Honestly, MLs tend to do this with a lot of convos, I feel.
On the one hand, I agree with the general sentiment. On the other, well. It's not easy, you know? A lot of things that used to bring me entertainment or joy have just ceased to, even before my swerve into ML proper. Sometimes even rudimentary, instinctive acknowledgement of materialism is enough.
To not be empty worded: I'll rant about videogames and movies elsewhere, and focus on one specific example here. There's this fanfic (for the lack of a better term) I used to like, called something like "Humans are space orcs". The basic idea of the author was to highlight some strange things about human biology and behaviour that we take for granted - i.e. having a stupidly corrosive acid right in the middle of our bodies and having to constantly regenerate special cells just to keep it in. Sounds simple fun, right?
Except it doesn't. The author's biases and lack of materialism are so glaring, reading stops being enjoyable and becomes infuriating. I.e. alien species in this setting are essentially categorised into having some single trait that defines them (except for humans, coz we special). One species is obsessed with rules and regulations, but the author fails to actually analyse the implications and just handwaves it as "oh they're bureaucratic haha". Another is apparently obsessed with material (read: monetary) gain, but the author never really connects it with capitalism. Instead it is humans that teach them capitalism! And once again, the author fails in the analysis, instead trying to portray modern day US as essentially what future humanity is. It's annoying.
And it's the same with everything. And on top of that, enjoying simple things (a good book, some miniature painting) gets rather difficult when there's a very real and serious threat of violence and war looming overhead.
If you want to be absolutely practical about that, not forcing politics onto everything allows you to be a lot easier to live for everyone around you, which is actually good for the cause. A lot of lefty people are super annoying to be around because they do that. In my experience, no one is willing to change their minds about controversial topics to someone who is constantly bringing them. Oppositely a lot of people will accept the views of someone they see as laid back, fun, socially acceptable and intelligent.
it's something you see a lot with atheists, especially those who have just broken free from a religion. getting into arguments with everyone all the time can deter people from what you're desperately trying to say. it's good to try.. plant seeds and water them but you can't just water them all day every day to try to force them to grow. you gotta keep a nice healthy pace.
I've mostly stopped caring since its clear nothing is going to change for the better unless something catastrophic happens first. Like for instance famines and other climate change induced supply chain failures forcing people to fight a government that has nothing left to offer them except violence. I'll still be fighting with CPUSA until I die though.
Collapse has to hit for the west to start considering anything new; and when they do, they'll probably consider fascism first to the exclusion of all else, so you're not wrong. I've hit the doomer streak, and don't really see a way to unflip that switch now that the feedback loops have started. Cosigning ComradeSalad, tho; please pick a better org. I don't trust or expect anything out of CPUSA but tailism to reformists.
Did anticolonialism and Black self-determination ever make it back into the party platform post-Civil Rights Movement? Did they ever apologize for purges of revolutionary Black nationalists in the wake of white Amerika's uproar over the (in tragic hindsight) false Emmett Till allegations? Did they ever decouple from assimilationism and settler-leftism? Historically, CPUSA has been a capitulatory organization. I do not expect anything better of them in the modern day. This is a 'show and prove' moment.
Actually, we never gave up on anti-colonialism and Black self-determination.
Also, we never purged Black nationalists; many remained with the party.
We are not assimilationist or anything like that.
You're kinda just repeating fed talking points, no offense. 😜
...Cool; this conversation is over with 'cause after that? I'm patently incapable of handling you civilly; and this is not your first time showing your ass.
If you're going to "vague-post" you shouldn't bother posting.
I believe it is you who has "showed your ass" lmao 😅
The CPUSA leadership are corrupt, backwards, and completely out of touch with their reality as an organization and material reality in the United States.
The only main pushes seem to be for empty electoralism for Democrat politics and never any other substantial effort. The leadership are completely unable to let go of the fact that it’s not the 1960’s-80’s anymore. They are also Pro-Khrushchev and believe in market economics.
The party line is that they are literally opposed to a revolution. They are a liberal shill party that’s an empty shell of its former self, and the positions are extremely idealist and removed from material reality.
COINTELPRO did a number on them? i'd imagine so since that's what the op was created to target
Actually, they are not corrupt or backwards. They are more realistic and in touch than most other orgs.
We do not and never have endorsed Democrats as well.
We are also anti-Khruschv.
We are also not opposed to revolution.
👍
There is evidence to back up every single one of these claims? Why lie???
