#601
[account deactivated]
#602

conec posted:

Red_Canadian posted:

conec posted:

ya its good that ppl are talking about capitalism being bad even if they are wedarted bern bros yet people have short attention spans, and after the election is over with less people will be disgruntled with capitalism and most will go back to loving capitalism a lot. luring liberal friends into socialist thought is only working if they are naturally very left leaning anyway. otherwise it`s like a hare krishna trying to make u eat their blessed vegan cookies and buy a copy of the bhagavad gita

Sorry, but what the hell? Are people just born left-leaning, and if they aren't, they never will be? Certainly there has been a lot of attempted programming of people, but isn't that the idea behind re-education camps? Something would have to change, for people to change their focus. I'm not denying the existence of revolutionary waves, and that people may grow more complacent after the election, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's the point of establishing contact, so we can further radicalize them. I think half of us here know people can be radicalized, since we all saw how laissez faire affected that community.



well, no, no one comes out of the womb with political beliefs. i like when genocide scholars think they are being profound when they ask individuals if they would kill baby hitler... corny much? but i digress, the popularly accepted notion is that we form our political beliefs through our socialization - and a considerably influential portion of that process is happening in our youth. where you are from, your parents' beliefs (their education level, income level, careers), your religion, etc etc.

for example: i might encounter a comely girl who wears nice clothes and seems to have a good sense of humor, but if she`s in her twenties and the literature she enjoys is liberal arts freshman reading (locke, adam smith, etc) then i will not be successful in having her "convert" to socialism when she spends her time posting libertarian memes on facebook or whatever. her politics will more or less stay the same for a long time, probably.

if someone grows up going to church every wednesday and every sunday - if their parents liked reagan and bush, they are less likely to be like "hmm... karl marx? seems legit". they`re more likely to have weird christian ideas infused with shallow fox news generalizations ingrained in them. introducing a rightist to socialist ideas does little but repulse them. if they even know who stalin is, they will be like "ummm... wasn't he an evil dictator who killed millions of people?". though, i`m not suggesting that if your parents are neocons, you won`t be a leftist (i speak from experience). i do think, though, if someones' parents were openly anti-bush around them, they are much more likely to jump on board with socialist thought, granted that they at least possess some small propensity toward philosophical sh`t.

in general - no one gives a sh`t about this stuff. for example, while studying in germany, i had a classmate from ireland - he was majoring in economics. he still had no idea what socialization (of industry) meant. when millennials are surveyed about socialism, the findings suggest that they don't know what socialism is. they don't care, either, you aren't Socrates - you don't possess Jim Jones charisma, you aren`t going to drag anyone out from a proverbial cave. a majority of baby boomers aren't even sure what the cold war was. seriously, it sounds made up but it's true... like... maybe 1 in 100 young people are willing to get into marxism/communism out of the blue. *maybe*

obviously i'm really pessimistic and i have no interest in joining student groups or trying to start an org or whatever. i do think it's good that there is optimism out there, and efforts to spread socialist thought. all i was really saying is.. unless the people you are linking up with are already left-leaning, then it seems like it would go in one ear and out the other.



tl;dr: organizing is hard, why bother

#603
it would with that attitude
#604
how did this other poster get their post in before mine? this is infuriating
#605
#606

swampman posted:

how did this other poster get their post in before mine? this is infuriating



dont hate please

#607
How many of yall were libertarians before LF. I'll admit I was.
#608
[account deactivated]
#609
What are you even talking about
#610

Urbandale posted:

How many of yall were libertarians before LF. I'll admit I was.



i was a garden variety liberal who joined the peace corps

#611
conec has a valid point that america is not ready for revolution because it's inhabited by the imperialist bourgeois.
#612
http://www.jebbush.com lol
#613
i was a conservative in highschool then i spent at least a few months my first year of college where i was like whoa, this guy ron paul wants to legalize drugs

but after that it was just one long slide into the warm embrace of the science of marxism-leninism
#614
its likely that i have some pretty awful posts on gbs in 2004-2005 from that era
#615
i was the person who went to church every sunday and whose parents liked bush and reagan that conec was talking about. but i decided to be a democrat when i was old enough to vote and then i decided to be a kucinich supporter when he ran and then when obama got elected i decided to read karl marx.
#616

Urbandale posted:

How many of yall were libertarians before LF. I'll admit I was.

i was a "libertarian socialist".

