Once again I am going to ask you to invade lib spaces and remind them that the Dems cannot save them. Give marginalised people the tools to protect themselves and their community from harm.
Show them that they do not have to rely on the Democrats, and that they shouldn’t because the Dems don’t care enough to fight for them. Direct them to organisations that can help them.
Let this be your chance to build a community, there are a lot of vulnerable people feeling lost right now.
EDIT: Only if you can, of course. Please don’t burn yourself out or put yourself in harm’s way.
After several rounds of trying to radicalize the democrats in my life, watching them revert back to their bullshit the second something bad happens — I can’t fucking do it anymore. I got my Mom and frankly that’s all I care about.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t try, I would never say that, but check out if you’re gonna loose yourself.
Yeah, you gotta keep your sanity. I’m not going to blame your for that. Stay safe.
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Revived my Lemmy.ml account, can confirm that this has never been easier, Lemmy.ml is easy mode and even .worlders are more open than ever before. There’s a great thread over on c/agitprop pinned with resources you can pull from to use, including a fantastic list from @ReadFanon@hexbear.net. Uphold ReadFanon thought!
Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.
Get out there and Combat Liberalism!
You can view Cowbee’s profile here @Cowbee@lemmy.ml, read through their comment logs. This is a great comment for example.
I checked back and it’s still absolutely hell
Really? Seems easier than ever for me.
Everywhere I go I just see people saying that bad voters and non-voters have caused the end of the world.
This is some of the easiest to agitprop against, flip it on the dems for failing to cater to leftists and liberals instead of catering to the right like Liz Cheney.
Easiest are the lemmy.ml communities; start there. Copy other comrades’ talking points.
100%, Lemmy.ml is easy mode, and the mods are on our side there. Lemmy.world has bigger gains if you do it right, but is much harder to get away with.
including a fantastic list from @ReadFanon@hexbear.net
Well shit, I didn’t expect anyone to find it useful that I’m red, mad, and nude online. Honestly I was just venting in that comment.
Oh stop, you know everyone here loves your writing
to be honest, we are already stupid, resources should have been prepared months ahead of time
This is just confronting the fact that this website isn’t actually a leftist organization; it’s just a website with leftists on it
That may not be such a bad thing. A forum to share info and news and tactics that doesn’t have confidential info on any particular organization does have its place.
has been preparing and is putting that plan into action
but i *am * stupid
But doctor
😳 hey
So I’m cynical as fuck and I have to say, the young(ish) Libs in my life are starting to perk their ears to what I’ve been laying down.
I start every conversation with, “why would an elite in the millionaire/billionaire class want to help you?” And end with, “power is not elected; it’s taken.”
I see gears starting to turn.
No offense DirtyOwl but you’re an Aussie. Idk what it’s like in Australia, but on the ground here things are pretty dismal. All the Libs are scratched, the DNC already seems to be formulating a right wing shift, there’s no leftist infrastructure to take advantage of.
I’ve lived through like 4 moments in history that should have been a wake up call to Libs, they never work. There no working class party in the US because there no demand for one, even in marginalized communities. And it’s not just propaganda, it’s the will of the people, American hogs love being atomized, narcissistic, individualistic consumers and will lash out at anything that threatens that.
It is dismal here too, yeah, and I can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it must be for my US comrades, but if we can protect some vulnerable people from those scratched liberals by directing them to leftist orgs that can help them, shouldn’t we?
Like, what should we do? Nothing? Nah, doing nothing is for libs.
I know it probably isn’t my place, sure, but I don’t want you guys to give up hope.
doing nothing is for libs.
Can we make this the site’s official motto? I am completely serious.
There’s really no orgs with the resources to do anything in the US. In most cities the left can barely pull off a crappy soup kitchen.
I mean yeah we should try and do something, but I’m not going to lie to people about their prospects. And honestly it may be better for peoples mental health to accept defeat than struggle on in futility, at least then you can
The Cuban Revolution started with 82 people in a boat.
