- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
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They would literally, unironically, genuinely lose 100 times to republicans before they elect anybody who would appease anybody left of Clinton.
If liberals had brains they’d want the entire leadership of the DNC thrown into a pit for this and other colossal failures. Instead they’re brainless and will just blame us for not voting
So you’re saying that you didn’t vote?
I completely understand your frustration. It sucks knowing that things are going to get worse and it could have been much better if those who didn’t vote, voted for Kamala. And we’re all definitely going to need time to fully process this.
In my opinion though, and I’m not saying that I’m definitely correct - but the feeling I get the reason that the democrats lost is because lots of people felt completely disillusioned with the democratic party. I want to be really clear: Fuck Trump, he’s a fascist in a party of fascists doing fascist things. they will undoubtedly cause death and harm. If there was any justice in this world they’d be on trial for crimes again humanity. But the democrats did not offer enough hope for people to get out and vote. They basically ran on a campaign of “vote for us because you have no better option, the other guy is the worst”, and that is just not an inspiring campaign. Their ongoing support for the genocide in palestine, their lack of interest in fighting for the rights of trans people, all of these things and more left many people, myself included, feeling absolutely abandoned by the democratic party.
I still think that leftists should vote, and they should vote with their heart and with thoughtfulness and think about harm mitigation. But I also cannot blame anyone who just couldn’t muster the energy to go out and queue for hours to express their support for a candidate that they felt very little love for.
I really hope that my love and compassion comes through. It’s hard to express over the internet, and it sometimes feels a little silly, but it’s what we have left. Our love for each other and our hope that the future can be better, even if we may not live to experience that better future.
They always will, they serve the same donors and bourgeois powers. Marx and Lenin are vindicated by the passage of time. They were not clairvoyant, they just accurately analyzed the systems around them and saw what necessarily follows from their directions.
Everyone, get organized, read theory, learn self-defense and self-sufficiency. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. Defend yourselves and protect each other.
Great recommendation. Blackshirts and Reds is a great place to start. I’ll add on Principles of Communism https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm as a great place to go from there.
That’s my favorite intro to Marxism, yes.
Here’s a little “intro to Marxism-Leninism” list I threw together, modified a bit. It’s critically missing Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, and National Liberation theory, so any additions on that matter would be excellent. I am working through intersectional theory right now, which is why it is missing from this present list, the goal is to be as straight to the point as possible.
A good intro for someone with no familiarity is Engels’ Principles of Communism and if you are anti-AES but willing to read I recommend Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds.
From there, it becomes more important to understand that Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components:
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Dialectical and Historical Materialism
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Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx’s Law of Value
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Advocacy for Revolutionary Socialism
And as such, I recommend, in order:
- Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy
By far my favorite primer on Dialectical and Historical Materialism. By understanding DiaMat first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism.
Further reading on DiaMat, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, essentially explaining how Capitalism itself preps the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates.
- Marx’s Wage Labor and Capital as well as Wages, Price and Profit
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions.
- Lenin’s The State and Revolution
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, and not replaced. Also a good call to action to cap off the intro.
After reading all of this, whoever has completed these works should have a good grasp of the basics of Marxism-Leninism and be equipped to do their own Marxist-Leninist analysis, though tons of excellent and fairly critical works were dropped for the sake of limiting the scope to an intro reading list. I can make more “advanced” recommendations if they are necessary as well.
wow great list!Thanks comrade!
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Anarcho-NATOist detected
Hey quick question, can you tell me where fascism arises from, and why?
Fascism arises from a state apparatus.
End the state.
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Fascism arises from Capitalist decay. Fascism is the self-defense mechanism of the bourgeoisie deployed against rising revolutionary undercurrents from the working class as the contradictions within Capitalist society sharpen.
You really should read Blackshirts and Reds, at least the first few chapters.
And you really should read CoB if you think everybody does not have a natural right to life, and that we need oppressive top down systems to control us.
Direct action, mutual aid, build up from the grassroots to empower people not politicians.
Sounds great, can you grassroots me some air defense systems so my grassroots mutual aid non-state can stop getting bombed by the USAF? Thanks.