overall i feel noam chomsky did me a service by having a pretty refutable position in saying "all of marxism/dialectics is dumb and i don't get it", instead of the more annoying nuanced ultra-left positions like "engels changed what marx wrote", "you all interpret marx wrong", "lenin didnt listen to his own pronouncements", and other fun arguments.

coming from a pretty blank slate left me open to orthodox marxism-leninism/mtw instead of all this scar tissue built up from crypto trotskyist/anarchist beliefs

#617
anti-imperialism all day
#618
Lets all just cut the shit and admit it was that sweet sweet hate America beat that converted us all from liberalism to Maoism Third Worldism
#619
although im pretty sure my perverse desire to make other people depressed (in a very chomskian manner) by talking about the school of americas or the dirty war in argentina ended up being incorporated into my field of thinking as well and galvanized my sympathies toward videos like shubel morgan
#620

Themselves posted:

Urbandale posted:

How many of yall were libertarians before LF. I'll admit I was.

i was a "libertarian socialist".

overall i feel noam chomsky did me a service by having a pretty refutable position in saying "all of marxism/dialectics is dumb and i don't get it", instead of the more annoying nuanced ultra-left positions like "engels changed what marx wrote", "you all interpret marx wrong", "lenin didnt listen to his own pronouncements", and other fun arguments.

coming from a pretty blank slate left me open to orthodox marxism-leninism/mtw instead of all this scar tissue built up from crypto trotskyist/anarchist beliefs



this was me but more on the 'libertarian' side. that's why I'll always have a soft spot for the Chomskers, he is perfect for labor aristocrat Amerikkkans to begin the transition to scientific Marxism-Leninism

#621
politics is really hard. I'd almost rather do anything else, but you kinda have to leave your brain trash at the door and try to participate
#622
[account deactivated]
#623

babyhueypnewton posted:

that's why I'll always have a soft spot for the Chomskers, he is perfect for labor aristocrat Amerikkkans to begin the transition to scientific Marxism-Leninism



i'll never forget when i was trying to apply to do political canvassing in Berkeley and had to interview. i figured i had to show some leftist 'chops, and not wanting to scare them with marx, i thought some old chomsky would be a nice refresher for the interviewer.

i remember saying something like, "america shouldnt have violated pakistani soveriegnty when we went in for bin laden" ( https://chomsky.info/201105__ /)

well i got laughed out of there pretty quick

where was seymore hersh when i needed him

#624

Themselves posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

that's why I'll always have a soft spot for the Chomskers, he is perfect for labor aristocrat Amerikkkans to begin the transition to scientific Marxism-Leninism

i'll never forget when i was trying to apply to do political canvassing in Berkeley and had to interview. i figured i had to show some leftist 'chops, and not wanting to scare them with marx, i thought some old chomsky would be a nice refresher for the interviewer.

i remember saying something like, "america shouldnt have violated pakistani soveriegnty when we went in for bin laden" ( https://chomsky.info/201105__ /)

well i got laughed out of there pretty quick



DAMN SON U VIOLATED

#625
i don't even remember my politics changing, it's like i cared really hard about gore v bush and then the airplanes hit the towers and i blacked out and woke up in lf

actually i guess i went through a long period of reading first conservative, then ultra-libertarian, ideas about economics and hard assets, and i slowly realized everything was bullshit – these guys are absolutely hardcore pure capitalists and so critique the real economy effectively from that perspective, and the amount of manipulation and control and inefficiency that goes into maintain the system-as-it-is is so thorough that it's glaring no matter which way you look at it, once you're able to get enough critical distance from it to see. i guess once i decided everything was a house of cards it wasn't a big step to start reading more and more leftist criticisms of society and start to see what they were saying. there's a lot of common ground among all the various criticisms of the current system actually, but lucky for us everyone hates each other too much to rally around major alternatives.

so i went from clueless liberal -> socially liberal, fiscally ultralibertarian -> everything is fucked, burn it all to the ground, smash everything, fuck capital

my "path" shows though, in that you can tell in whatever i write that i am sort of coming at things from more of an anarchist angle sometimes than really orthodox marxism. also i don't really know what i'm talking about most of the time.

i have always been mad about my family getting shit on and being poor though, so i guess the seeds were sown a long time ago. i have always voted for the "socialist" party, though now i can see the quotes around it
#626

conec posted:

animedad posted:
politics is really hard. I'd almost rather do anything else, but you kinda have to leave your brain trash at the door and try to participate


i have social autism and i would rather play maplestory and eat seaweed snacks


does maplestory still exist?? one of my friends 10 years ago was fucking addicted to it like crack

#627
My political views (crypto-fascist) have never changed 1 iota only the arguments and framing by which 1 arrives at it.
#628
[account deactivated]
#629

Urbandale posted:

How many of yall were libertarians before LF. I'll admit I was.