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Listen. I’ve been organizing, agitating, doing anything at all that I can for nearly two decades in this shitheap of a country. Do you know what I have to show for it? Piles of corpses and social murder galore. I got a world that is happy to tell me to get bent every time I have the displeasure of committing such a radical act as walking to the fucking grocery store. It’s not going to get better. @Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net is basically correct. After witnessing the general population’s COVID response, their response to ongoing genocide, the absolute bipartisan (universal!) public health collapse, and living in this atomized, individualistic hell for nearly four decades now, I have complete confidence in saying this. We should take advantage of this specific moment? Not a global fucking pandemic? Not an ongoing genocide? Not centuries of racism, slavery, poisoning of native lands, the earth we all share? None of this has been what makes us failures, apparently, but a Trump victory that everyone is replaying 2016 for is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, what really makes us dumbasses for failing to capitalize? We fail to capitalize because this population does not want it. Tell my immunocompromised, disabled ass to self-crit over this, whatever. I’ve done plenty. I’ll fight til there’s nothing left because I don’t know anything else, but you cannot make me have hope. I hate all of these people too.
I mean, you can wear a mask and organise.
And like, obviously I’m not going to judge people who are burnt out for bowing out.
I mean, you can wear a mask and organise.
Let me tell you how well that’s going, because I actually have done this!
They call me a wrecker. They call me a fed. They tell me COVID is over, it’s just a cold, and I am overreacting. Only sometimes do they say they will accommodate, and then they still don’t. I show up to demonstrations & events I was promised would be “fully masked”, “masking enforced”, and there are no masks on any faces; there is no enforcement of anything. At best, single digit numbers among 40, 50 people, on average for the kinds of things I try to attend. Anything larger? Hell the fuck no they won’t. And this is in one of the most “progressive” cities in the country!
This is a thought-terminating cliche at this point.
Gah, that sucks. I dunno what to say.
Fucking COVID denialism pisses me off.
I can’t blame you at all. Know I’m not calling people like you stupid, at all.
I guess I’m just frustrated and wish we could do more? Like what else can we do? I guess online mutual aid stuff?
I’m sorry for coming so hard at you specifically, I like you a lot friend owl. You are funny and cheerful and I appreciate that, but I radicalized a lot younger than most people I know of and this is just the reality I have been experiencing for my whole life.
I am always looking for some light at the end of this tunnel, a hopeful answer to give, but I think what’s most likely to happen to empire now would be like what happened to Rome: the population dwindles — due to endless war & mass death, fleeing — until there is nothing left to churn through and things cease to function. Even that is optimistic. I do not put it above this country to blow the world up before that can happen, and regardless of anything else further pandemics are guaranteed as the global population’s immune systems get cumulatively destroyed by endless COVID and other unknown pathogens emerging due to increasing climate disasters altering the environment. Tuberculosis was thought to be, essentially, gone; it is now surging around the country in numbers not seen for something close to the last century. In all cases, the prognosis is still extremely dire to me. I don’t know how one can see what’s happening around them and deny it. We can and should build ad-hoc collectives and communities and extend that influence where we can, but I do not think that power extends beyond this small footprint until the complete and total collapse of empire, and I know that’s not a good answer, but until I find a better one (and I haven’t yet; I really, really am trying) then that is how I predict things playing out. This is the most optimistic thing I can say.
That doesn’t mean do nothing. Like I said, I still fight because I do not know how else to live. But god damn it am I sick of hearing this sentiment from “leftists” whose first taste of anything was Bernard fucking Sanders eight years ago. “Just organize”, “touch grass doomer”, “get involved with your community, lib” ad nauseum.
I’ve heard many people posit the idea that Americans do not have a culture, but I think it’s worse than that.
American hogs love being atomized, narcissistic, individualistic consumers and will lash out at anything that threatens that.
I fear this just is what American culture IS.
This is one obstacle to left organizing in the States I think gets ignored. Americans have no sense of community, because Americans hate each other. Including the leftist ones. You see it here, we call Amerikkkans Burgerbrained hogs, but now you want me to organize these hogs? I fucking hate them, and they hate me. My ultimate goal is to fuck off to a cabin in the woods away from these pathetic creeps, and you want me to put my life on the line trying to give them help they largely don’t want?