We can’t reeducate or shoot the reactionaries because that would make us evil authoritarian tankies
Oh no, the reactionaries we didn’t reeducate or shoot instituted an armed takeover and now they’re torturing and killing us along with countless innocent people! It was worth it to preserve our moral purity, though
The Bread Book is good, if more people read it I think the world would be a better place. However, I firmly disagree with your analysis on the merits of Marxism. I find it insulting that you claim I don’t believe everyone has a right to life, and it’s disingenuous to say that a publicly owned, centrally planned, democratically run government is the same as a Capitalist State.
I can recommend Marxist theory, if you’d like an intro list.
That sounds great, but you can’t get there from here, at least not directly, because the capitalists will always kill it in its crib. That’s one of the reasons that such a configuration has never lasted more than a few months. If you had read Blackshirts and Reds, you might understand this.
But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.
The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.
What’s a state? And does that mean every state is a fascist state?
A state is an authoritarian organisation bent on maintaining its control over an area or peoples.
Every state is authoritarian, not every authoritarian is a fascist.
People > country lines.
What prevents someone from calling your anarchist collective that arms up to defend their class interests, a state?
What prevents ppl from labeling your actions “authoritarian” when you start to dismantle capitalist power structures?
If you think “authoritarianism bad” is a coherent anarchist ideology, you’re ignorant. Whatever fantasy world you have in your head of an anarchist society will still have authority wielded for various purposes within that society
Okay chud.
If not every state is fascist, then the conditions for fascism must be more specific than the presence of a state
Authoritarian? What’s that?
I think it’s important to read Blackshirts and Reds to see why “red fash” is a gross misunderstanding of Marxist movements. You don’t have to agree with Marxism, but you must understand that Marxist movements have served the working class, and fascist movements the Capitalist class.
Myself, I am a Marxist-Leninist. There are good Anarchists that do good practice and good work, don’t get me wrong, but in this moment sectatian nonsense like “red-fash” splits and divides what should be a more solidified movement.
100%. It wasn’t just the genocide though. They alienated the progressives. Kamala was scared to actually talk outside of mostly scripted messaging and interviews. They didn’t provide and explain strong progressive policies. To me, Kamala was pretty indistinguishable from Joe Biden and other corporate Democrats. Her picking Tim Walz was a great move and she was way up in the polls. Had she leaned into him more, broke from Joe Biden (even thrown him under the bus a bit), and turned to other progressives for advice rather than the DNC corporate consultants, she would have won.
The Dems will always alienate their leftward sections, they serve monopolist capitalists just like the republicans do. It’s time for liberals to be radicalized and read theory, join orgs, and join leftists.
If anyone wants a good intro list on Marxist theory, I can provide one.
To me, Kamala was pretty indistinguishable from Joe Biden and other corporate Democrats.
But Joe Biden beat Trump. Seems like she could have won by being more like Joe Biden.
Biden beat Trump during COVID and when Trump was the incumbent. Being, “not the other guy” works a lot better when you aren’t currently the president when the bad things are happening.
Given high inflation that was never balanced by wages or deflation and an ongoing sponsored genocide, “more of the same” and a near complete lack of major policy positions means hewing close to the unpopular incumbent.
Also she literally never won a primary. She lost to Yang lmao. This was donors shoving a pro-gemocide empty suit candidate down peoples’ throats. “Winning” is a secondary goal to choosing the candidates.
Male. And white.
Trump IS genocide.
Ah, so the choice was between genocide or genocide.
I guess if both sides are evil then people just rationally choose the side that’s at least honest.
Trump cares about Trump. That’s the long and short of his ideology. He only cares about genocide to the extent that it might benefit him, otherwise he’d rather play golf.
I thought Trump was garbage.
¿Por que no los dos?
This cycle the DNC, for the first time, could get the upwardly mobile suburbanite Reagan voters they’ve been salivating over my whole life. They don’t care about winning, they’re just happy that hippies don’t vote for them anymore while Cheneys do. The DNC is not a political party now, it’s a North Virginia cocktail party.