Evangelical Christianity -> Gnosticism -> Anarchism/Anarcho-Primitivism -> Drugs + uni -> Liberalism -> More drugs + more uni -> Transhumanism -> rHizzonE -> MTW



#630

i can only talk politics w someone if they aren`t interested in being my personal friend. intimacy is so gross.. fuck.. imagine being at a protest and breathing in every 1`s hot breath, like, what did they just eat? a submarine sandwich w a dog turd inside it? feeling their body heat... fuck that... take your B.O. home please... i hate punks who have little rat tails, i hate idiots who have patches on their jean jacket, i hate guys who tuck their jeans into their boots... i hate girls who wear crop tops, i hate guys with beards combined with trendy hair cuts... i hate people who dress in techno clothes or have grimes haircuts... i hate it all. i hate hipsters. the only student i ever talk about political stuff with at school is a gay guy with no friends because he is a gamer and has a speech impediment.



ah yes, all entirely reasonable, if u were any other poster nobody would have a mocking comment to make about any of this

#631
[account deactivated]
#632
i dont really remember any sort of radical shift in my politics, just becoming less ignorant over time, aka i guess less mainstream liberal or something? i dont remember being particularly anticommunist but honestly who fucking knows because i never really engaged with anyone about politics so i dont have any real touchstones to look back on
#633
the closest things i remember to actual political positions were "communism is the only political ideology consistent with christianity" and "moving a bunch of people to where the palestinians live and telling them to fuck off seems like a really bad idea"
#634
yep, i have about as big of a crush on you as i had for methlabretriever, nothing gets me going like awful posting and weird awkward takes on human interaction
#635

aerdil posted:

i can only talk politics w someone if they aren`t interested in being my personal friend. intimacy is so gross.. fuck.. imagine being at a protest and breathing in every 1`s hot breath, like, what did they just eat? a submarine sandwich w a dog turd inside it? feeling their body heat... fuck that... take your B.O. home please... i hate punks who have little rat tails, i hate idiots who have patches on their jean jacket, i hate guys who tuck their jeans into their boots... i hate girls who wear crop tops, i hate guys with beards combined with trendy hair cuts... i hate people who dress in techno clothes or have grimes haircuts... i hate it all. i hate hipsters. the only student i ever talk about political stuff with at school is a gay guy with no friends because he is a gamer and has a speech impediment.

ah yes, all entirely reasonable, if u were any other poster nobody would have a mocking comment to make about any of this



conec is performance art, getting mad at her is like getting mad at Kanye for being too earnest in an age of postmodern cynicism

#636
speaking of performance art:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/hookers-for-hillary-clinton-fundraising-219397

Love said that she has been offering bonus services to clients who are willing to donate money to Clinton: “When we party, I give free time if you donate to Hookers 4 Hillary — money,” said Love, who works at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Mound House, Nevada. “I tell them ‘Hey, if you pay an extra thousand and donate that portion to Hookers 4 Hillary I’ll give you a free hour,’ and they do it.”

#637
*conec opens up her excel spreadsheet of rhizzone_posters_and_their_transgressions_for_future_reference and adds 'former libertarian' next to aerdil* gah these creeps!
#638
I was a democratteen to annoy my parent, then went libertarian in college cause of desire for legal weed, was briefly liberal again in 08 for obungler, and then I realized I could really piss off my parents with Marxism. They actually are weirdly OK with my Marxism because "it comes from a place of love for humanity" I stuck with it despite this fact, I just piss them off by rooting for their most hated sports teams now
#639
i used to be a left liberal when i was a teen and i'm a slightly better read and less gullible left liberal now. the financial crisis helped me understand the limits of the rigged bourgeois world economic system but i'm not really convinced of the possible effectiveness of revolutionary alternatives today. i appreciate 20th century communists for really trying though

proud to say i've been anti-imperialist pretty much since i was 12

Edited by Bablu ()

#640
i used to be anti-conec and considered this the correct position but, thanks to the dialectic, i've now realized that when there's no conec or whatever ya'll post like it costs $1.00 per reply and that shit sucks lol