Context: https://hexbear.net/post/42625

  • Homestar440 [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    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?

      • Homestar440 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        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

    • Janked [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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.

      • McKFC [he/him]
        hexagon
        ·
        4 years ago

        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.

    • shitshow [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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.

    • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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.