Welcome Welcome, please make yourself at home, have a chocolate milkshake. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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- Find theory on ProleWiki, marxists.org, Anna's Archive and libgen; audio versions by Socialism For All
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Our party made a documentary called 'Mutiny' about how the Global South is now actively resisting The West's policy and we have been invited to show it at Cannes Film Festival for some reason
Here is the link though it is in Dutch (or French). I hope we can get an English version as well.
re reading Dialectical and Historical materialism and taking notes. Had some life issues that led me to stop reading theory for a while, but I'm back
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Who is this "you all" you keep wishing a nice week to every week, I do not know anyone by the name You All
I have evidence of you not oppvotingpat pen the dog video I sent you last week there for I will not send you one this week
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What are you talking about I have proof of doing it right here... I totaly did not just do that because I thought I upvoted last week and just learned I did not... no what are you talking about
In the three years of the revolution our ideas on this subject have changed greatly. A new philosophy, which has little m common with the old ideas, is in the making. Three years ago we regarded a merchant as a completely respectable person. Provided his accounts were in order and he did not cheat or dupe his customer too obviously, he was rewarded with the title of “merchant of the first guild”, “respected citizen”, etc. Since the revolution attitudes, to trade and merchants have changed radically. We now call the “honest merchant” a speculator, and instead of awarding him honorary tides we drag him before a special committee and put him in a forced labour camp. Why do we do this?’ Because we know that we can only build a new communist economy if all adult citizens are involved in productive labour. The person who does not work and who lives off someone else or on an unearned wage harms the collective and the republic. We, therefore, hunt down the speculators, the traders and the hoarders who all live off unearned income. - Alexandra Kollontai
Can we add this unfathomably based quote?
3 months deep into unemployment, I feel like I'm going crazy, stuck in the house, no cash, lots of noodles and ham sandwiches. I think I've eaten more ham sandwiches in the last month than I have my entire life.
Been there, hope you can stick through it and make it out on top
I start a new job within the next three weeks of just getting trained up and getting licensed. My concern went from, I'm not going to be able to pay my rent, to this job is going to make me more money than I've ever made in my life and potentially break the cycle of poverty before me, going back as far as my family can remember. I'm kind of weighing that. It's not like a DOD thing, I'm not contributing to that, but, you know.
There's that idea of, am I a class traitor for making this money or trying to make this money? Which is not the goal, you know, of course. Like, I sell t-shirts online with art on them and stuff, but I wouldn't consider myself petite bourgeoisie because I don't own the means to produce those shirts. I mean, I make like 200 bucks a month just to help cover rent, you know. Hell I try to give away profits when I can, friends need healthcare. So, it's just... Trying not to moralize my place as an individual within the system, I mean, I got out of tech because basically every tech company is complicit with this genocide, and even the ones that are removed Not like I worked for Raytheon or something, but still. So, just trying to not betray my own principles while paying my rent, you know.
I know communism isn't a cult of poverty but being from.that background, and then becoming a Marxist, it can feel like it on a personal level.
Ever since I started commenting on Instagram posts made by a far right wannabe militia they started to seem less confident of their case. Sometimes my comments get deleted, sometimes people I reply to even delete their comment altogether. I think it goes to show that they are just cowards who can bend easily when shown a bit of competition.
Check your stories, and see who's viewing them. I've done this type of thing before, and you'll notice that you'll have a lot of people who you don't follow start watching your stories.
I do this with my personal account which is set to private, so nobody except my followers can see my stories. I do get lots of follow requests, though.
Kashmir Mountains , Sialkot City , Punjab Province , Pakistan .
I'm having my first week off of work since July and I feel like it was much needed. I'll be making plans for my upcoming move and I will travel with my friend's van for a few days. This weekend I spent visiting my gf's dying grandfather in the heart of the Dutch Bible Belt. The contrast with my daily life was interesting to say they least. Yesterday I had an Easter brunch with friends and we visited a gay couple's city garden next to a church where they planted a lot of different herbs with which they served tea. It was a lovely place.
Anyway, I feel more alive now. I hope you all have a nice week.
Asked this in my group chat, figured I ask it here as well. Why don't any of these parties apply anarchist tactics within the party frame work to build dual power and do praxis? My experience with organizing IRL is mostly stuff like Food Not Bombs Things like tactical urbanism
I see this a lot in my neighborhood, most of the bus stops lack shade or a place to sit, so you'll have old and disabled ppl forced to stand. Saw a old lady with a walker having to wait like that. Tactical urbanism would be getting together and building benches for those bus stops no cross walks in my neighborhood, we could fix that
communists tend to be more educated than average, we could be helping people get their GEDs, holding classes funded and organized by the party, this appeals directly to the masses, you help someone get their GED? You'll have a loyal comrade.
