1. Not having any coherent politics to start with, which means they had to grasp for something when they realized juvenile shit like libertarianism falls apart under the slightest pressure; and
2. Not giving a shit about poor people.

Probably got amplified whenever Whateverthefuckhisnameis Cuomo compared “Fredo” to the n-word.

Dope ass posts by @TransComrade69 that everyone should read:

• The whole discussion series on Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
• This great post on how to get strapped
• All of her other posts

Sorry to lose your efforts. This place has a lot of promise, but we have to do better by our trans comrades.

:cat-trans:

What percentage of vets would you estimate are persuadable?

That’s what I see as the central question here: if a group of people can be convinced to become leftists, we should be working with them regardless of whether it’s difficult. We’re not going anywhere unless we get literally tens of millions of more people on our side, and not all of those people are going to be perfect.

they even would’ve called Obama a commie

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/07/25/book-review-the-communist-does-frank-marshall-davis-have-an-ideological-godson-in-president-obama/?sh=51b11c6d3c5d

She’s not saying Maduro is an authoritarian here, though.

But if you goal is to build class consciousness

There are dozens of better ways to build class consciousness than talking about countries no one in America really knows about except in talking point form. Talking about universal healthcare instead of getting into a struggle session over a country that hasn’t existed for 25 years is one of them.

If you tell your buddies Cuba is great, the worst that can happen is they’ll think your political opinions are shit. And because you get to have an actual exchange with them – i.e., whatever you say about Cuba isn’t filtered through network media and social media until it becomes nothing more than “@hagensfohawk loves commie dictators” – you have a shot at breaking through superficial talking points and getting your buddies to reconsider what they know.

If a politician says Cuba is great, well, we know what happens – Bernie did it not even a year ago. He gained zero support from the left that he didn’t already have. All it did was launch a few fresh media cycles of “Bernie’s a commie!!1!!!” And while you’re right that they’ll call you a commie anyway, playing the same hits gets old after a while and loses its effectiveness. Giving them fresh meat can’t help and only hurts.

The only way to change that is if you and I have enough conversations with our buddies to where “hey, Cuba’s actually good” becomes a majority opinion.

Changing perceptions about socialist states has to come from the bottom up, not the top down.

Look at how Bernie’s entirely truthful, extremely moderate statements on Cuba’s healthcare and education programs was wielded against him. That’s what happens when political leaders try to change the tune about socialist states in a country that’s been strongly anti-communist for most of the last century. We have to have those conversations on the ground first.

seeing you get all worked up about such a benign topic

This ain’t it

This might upset all you libs in here, but when bad things happen to bad people, some might call that justice.

The American South is a region filled with religious extremists, some of whom have already radicalized to the point of committing acts of terrorism. Should we make it its own country and fund their schools to boot? Is that likely to improve the situation or make it worse?

Could China’s approach be done better? Almost certainly. Is it the most humane response to extremism we’ve seen so far? That’s for you to decide.