strengthening co-ops, strengthening the party. This additional strength gives a free hand to organize and fund charity groups and popular fronts, further strengthening bonds of solidarity and mutual reliance with everyday working people. These mutually beneficial relationships allow for building and sharpening a mass line and ideology that will guide all future action.

It�s important to note that the plan here doesn�t end with �we have co-ops now so it�s socialism.� The thing about history is that it rarely turns on some immediately obvious fulcrum or point of contention. History and power changes in fits and starts, instigated by random crises that often aren�t even obviously related. You can�t predict that. What you can do is make sure that there is a strong, capable workers� organization that is fully prepared to exploit those moments, seizing opportunities of crisis and uncertainty to take another bite out of the machine. As I mentioned earlier, capitalism is hot and cold running crises, so they�re already doing most of the heavy lifting. Imagine if a capable socialist party had existed to harness and guide the early energy of, say, the 08 crash, or Trump, or the COVID response, or the George Floyd protests. Imagine what it could do with climate change disasters.

So with a plan in mind, the most important question is one that was asked earlier in this thread and in the original re-education thread: how can I, a neurotic online weirdo, contribute to the cause? The answer is simple but difficult: you have to get directly involved. You have to leave your house and fund your own local projects while trying to coordinate with others doing the same thing. You have to communicate and discuss very charged, important subjects with people you don�t know. There�s tons of long, tedious, and sometimes back-breaking effort. It�s very difficult and requires the sacrifice of time, comfort, and money. If that sounds worth it to you in exchange for a better world, then here is a step-by-step instruction:

1. Start researching every left and �left� organization in your area. Where they meet, what they�re about, who�s involved.

2. Armed with this information, go to meetings, actions, rallies, etc. The purpose of this is to get to know everyone, so you will be talking and listening, what we in the biz call �having conversations�. The more anxious among you are balking at this but one thing that may help to remember is that when you show up to a volunteer action or organizational meeting, AND (very important) you can act normal, they will be delighted to have you. You will be considered an asset.

3. Don�t just go to official actions and events. Almost all these groups meet up after meetings and actions for drinks and/or food and/or whatever. Show up to these. Make jokes, have nice conversations, get to know the people and the cliques and what everyone wants. Make friends. Again, for the social maladroits scared to go out: they want you to be there with them.

4. Start fishing. You�ve helped out with projects and showed up at actions and participated in meetings and hung out with the participants socially. You�ve identified what the various people and groups are about, and they know you. It�s time to start putting together your own clique with the people who are most aligned with you. Some of this will happen naturally through regular friendships, of course, but you can�t rely on just that. You need numbers.

5. If one or more of the organizations you've now investigated aligns with your vision, great! Keep doing what you're doing. If not, it's time to decide if you�re going to try to strike out on your own with a new party, or if you�re going to salvage an existing one by seizing leadership positions. For example, I�m of the opinion that a workable strategy is a radical takeover and redirection of CPUSA, starting with the local clubs. It has the international relationships, labor contacts, donor list, and institutional knowledge developed by the old heads just laying around waiting for a new faction to gather democratic support to take it. Unlike something like the Democratic party, CPUSA and other legacy left organizations are actually democratic and don�t have the kind of internal structure necessary to confound all attempts at this. It�s how the cops were able to infiltrate and undermine them in the first place!

6. You have your org. Now you just have to dedicate a large chunk of your life and finances to it. That�s what it takes! Fundraise for a property to act as a base of operations and start developing and executing your own projects.

7. If you won�t do any of that, maybe because you're a baby bitch who just wants a finished product handed to you for no work, then what you should do is start giving a non-trivial percentage of every paycheck to a group who is willing to do it. We�ll start at 10% and adjust (upward) based on your circumstances. There is a place for the Plinkeys of the world and it is financing the movement.

* A brief tangent: Bourgeois state agents (such as politicians) can�t be corrupt because their purpose was always the advancement of bourgeois interests. You can only call it corruption if you believe the purpose of the state is to advance working class interests and is being abused (a naive thing to believe!).

# ? Oct 16, 2023 19:55

Son of Sorrow: Aug 8, 2023

Brain Candy posted:

and the problem with talking about it in og marxist terms is please point to a successful proletarian revolution. you can't,

Well,

to name a few.

# ? Oct 16, 2023 19:59

Son of Sorrow: Aug 8, 2023

Ohtori Akio posted:

?

If you didn't take the walk with me then why were you holding my hand the whole time?

# ? Oct 16, 2023 20:00

386-SX 25Mhz VGA: Jan 14, 2003; (C) American Megatrends Inc.,

People's leftist postings circa 2007 snapped me out of being a quasi-libertarian moron and led to me turning down a career engineering weapons, so never let anybody say that shitpostong is worthless. now I'm a leftist moron but at least not making weapons

# ? Oct 16, 2023 20:01

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

Son of Sorrow posted:

quote:

imo it's better to claim that actually attempted communist revolutions were real and to ditch the strict discussion about who and what counts as proletarian, which was only ever intended as a functional description

have you considered learning to read before trying to teach?

# ? Oct 16, 2023 20:06

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

croups sending me weepy PMs

# ? Oct 16, 2023 20:38

studs n chuds: Aug 11, 2023; by Modern Video Games
(and can't post for 89 days!)

i was actually very dignified

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:21

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

theyre weepy and they make you look like a big fat queer

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:26

studs n chuds: Aug 11, 2023; by Modern Video Games
(and can't post for 89 days!)

im very slim

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:27

stumblebum: May 8, 2022; no, what you want to do is get somebody mad enough to give you a red title you're proud of

and a head full of hair, right?

