In all honesty, though, stumbling across Chapo in the second half of 2019 really helped get me out of my libness, and I'm genuinely grateful for that.
I came in as a full-on liberal who had positive opinions of people like Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters lmao. When I saw users posting about Evo, Castro, Lenin, and Chavez, I was super confused. I didn't understand any of the inside jokes, but I was intrigued enough to hang around and lurk. I was a huge Bernie guy, but I didn't realize there were unironic communists out there. At the time, I was a progressive dork who legitimately thought democratic socialism was like what Scandinavia had, and that "communist-style socialism" was only done by evil authoritarian countries like Cuba and China. :cringe:
I really didn't understand or particularly put great importance into what the US has gotten up to in Latin America. I didn't know about the Tulsa bombings, the Battle of Blair Mountain, Cointelpro, Eugene Debs, Fred Hampton and other black revolutionaries, or a whole lot else about US imperialism and violent anticommunism. But over the next 6 months, I learned a lot through osmosis and eventually began participating in the sub. Shortly thereafter, the sub got shut down and I ended up here, because I didn't get this kind of exposure to leftist thought anywhere else in my life.
I've since learned about trans issues, a lot about breaking down my own toxic masculinity, recognizing fascism, seeing through the bullshit of US exceptionalism, and about the struggles of the Global South against Western aggression. I know we all like to joke about how posting isn't praxis, but if a liberal white schmuck like me can be redeemed by memes, I feel like it can help other people, too.
Absolutely. I've often thought that it's frustrating that to become a communist who can defend your arguments, you have to put in a ton of time reading and breaking down the programming that's been shoved into your brain your whole life. Whereas you only have to live your normal life and consume what's being handed out to live as a lib or a chud.
And you're right about both well-off people and those living in poverty. People who are in a good place economically have benefitted from the way things are, and there's really no reason to seek outside information to change things for you and those around you, because the system works. And if you're already working 40-60 hours and unable to make ends meet, reading about economics and history are the last thing you want to do with your free time.