My friends and I are all in our early 20s, most finishing/ out of college. A few years ago they were all liberals who either turned their nose up at the word socialism or were "apolitical".
Now, having been through a pandemic, living through a housing crisis, working in minimum wage jobs, witnessing the rise of European fascism and seeing the sheer disrespect capitalists have for us, all of them, without exception, have become or are becoming leftists. I don't even talk about politics that much with them, although they know I'm a communist. They have all voiced dissatisfaction with capitalism and named capitalism directly as the cause of their problems. Some of them openly call themselves socialist. None of them have any faith in liberals.
My main political issue now is to get them to become active in politics. I've encouraged them to join workers and tenants unions and will do that more every time I'm drunk. I try to get them to pro-Palestinian protests. I have high hopes that within a few years, I will successfully convert most of them to communism
it is never joever for the working class
Went through this as millenials in the early/mid/late 10s too.The caveat here is that once you bounce back in your late 20s and early 30s, when you have financial stability and disposable income, how much the allure of liberalism will stick with you even as your mind and experience know that capitalism is inherently exploitative and destructive on an individual and planetary scale.
in your late 20s and early 30s, when you have financial stability and disposable income, how much the allure of liberalism will stick with you
I've avoided this with one simple trick: remaining poor and financially unstable
Horrible as it be, I keep saying this; you can't trust people that would benefit from leftist policies to actually be leftists uncritically. They might just be in it from a nigh-libertarian "me me me" approach that is entirely unbroken when they gain wealth and then do other shit
Hit em with those geopolitics, folks.
once you bounce back in your late 20s and early 30s
You misspelled "if"
Next step is to get a sense of where they're at with their political development and hear them out then gently challenge their ideas or follow those ideas to their logical conclusion (e.g. talking through the practicalities of reformism, exploring what happened to the New Deal, speculating on just what it would take to achieve a Berniecrat New New Deal etc.) while encouraging them to explore this stuff.
DO NOT engage your inner debatebro or your dunk mode. You want to be non-threatening so they feel comfortable to explore and to bounce ideas off of.
When you've figured out where they are at, then it's time to suggest a reading (e.g. Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg) and if you've managed to pique their interest then they'll probably read it and it will help them along on their journey to radicalisation.
Comrade cowbee has assembled a really good reading list here almost all of which have audiobooks attached that you can pick and choose from depending on your friend's particular level of ideological development and their interests.
How's their viewpoint, historically on actually socialist nations?
I may also ask if they know the concept of critical support.
Same experience here, but am a bit older and the people around me have become very anti-capitalist. Including older previously very turboliberal ex-hippies. But most still are Nato leftists at best and discuss Ukraine or any actually important topic from the national news pov. They are still entirely sold on the myths of equality, social democracy and electrolar politics. There is a lot of petition signing, lots of bourge media consumption, lots of sending money to ngos and also a lot of brunch.
And lots and lots of voicing discontent as long as the current outrage lasts and then going back to brunch and forgetting about it.
Most have work, studies, kids, lots of dept and no time or energy to engage with any of this on a serious level.
How to get these people to really care is the big question for me too.
How to get these people to really care is the big question for me too.
in the words of Engels, it will take a few very bad years
Thank you for vomiting into the comment section we all appreciate it
Hey, resident of said US colonial territories here! If your failing, deindustrialized and diseased country permanently annexes my country I'm probably moving to Cuba!
literally none of that is possible within capitalism. we must abolish capitalism to achieve anything good
Death to America
I believe undocumented immigrants should be deported to a city that is the US should try to massively develop right across the border in Mexico that is built for mainly cycling and at the edge of the city have an airport and a train station. I believe the US should annex all their territories as states.
I suppose you might be a bit of a American chauvinist...
Amerikkkan unionist be like
i want to
deport all jews to a ghettomigrats to a especific cityi believe the US should annex its
colonial possesionsterritoriesSomething something read settlers, counter-revolution of 1776, and so forth
10 dollars an hour is unlivable in nearly all of the US, the first job I had was at that wage when it was the minimum where I lived over 12 years ago and it wasn't enough even then.
Can you explain your reasoning behind deporting immigrants?
And you don't have to be a communist to enjoy your life in our global commie utopia
Fun fantasy, let me know when you want to do the one political program that has actually worked instead of whatever utopian mishmash of gibberish ideology this is
I agree with a lot of this but could never be a communist.
Why not?
The guy yer replying to
I believe undocumented immigrants should be deported to a city that is the US should try to massively develop right across the border in Mexico that is built for mainly cycling and at the edge of the city have an airport and a train station. I believe the US should annex all their territories as states.
Settler-colonial nativist mentality (opposed to recent immigrants inflow), et neo-Monroe doctrinism.
Like I said, if you're good with superstructural issues (eg. gov't and cultural policy) and economic policy (eg. socialist economy and social welfare)
but not good with foreign policy or even just the issue of immigration and territories, you could end up as a western chauvinist, if not western-imperialist