Show
One of the lines is literally "We have to defeat Trump by voting Hillary"
https://www.cpusa.org/article/hillarys-hour/
Leaders in the 50's/60's to the modern day continued to parrot Khrushchev "revelations" about Stalin.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40403665.pdf
Here they explicitly lay out that the movement will see victory against fascism and will lead the "Revolution", through electoral means, and that with the ballot box they can strike blows against the right wing.
https://www.cpusa.org/article/defeating-the-rightwing-on-the-road-to-socialism/
This is all beyond idealist and completely devoid of theory or Marxist policy.
Actually, none of these endorse a single Democrat.
I have nothing to lie about. 😜
I mean yes both Dems and Republicans are capitalist imperialists who are never reformable and will forever be capitalist imperialists, however while the revolution hasn't happened yet it is important to vote Dems which takes barely any effort.
Conservatives straight up are threatening the lives of minority groups and LGBTQ on an entirely different scale than democrats and life for me as a minority living in the US has gotten significantly worse since trump.
It is idealistic to just not vote or vote for some 3rd party that never wins while real shit has been ramping up for people like me from the republican side (and yes I know Dems do it too and are also bigoted racists but again Republicans do it on a whole nother scale).
If the left guarantees dems our votes then they will only move further right to get anti-trump right-wingers’ reluctant votes. They will only be pressured to not be as bad as republicans if we pressure them by not “voting blue no matter who.”
That's purely speculation. I can also speculate that by letting Republicans win, the spineless Dems are just gonna join the winning side and swap over. Plenty have already done so or became libertarians who are just mini republicans. If popular support is on the side of the more extreme right then everyone moves further right. You can literally see this effect in CNN where they have increasingly worse narratives sliding towards the fascist right.
By the way the same Republicans are portraying the LGBTQ community as associated with groomers and also happen to have the gun nuts on their side. At least democrats don't actively do that. Republicans have been sliding real fast towards an even more extreme right ever since the trump presidency.
But sure both are equal and let's not vote and let Republicans win every seat. Definitely not gona have a worsening affect marginalized communities.
This acts like the democrats do anything else. They didn’t codify Roe. They didn’t stop the migrant concentration camps. They haven’t stopped states from persecuting trans people. They didn’t stop the us from invading Afganistan. They didn’t pull out of Iraq. They didn’t stop the US from militarizing Somalia. They didn’t stop the US from finding fascist Ukraine.
Ok then vote republican next election. Since it doesn't matter.
That’s not a particularly civil thing to say and only tells me you have no interest in having a productive conversation but only want to be rude and argumentative
You literally refuse to backoff of the point that voting doesn't matter or that we shouldn't vote dem over republican so by all means vote republican.
Since as you say in your argument it doesn't matter and that Dems are just as bad. Explain to me how it matters based on your arguments so far.
Does voting matter or not? Does voting dem over Republicans matter or not? You keep on writing essays on how bad democrats are and yes they are as I said imperialists still and I never supported voting communism into office and only revolutions can achieve it. But all I am saying is that in the mean time, taking 10min to vote dem over Republicans will at best alleviate worse situations or at worse as you say do nothing so why not do it?
What exactly are you trying to argue for?
10 minutes? Have you voted before? It’s at least an hour long affair where you drive and stand in hot sun while you wait to vote for two sides of the exact same coin who do the exact same things. What do you mean by backoff?
You fundamentally believe Republicans in office in the future is exactly the same as democrats in the office so there is nothing more for us to discuss.
They haven’t shown any reason to believe they aren’t. You still haven’t explain what you meant by backoff
My personal position is that voting matters so little that is pointless to argue about it. Maybe it’s useful in some situations, but I don’t see why anyone should vote for Biden again. Either way, the minimal impact of voting means you need to be doing praxis in more meaningful ways too. Vote or don’t, there’s no point to convince someone not to if you believe it has little effect. Both parties are so evil why pick a lesser one? Just please don’t wast your time campaigning or donating to Joe Biden.
in the history of the US have the voters ever voted the rich out of power?
Yeah, I've stopped being angry.
I'm morally opposed to capitalism. That's enough for me. It needs to die, logically. I'm not emotional about it all. I'm methodical.
Oh yeah, and fancy seeing a CPUSA member here. This place is very anti-CPUSA so I generally stick out like a sore thumb.
To anyone saying we're an echo-chamber, I'd point them to you as a great example that we do keep around those we disagree with. Wishing you a pleasant day, American!
Edit: I just had to open my mouth, didn't I?