Yes, but how
We really need to re-emphasize reading theory to everyone here again huh
Idk I heard this Mao guy had some cool ideas
I made a theory intro guide (focused on Marxism-Leninism and intersectionality), feel free to let me know what you think! Trying to fill in any gaps and trim any fat from a basic reading list
Looks good!
Only book I’d suggest adding is Capitalist Realism by Fisher, because I found it really helpful in orientating myself to Marxist analysis in a more modern context, but I think a lot of comrades would have good arguments on it’s lack of utility.
Also given the context of the US election, including some of the Black Panther’s literature on organising probably won’t go amiss
Only problem is that it is at the limits of a Lemmy comment… anything you’d recommend taking out?
Honestly, if you can’t fit any more I wouldn’t sweat it, it’s more important to cram all the basic, easy to understand stuff in first. I don’t think there’s really much you can take out from the resource as is
I was thinking about swapping Mao out for Oppose Book Worship and Combat Liberalism, as a bit of a call to action (that’s the point of the end, plus the mini “what is to be done”). However, I think On Practice and On Contradiction serve their purpose a bit better.
Mao Ze Dong? more like Mow Ze Lawn
if you mean you’re looking for lib-friendly talking points, look here. if you mean how can marginalized people protect themselves and their communities, idk
Death to America
marcie does fantastic work, holy shit, saving this for later. Need to up my OpSec…
- ∞ 🏳️⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish10·14 days ago
If you have questions about Tor, I can probably answer them. I spent some time voulenteering and getting into (understanding) Tor.
I want to read the guide more fully once I am home, I’ll shoot questions your way once I get them, thanks!
Do you suggest using a VPN with tor? I’ve seen some communities say it’s a good idea and I’ve seen others say never.
- ∞ 🏳️⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish4·14 days ago
Depends.
I don’t think you should use one just because someone told you to, but if you have thought about it and you think you would benefit from it, go ahead.
Lmao Reddit
Ikr
Going back into the activism next week. I sort of have a history of crash and burn cycles.
Unironically looking at volunteering with PSL.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
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This is how libs are talking about marginalised people by the way before you clutch pearls over how civil I am.
Oh and preying on their vulnerability? By what, giving them the support and community they need in this time when they face very real danger? I’m calling on us to help people you idiot. Most of this instance is full of vulnerable people. Read the room.
Wtf are you talking about? Condescending? I don’t call marginalised people libs? Do you get what I mean by lib spaces or are you just making shit up?
No, I don’t get what you mean! Are the people in the lib spaces not libs? Who is, then, and where do they hang out?
I don’t know if you’ll even see this, as mods removed my previous comment and you’ve probably blocked me. I guess I don’t get to be part of the community.
Liberal spaces as in liberal controlled. Lmao I can see your comment. And yeah you probably will get pushback if you come into this place looking to start shit.
I apologise for the tone of my comment - it was overly confrontational. However, I genuinely found the tone of your post condescending, so maybe others will too. Or maybe the vulnerable and lost people won’t mind being called that.
Anyway, if you do have success building the community, that will be a good thing. Good luck.
I apologise for the tone of my comment - it was overly confrontational. However, I genuinely found the tone of your post condescending, so maybe others will too
Lmao wounded libs doing tone policing or civility fetishism when people respond in kind to their condescending smug attitudes, name a more iconic duo
Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.
Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and of its history.
When describing their dialectical method, Marx and Engels usually refer to Hegel as the philosopher who formulated the main features of dialectics. This, however, does not mean that the dialectics of Marx and Engels is identical with the dialectics of Hegel. As a matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from the Hegelian dialectics only its “rational kernel,” casting aside its Hegelian idealistic shell, and developed dialectics further so as to lend it a modern scientific form.
“My dialectic method,” says Marx, “is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, … the process of thinking which, under the name of ‘the Idea,’ he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (creator) of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea.’ With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.” (Marx, Afterword to the Second German Edition of Volume I of Capital.)
