toyotathon posted:colddays posted:
Started a reading group and joined a different one in the same day. Spreading Mao to the people in my immediate vicinity. We discussed "On Practice" for our first meeting and a SAlt Trotskyist said "I wanted to disagree with Mao but he keeps being right". More importantly, some previously politically uninvolved people are interested and excited to engage with these ideas. I lent my copy of Settlers to one guy after the meeting. In the other group, some people have begun to change their mind about the Syrian situation after a discussion about the American role there and the YPG's previous collaboration.
For me, it's really nice to finally have places to actively discuss and promote communism irl and it's really great to see such a warm reception for these ideas.
hell yea brother. can you offer any general advice on how to get a circle started? i'm in a new spot as of 6mo ago, i've searched and asked around, but have had zero luck finding an existing circle. that's a good first reading too i might (fingers crossed soon) borrow that.
I'm not sure how helpful I can be with finding a group because I'm a student and I've been at this school for 3 years now, so I have the advantage of an environment with some native interest in left and non-mainstream ideas already, plus I've made a good amount of contacts and a basic level of recognition as someone with a political opinion. What I did was made a facebook post about how class and anti-imperialism are missing from the campus discussions and the work that otherwise great organizations are doing, with an invitation to contact me for a reading group at the end for people who are interested in what I said. However, more than half of the people who responded aren't very politically aware or active, nor do they know me very well, so unfamiliarity might not be a big issue. Recently, a stranger who recognized me from a completely unrelated event bumped into me and now he's in the group as well.
So I think the bottom line is to just meet as many people as possible who might possibly want to read something interesting, then ask them all at once.
I think "On Practice" was a good first reading, but I think I maybe underestimated its complexity, since I didn't read it until after I've already been on this website for a few years. One person who was new to this said they were pretty confused by it. It felt dense to them, but they did only read it once, quickly. Another person who was entirely new to it all understood it with barely any problems. The SAlt guy mostly understood it, and after discussing the points where he disagreed he said he understood it better. If you read it, I recommend getting to know a bit about everyone's interests beforehand, because comparing dialectical processes in those fields to the dialectics of "On Practice" is very helpful. For example, the person who said they found it a bit confusing studies environmental and ecological issues, so I compared the two stages of cognition to stages of ecological succession, which they said helped their thought process.
Anyway, the biggest issue is now setting up a second meeting around everyone's busy schedules. If you have any tips on that please let me know.
i kept awkwardly waiting for the inside joke to drop so i could laugh, but it never came
toyotathon posted:tell em your sign's the biggest constellation there is, the big dipper himself
ahem, ursa major is only the THIRD largest current IAU designated constellation
What's a goon to a goblin
Populares posted:I'm waiting to die and it's taking too long! and i can't drink.
Can't drink? Alcohol vapors can be produced by heating up alcohol or pouring it over dry ice. Alcohol can be absorbed into your bloodstream by inhaling alcohol vapors. People who inhale alcohol vapors get drunk very quickly, because the alcohol goes straight to the brain. Also, heated alcohol vapor can injure the lungs.
Populares posted:I'm playing diablo 2 for the first time no spoilers please.
Look I'm jokingly advocating for self harm here and I still think this is too fucking dark, do you need someone to talk to
Populares posted:I'm not that desperate to die of liver failure. But those are good ideas. I'm playing diablo 2 for the first time no spoilers please.
One bit of advice - when you see tiny pictures of skeletons, click your left mouse button thosuands of times!!
tears posted:what class?
petit bourgeois
Also imn gumbooting tomorrow hopefully it will go well.
The question of identity has changed from being something you are born with to a task: you have to create your own community. But communities aren’t created, and you either have one or you don’t. What the social networks can create is a substitute. The difference between a community and a network is that you belong to a community, but a network belongs to you. You feel in control. You can add friends if you wish, you can delete them if you wish. You are in control of the important people to whom you relate. People feel a little better as a result, because loneliness, abandonment, is the great fear in our individualist age.
I see a lot of different non-communist groups shifting from a community-based theoretical position to a network-based theoretical position, the goal isn't to bring together people based on a common innate identity but explicitly appealing to the allure of the positive feedback loop of a network. especially within single issue/stance activism this is a really powerful trend because a lot of the organizing lacks the materialist foundations of a marxist worldview
belgend posted:
belgend posted:hello fams ive been gone for a while but i might be becoming a cadre???
good stuff, which org. i need to know whether to send you a pig head or a congratulations
belgend posted:hello fams ive been gone for a while but i might be becoming a cadre???
Welcome to the republican party.
pogfan1996 posted:belgend posted:
hello fams ive been gone for a while but i might be becoming a cadre???
good stuff, which org. i need to know whether to send you a pig head or a congratulations
workers party of belgium