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:28

studs n chuds: Aug 11, 2023; by Modern Video Games
(and can't post for 89 days!)

you wouldnt believe how thick and lush it is

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:29

stumblebum: May 8, 2022; no, what you want to do is get somebody mad enough to give you a red title you're proud of

hmmm, yeah, you're right. i wouldnt

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:29

studs n chuds: Aug 11, 2023; by Modern Video Games
(and can't post for 89 days!)

you will

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:30

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

croup coughfield is an entirely hairless spherical human being who takes it up the rear end from phil greaves and unruhe on an alternating weekly basis and the local psl chapter on a rotating daily basis otherwise. and hes mad

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:30

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

Ohtori Akio posted:

croup coughfield is an entirely hairless spherical human being who takes it up the rear end from phil greaves and unruhe on an alternating weekly basis and the local psl chapter on a rotating daily basis otherwise. and hes mad

Consider me reeducated

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:32

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; Gleichheit soll gedeihen

Zodium posted:

we need croup back more than ever.

# ? Oct 16, 2023 21:38

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; Gleichheit soll gedeihen

rename this thread to the attic and we can hide him and keep him safe here

# ? Oct 16, 2023 22:24

Rock Puncher: Jul 26, 2014

ikanreed posted:

How to not read Capital and still call yourself a leftist.

Know the key phrases that show up on the Marxism end of year test:
1. Means of production- n. Nvidia GPUs
2. Class struggle - n. When someone with a PhD is wrong online
3. Proletariat - n. Hard working class of people, such as Elon musk, a small business owner, or a landlord
4. Yard of linen- n. A SI unit underlying all others such as the kilogram or second. 1 yard of linen is equal to two yards of linen
5. Socialism - n. a predecessor of the classless communist society characterized primarily by slight changes in the tax code

Thank you, I'm ready to spread communism now.

# ? Oct 17, 2023 23:55

tristeham: Jul 31, 2022

croup "judge holden" coughfield

# ? Oct 18, 2023 03:21

FirstnameLastname: Jul 10, 2022; got me 50 ounces out a bird in this bitch

rip

to snitches

as i have no clue who that banned gentleman was atall

# ? Oct 18, 2023 04:53

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:17

Herbert Stencil: Aug 25, 2023; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Zoeb posted:

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

As a westerner you've got essentially nothing to build from, there's been zero progress in the west since the black revolutionaries were all assassinated in the 70s. Building class consciousness and trying to prepare for the contradictions of capitalism to destroy itself seem like the best way forward for western leftists as far as anyone can tell.

On the bright side, the end of western global dominance post-2022 and the seemingly invincible rise of China seem to me to show that we're not needed at all, and that humanity is probably going to survive just fine even if we're all killed by idiot fascists in the next couple decades.

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:32

Ohtori Akio: Jul 15, 2022

Zoeb posted:

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

i read this and i agree. star wars will save us

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:34

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023

Ohtori Akio posted:

i read this and i agree. star wars will save us

Well I don't know about that, I only bring it up because I found it inspiring and I thought it was applicable. I think in terms of pop culture a lot.

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:56

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; Gleichheit soll gedeihen

Zoeb posted:

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4029201&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 was the original and has some good posts if you wanted to read long ones. sad to have lost it in the war

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:59

Rock Puncher: Jul 26, 2014

Zoeb posted:

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

so far goons have managed to pipebomb a cow, shoot themselves in the foot and get really angry at a costco employee. It's not looking good, but I believe

# ? Oct 18, 2023 05:59

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023

Cuttlefush posted:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4029201&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 was the original and has some good posts if you wanted to read long ones. sad to have lost it in the war

War?

# ? Oct 18, 2023 06:01

Rock Puncher: Jul 26, 2014

Zoeb posted:

War?

the forums war against malding homosexuals

# ? Oct 18, 2023 06:02

stumblebum: May 8, 2022; no, what you want to do is get somebody mad enough to give you a red title you're proud of

What is it good for?

# ? Oct 18, 2023 06:02

Zoeb: Oct 8, 2023

Rock Puncher posted:

the forums war against malding homosexuals

I'll just pencil that in under in jokes that I'm never going to understand

# ? Oct 18, 2023 06:06

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; Gleichheit soll gedeihen

Zoeb posted:

I'll just pencil that in under in jokes that I'm never going to understand

you will in 293 days

# ? Oct 18, 2023 06:09

Rock Puncher: Jul 26, 2014

i did sociology in university for a couple of semester back in my day when i was young and attractive and i still think about heidegger's being in the world concept and how basically all our decisions that we're not already familiar with are governed by the internet, anyway idk what that means but if you apply it to the worst brain worms that exist online it seems like its playing out about as you'd expect

prefer to just stay a dumbass these days

# ? Oct 26, 2023 16:17

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Zoeb posted:

Thanks for posting this I'm reading some of the longer posts now.

I look at the nightmare that is happening right now, not just in Palestine but the impending destruction of Earth's biosphere and feel completely futile and helpless but then I think about Cassian Andor from Star Wars and how he was a schlubby nobody who made a big difference by recognizing opportunities to fight back. Unlike someone like Luke he was just a shlub he wasn't the child of some space wizard or whatever. I don't know what I can do but if I did I wouldn't talk about it here. But I do want to do something.

Saying this as a fellow star wars nerd: please read some history

# ? Oct 26, 2023 16:35