When describing their materialism, Marx and Engels usually refer to Feuerbach as the philosopher who restored materialism to its rights. This, however, does not mean that the materialism of Marx and Engels is identical with Feuerbach’s materialism. As a matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from Feuerbach’s materialism its “inner kernel,” developed it into a scientific-philosophical theory of materialism and cast aside its idealistic and religious-ethical encumbrances. We know that Feuerbach, although he was fundamentally a materialist, objected to the name materialism. Engels more than once declared that “in spite of” the materialist “foundation,” Feuerbach “remained… bound by the traditional idealist fetters,” and that “the real idealism of Feuerbach becomes evident as soon as we come to his philosophy of religion and ethics.” (Marx and Engels, Vol. XIV, pp. 652-54.)
Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of apprehending nature, which regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the development of nature as the result of the development of the contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature.
In its essence, dialectics is the direct opposite of metaphysics.
- Marxist Dialectical Method
The principal features of the Marxist dialectical method are as follows:
a) Nature Connected and Determined
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as an accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with, isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a connected and integral whole, in which things, phenomena are organically connected with, dependent on, and determined by, each other.
The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself, isolated from surrounding phenomena, inasmuch as any phenomenon in any realm of nature may become meaningless to us if it is not considered in connection with the surrounding conditions, but divorced from them; and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one conditioned by surrounding phenomena.
b) Nature is a State of Continuous Motion and Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away.
The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into being and going out of being.
The dialectical method regards as important primarily not that which at the given moment seems to be durable and yet is already beginning to die away, but that which is arising and developing, even though at the given moment it may appear to be not durable, for the dialectical method considers invincible only that which is arising and developing.
“All nature,” says Engels, "from the smallest thing to the biggest. from grains of sand to suns, from protista (the primary living cells – J. St.) to man, has its existence in eternal coming into being and going out of being, in a ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change (Ibid., p. 484.)
Therefore, dialectics, Engels says, “takes things and their perceptual images essentially in their interconnection, in their concatenation, in their movement, in their rise and disappearance.” (Marx and Engels, Vol. XIV,’ p. 23.)
c) Natural Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open’ fundamental changes’ to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development should be understood not as movement in a circle, not as a simple repetition of what has already occurred, but as an onward and upward movement, as a transition from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher:
“Nature,” says Engels, “is the test of dialectics. and it must be said for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature’s process is dialectical and not metaphysical, that it does not move in an eternally uniform and constantly repeated circle. but passes through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception of nature by proving that the organic world of today, plants and animals, and consequently man too, is all a product of a process of development that has been in progress for millions of years.” (Ibid., p. 23.)
Describing dialectical development as a transition from quantitative changes to qualitative changes, Engels says:
“In physics … every change is a passing of quantity into quality, as a result of a quantitative change of some form of movement either inherent in a body or imparted to it. For example, the temperature of water has at first no effect on its liquid state; but as the temperature of liquid water rises or falls, a moment arrives when this state of cohesion changes and the water is converted in one case into steam and in the other into ice… A definite minimum current is required to make a platinum wire glow; every metal has its melting temperature; every liquid has a definite freezing point and boiling point at a given pressure, as far as we are able with the means at our disposal to attain the required temperatures; finally, every gas has its critical point at which, by proper pressure and cooling, it can be converted into a liquid state… What are known as the constants of physics (the point at which one state passes into another – J. St.) are in most cases nothing but designations for the nodal points at which a quantitative (change) increase or decrease of movement causes a qualitative change in the state of the given body, and at which, consequently, quantity is transformed into quality.” (Ibid., pp. 527-28.) […]
You completely missed the entire point of my post then. That’s not my fault. Skill issue.
What this post is trying to say: We should work on helping the homeless, minorities etc so that they can protect themselves. Because the Dems aren’t going to do it.
What this post isn’t trying to do: Pander to smug liberals who have no interest in helping anyone and instead want to debate semantics and posture.