Context: https://hexbear.net/post/42625
Acting flippant and obnoxious toward opponents online is all well and good, but beware of that attitude bleeding into your real life interactions with people.
carrying a printout of pig poop balls and showing it to Joe Biden canvassers when they knock on my door
Along these lines, know who is truly an opponent -- someone who's arguing in bad faith, or who is extremely unlikely to ever come around -- and who disagrees with you but might be persuadable. Give the latter some shit when it helps make a point, but don't be the same type of asshole to them as you would be to a chud.
This is another reason why I don't go to twitter much anymore. Far too many people hate each other on twitter for me to find a space in it that's totally comfortable.
I would also suggest that treating people kinder online has the same effect on your daily life. The internet is a real part of our lives, we may as well treat it as one.
Serious question: Based on my experience working at a chain restaurant and talking with my mostly poor coworkers, the majority don't have political views, and those that do have usually never encountered someone from outside the the approved brands, so usually they're just intrigued enough to listen (lefties love to talk, don't they folks) and I've never had an argument or been "uncivil." Only hardened blue-check style libs get heated, but that's not my question.
How do you even try to compete with liberal propaganda? Not so much specific methods or messages, but the sheer volume of norm-reinforcing subliminal ideology that gets forced into a persons brain while they're literally swimming in ads, headlines, tv shows and movies, and scho on and scho on. None of my conversations with fellow proles seem to stick because of this. Even my family, who are all tired of my shit, sort of just go back to their default after what I thought were real breakthroughs.
Anybody got any ideas?
This is a good suggestion. I'm a systems guy, I always wanna talk about the big picture, but others probably respond to more personal stuff. O7
If you can find out the answer to that question I think you would be leading a legitimate left movement in the United States.
I think the best answer is you probably don't do it through words, but actions. We need way more community outreach, mutual aid, boots on the ground shit to help people in material ways, while simultaneously saying who we are while doing it. There's always OpSec stuff to consider, but if we can help people in material ways and say "yeah we're Communists, that's why we're helping, here's what we believe in if you're interested". I think that has way more of a chance.
You did hit on something really important for the Left in the USA though, sooooo many non-voters and non-political people are firmly working class and have basically removed themselves from political involvement because they know the game is rigged but have no alternatives. We need to be that alternative, we need to reach out to the disenfranchised working class and show them there is another way.
Hampton:
We had the same thing happen out on 37th Road. They came out to 37th road where our Breakfast for children program is, and started getting those women who were kind of older, around 58---that's, you know, I call that older cause Im young. I aint 20, right, right! But you see, they're gonna get them and brainwash them. And you ain't seen nothin till you see one of them beautiful Sisters with their hair kinda startin getting grey, and they ain't got many teeth, and they were tearin' them policemen up! They were tearing em up! The pigs would come up to them and say "You like communism?"
The pigs would come up to them and say, "You scared of communism?" And the Sisters would say, "No scared of it, I ain't never heard of it."
"You like socialism?"
"No scared of it. I ain't never heard of it."
The pigs, they be crackin' up, because they enjoyed seeing these people frightened of these words.
"You like capitalism?"
Yeah, well, that's what I live with. I like it.
"You like the Breakfast For Children program, n****r?"
"Yeah, I like it."
And the pigs say, "Oh-oh." The pigs say, "Well, the Breakfast For Children program is a socialistic program. Its a communistic program."
And the women said, "Well, I tell you what, boy. I've been knowing you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, nr. And I don't know if I like communism and I don't know if I like socialism. But I know that that Breakfast For Children program feeds my kids, nr. And if you put your hands on that Breakfast For Children program, I'm gonna come off this can and I'm gonna beat your ass like a ...."
That's what they be saying. That's what they be saying, and it is a beautiful thing. And that's what the Breakfast For Children program is. A lot of people think it is charity, but what does it do? It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program that's revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change. Honey, if you just keep on changing, before you know it, in fact, not even knowing what socialism is, you dont have to know what it is, they're endorsing it, they're participating in it, and they're supporting socialism.
And a lot of people will tell you, way, Well, the people dont have any theory, they need some theory. They need some theory even if they don't have any practice. And the Black Panther Party tells you that if a man tells you that he's the type of man who has you buying candy bars and eating the wrapping and throwing the candy away, he'd have you walking East when you're supposed to be walking West. Its true. If you listen to what the pig says, you be walkin' outside when the sun is shining with your umbrella over your head. And when it's raining youll be goin' outside leaving your umbrella inside. That's right. You gotta get it together. I'm saying that's what they have you doing.
Now, what do WE do? We say that the Breakfast For Children program is a socialistic program. It teaches the people basically that by practice, we thought up and let them practice that theory and inspect that theory. What's more important? You learn something just like everybody else.
Reminder that there is a revival of that in People’s Breakfast Oakland, and the guys in charge of it have a podcast.
They’re down to earth, have good takes, and could use support.
Personally, I have found history can be a good way to break through liberal propaganda. Most people (except "history guys" who only go on youtube) will acknowledge that they don't know history the best. If you challenge them on their assumed notions of history they are much more likely to accept that over challenging current political status quo.
"Huh, no I did not know that the original intent of the Senate and Electoral college was to stop poor people from gaining political power. Really, attaching medical benefits to your workplace was designed as a Depression era tactic to pay people less?" etc.
Then you can draw them to the conclusion that the oppressive forces of history are still in place today. "Prison IS the new Jim Crow" and hope for the best from there. I'm not gonna say I've completely pulled somebody from the apolitical--->left pipeline, but I have greased the wheels for many people who were somewhere on that process.
How do you even try to compete with liberal propaganda?
Media criticism can work if you find the right topic. This is why Citations Needed is a great gateway for people.
My motto on learning about the criminal legal system is "it's even worse then that."
Remember we are the ones with compassion, that's why we came to the left. If we lose that compassion, we lose what makes us genuine.
Be leftist because you care about people and want everyone to be able to live a decent life
Hang out in leftist communities
Become profoundly cynical, start hating everyone
Ohno
It doesn't help that the politics of "civility" is practiced by the oppressor :/
to me, 'civility' probably means i am purposely ignoring something that irritates me in the interest of getting along. Being nice to people is only an implied (but often absent) part of civility imo.
Text:
I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.
Note that this explicitly rejects the practice of dividing people into groups based on the alignment of 100-year-old political parties in a different country and different electoral system. "They're a social democrat so they're dead to me" is the exact opposite of "you cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation."
Also note a difference between beliefs and people. You don’t have to become a social democrat to talk with one.
We should be winning over the followers of social-democratic (or """democratic socialist""") reformers to actual revolutionary Marxism. The "succdems are dead to me" attitude should be reserved for politicians and leaders who should know better and are misleading their followers into condoning or supporting liberal or social-imperialist nonsense.
I know this is a, not even a bit, but more of a mantra.
Bullying works on reactionaries, libs, libertarians, and anyone else who has a more defined worldview, which is in opposition to ours.
Not so much the average person with a mishmash of political opinions.
It doesn't work on people with a healthy amount of self esteem and it looks especially pathetic online where people can just block you forever.
Not sure where you're going with this, people with low self esteem deserve respect too. Do you think this helps their mental state?