I have a friend who is a school teacher, a science teacher. She has four classes of students, each with about 30 kids in it. She's given $300 at the start of the school year to buy all of her supplies. Not only would it be an incredible propaganda win to go, Hey, look, the Communist Party is supplying schoolteachers with the supplies to teach your kids. Because the current regime won't provide for your kids. You see what I'm saying? We have to build that dual power. We have to improve the material conditions of the working class.
I mean, this could range from anything from helping the homeless have food in their belly, setting up mobile libraries, setting up coat drives, cooling centers, building bus benches, running workshops, building impromptu third spaces, guerrilla gardening, lot cleanup, Alleyway restoration. Like, if a party has numbers and has people paying dues, those people should be being put to work, and those dues should be being spent building the dual power and improving the work that can be done.
To me, if I join a party, that's what I want to be doing. I want to be put to work. I want to be with a leadership that is trying to get work done. I'm trying to stack W's, and my concern is that I'll join one of these parties, and we'll just be selling newspapers, which is, I guess, important. I mean, I run a blog, but I want to do things that I couldn't do alone and have zero interest in reformist electoralism within this settler state. Maybe they do these things already and I'm just ignorant.
Totally agree, ChunkaLuta’s doing stuff like that, but not in cities yet afaik.
Not only would it be an incredible propaganda win to go, Hey, look, the Communist Party is supplying schoolteachers with the supplies to teach your kids.
Sadly that would probably be another justification for defunding schools and going on witch-hunts.
Tactical urbanism would be getting together and building benches for those bus stops no cross walks in my neighborhood, we could fix that
Problem is that a lot of the times this is illegal. Those benches could be removed or worse there could be consequences for those who install it. Not saying you shouldn't do this, but just saying that there is usually a lot of resistance even to simple projects like that.
communists tend to be more educated than average, we could be helping people get their GEDs, holding classes funded and organized by the party, this appeals directly to the masses, you help someone get their GED? You’ll have a loyal comrade.
Our party's student wing does that. It's a really good effort.
Also agreed with Grain Eater that I wouldn't call them anarchist tactics.
Your first part is kind of why they've become known as anarchist tactics though, because it seems to me, and this might come off some type of way, that anarchists are the ones who are willing to take that kind of risk. And sometimes you just gotta take that risk, I feel. I mean, it's putting benches up. You can make them with wood, and you could probably do a bunch in the afternoon. And maybe they get taken away, but you just build new ones. I mean, hell, in LA there was a group of people who were doing crosswalks, and the city started removing them, and it caused a bunch of problems in the media, because people were like, why are you removing these crosswalks? Why didn't you build them in the first place? And then it became a propaganda win, which is what we need.
I'm also really glad that you guys are doing that GED stuff. I think that that is a winning strategy, a winning move. You know, I think about my own father, who had to get his GED when he was like 23. And, you know, he's kind of like an apathetic Gen X conservative, and I wonder if that could have been, way back then, a kind of starting point to make him not that.
Lets not get hung up on semantics though!
these are good ideas, although I wouldn't call them anarchist tactics
There's nothing specific to anarchism about them. The Black Panthers weren't anarchists
Fair, fair. I only went with that because the orgs I've worked with in the past, IRL, whether it's, FoodNotBombs, or putting out fridges and food and stuff, they've all been very explicitly, yeah, we're anarchists. Which, which is cool, but limiting, to say the least. Fractured and limited. (We need a Vanguard)
I did a test by a newspaper to see if you are left or right wing and lo and behold I am a left wing progressive
This is a complete blindside. Your politics have always been an enigma and you’ve left many baffled with where you lie on the spectrum. Especially with the suspicion right wing post yesterday…. Hmm
Well the weird thing is: afterwards the quiz showed how other voters of specific parties ended up on the political compass. Most of the voters from our party were economically and social-culturally left of course, but there were also quite a few who were economically and social-culturally right wing. Which doesn't make sense at all. Why vote for a marxist party? Lol.
I could actually believe that.
For the socially right wing people, we’ve seen them on the grad constantly. They’re the people who might be full marxists, but then despise LGBT people because they’re devout Muslims or Christians, or they were raised in an environment with those ideals and never shook them. Or they’re the people that are so extremely anti-racist that they end up becoming racist themselves. Or people that want socialism but only for chauvinist and protectionist reasons while hating foreigners.
For the economic right wing, I blame that on the right having good optics with their “bootstraps”, “individual freedom” and other such slogans that entice people on the surface. Or they know nothing about economics and they choose right wing options because they simply sound good despite being disastrous.
I'm sorry to hear that. Our disabled (that's not the right word, right?) comrades do often get overlooked I think. We have lots of comrades with various disabilities in our party and imo they need to be involved as much as possible to share their point of view, because indeed the able bodied members often don't realize what needs to be done for them.
