Honestly I just feel kind of powerless and hopeless.
Like...maybe I could join some organization, but left wing politics in the west just seems like a joke, either full of socdems or just fractured beyond belief.
One of the "easiest" things I guess I could do is just talk to people I know about politics. But, I honestly don't even know if Americans can be reached at this point. Assuming they can, I still don't know what the best course of action would be. Is it better to just be a super commie and radical to serve as some counterpoint to all their other influences? Or do people arrive at their own conclusions on their own time and I should just subtly plant seeds? One would certainly be safer, both in keeping my relationships intact and not having the government shove me into a van.
It seems futile, I am powerless against the osmosis of our society, even if I plant seeds, it means nothing if no one is there to water them. The one thing I can do on my own means nothing because I am a drop in the bucket of the cultural zeitgeist people are influenced by everyday. And any kind of collective action I could take just seems untenable.
idk I am just rambling
Honestly I think this is something that leftists should be putting serious, scientific research into. Methodically finding out what works and what doesn't work, what's a waste of time, and what has the potential for real change. You know capitalists have think tanks and focus groups figuring this shit out for them, we should absolutely be doing the same. I'd even say putting together some kind of collective journal to consolidate research.
Jacobin launched one called catalyst a while back. It's pitched as a journal of theory and practice. There's also the socialist review which has been around for a long time.
Careful with Jacobin, lots of suspicious stuff in their activity.
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They have a pattern of supporting the imperialist agenda before something happens then churning out mountains of anti-imperialist content but only AFTER the imperialists have got what they want. For example, they were aggressively anti-Evo before the Bolivian coup but if you go look you'll find mountains and mountains of content saying to call it a coup and blah blah blah.
Here's their position on Belarus.
This thread has a bunch on Bolivia.
It's not obvious because they churn out so much genuinely-good content. But it's extremely sus that right before any imperialist attack they're always taking the wrong side. The belief among a lot of MLs is that they're an outlet to stop people becoming principled anti-imperialists, provide socialists with content they'd like but soften the socialist response to any imperialist attacks by pushing the wrong messages to socialists at the most important time for anti-imperialism.
I still use them for some things, there's good content there for radicalising people, but I'm pretty suspicious of this pattern.
I think this article sums it up nicely. Whether there is really a conspiracy or not doesn't matter, the outcome is the same, softening the left's response to imperialism at the most important time.
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They're not an op, but they have irreconcilable differences of strategy and ideology with people like the grayzone (who some like Ben norton I think are grifting). I strongly disagree with the above comment. The MLs calling it an op to stop anti imperialism imo are more just not coping with the idea people have different conceptions of reality and what anti imperialism is than them and really just not having a good analysis of class politics in a lot of countries outside the us. The stuff on jacobin critizing AMLO for example in that Twitter thread is completely reasonable and accurate based on stuff I've heard from talking to leftists in Mexico.
Ooo ooo I just found this post here on Chapo too that is probably worthwhile in this string. https://hexbear.net/post/17930/comment/127143