I don't begrudge taking time on my wall of text posts. It didn't exactly come together quickly either.
Ditto. Pentecostal church (ugh) into New Atheism (ugh).
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Were it not for the internet and social media, I'd probably be a shithead who sees anyone's not me as an enemy. I went from conservative to Liberal, then to aligning to Democratic Socialism
Say what you will about the internet and social media, but they do have some benefits
While I'm no radical Marxist-Leninist like some of our comrades here, I'm only 25 so that remains to be seen.
Say what you will about the internet and social media, but they do have some benefits
While I'm no radical Marxist-Leninist like some of our comrades here, I'm only 25 so that remains to be seen.
Legit me. I am convinced that capitalism has no place in our civilization if humanity is to survive the coming decades. But on its own, of course the whole growing conservative thing is mostly bunk. A whole lot more goes into generational trends, for one the so-called Greatest Generation stayed mostly liberal and voting Democrat well into their deaths.
And of course if we take the whole implication of aging -> more wealth -> more FYGM attitudes aka conservatism, you have to account for things like the '08 crash and recession and the fact that millennials basically never had a chance to build and ascertain wealth. And of course you have to account for race. Boomers are white as fuck. Millennials less so. Gen Z even less. There's a reason white people have been wilding out about immigration and brown people going back to Dubya. THey're dumb racists, but even they sense the tides of generational change.
Same.
Born and raised mormon, left when I was 17
currently explaining original accumulation to my gf
I grew up in a conservative midwest household, my parents listened to Fox News every night, my father would listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio so I was a registered Republican early on. After high school and into college I became more critical of Capitalism primarily because of a great philosophy teacher I had whom I took three different classes from. Though I don't know that he ever mentioned Marx, it did help to get the ball rolling but largely i was still mostly disinterested in politics more centrist and the more politically active I've become over the past several years the further to the left I go.
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From Fox to Marx!
Also good news friends, Bernie is surging!(+7)
Same here. I'm 28 years old and the last couple of years, I've radicalised a lot. Luckily I've never been a "pull yourself up from your bootstrap" kinda guy, because I've noticed early on that "hard work" rarely pays off for working people, like my father and many relatives. Coupled with the notion that at the same time rich people are getting richer, allowing them to invest more, thus accumulating more wealth which is used to accumulate even more, it becomes a vicious cycle, and further destroys wealth distribution.
So to that end, I've always been a fierce social democrat. Believing in a strong safety net, with sufficient welfare, social housing, rent control, single-payer healthcare, and a high progressive income and wealth tax rate. But always within a capitalist framework, because "capitalism brought us prosperity, it lifted hundreds of million of people out of extreme poverty, where would people otherwise find the motivation to work, and what about innovation without competition?"
The last couple of years, the thought of the core system being inherently rotten left me with a feeling that no matter how much you polish a turd, it'll always be shit. It also made me highly sceptical of social democratic reforms because essentially you allow a system to continue living on life-support that has no sustainable way of existing, basically contributing to the oppression of people. At the same time I also try not to be an accelerationist, because opposing social democratic reforms actively makes life worse for the working class and poor people. Though one could argue that the amount of people suffering from "regulated" capitalism after a certain amount of time eventually exceeds the number of people suffering through accelerationism, because in theory you'd then achieve socialism faster. I find it a very complicated thing to make up my mind about.
Anyway. As for what I label myself as, I still have some trouble with that.
For example, anarcho-communism is something that appeals to me very much, which I essentially view as the ideal end goal of communism that is stateless, classless, and moneyless: all contributing what they can and all receiving what they need. However, I don't think we can pull off a stateless society at once after ditching capitalism, without first transitioning to a temporary state in between. I know that isn't a very anarchist thing to say, but I try to reconcile those two conflicting views of mine by advocating for a federation of self-governing regions that's being run from the bottom up through workers' councils etc. How that would exactly look like, I don't know. Which I think puts me more on the side of democratic socialism?
But back to the nation that you get "more conservative as you grow older", I find that quite laughable as well. Because I can't imagine radicalising any less when I have children, and they have to live in a world that'll be continuously worse off for future generation if we don't change as a species. If anything, one would think that's reason to radicalise more.
My two (long) cents.
I don't think Marx viewed the state disappearing as an instantaneous event - rather, he viewed the abolishment of the state as part of the transition to post-capitalism. Abolishing the state after abolishing capitalism, or the inverse, isn't a sequential event, but an intertwined transition.
I'm definitely most sympathetic and favorable to anarcho-communism these days, but I'm not super interested in being tied down to one definitive ideology. Leftists should have solidarity with each other as long as we are still under capitalism, late stage or otherwise.
Is this one arguing tragedy of the commons is made up or just "all these things lead to ecofascism".
The typical read on the tragedy of the commons implies everyone has equal responsibility to the commons getting fucked; it's a thing, it's just often misused by the ecofash especially when, you know... it's a small fraction of people dousing the commons in shit.
Oh ok.
Yes ecofascism is gonna be "fun" as things like all of Austrailia burns becomes common place.
if you are interested in the original stuff (1980):
Also look up Edward Artemiev (who scored Solaris) - Эдуард Артемьев
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you might then also be interested in the history of the ANS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer
Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel prize in economics for showing that the tragedy of the commons is made up.
It's a problem in capitalism. Management of resources as filtered through the competitive mind set of capitalists is skewed in a way that fascists can more easily take advantage of. Actual cooperation in a communal setting outside of market economics wasn't considered in the models that capitalists use. It was a total blind spot in the theory.
I started off voting for Bush's second term. I... experienced somethings and came out leaning liberal, watching Bill Maher, and fell into nu atheism. Then I was affected by the housing crisis, nu-atheism imploded, and I started shifting "progressive". Now I am a socialist. So yeah, I've gone in complete opposite to that saying. lol
I can't post threads yet but wanted to recommend this podcast: Citations Needed. It's about how Neoliberal ideology pervades the media. The latest episode is The Economist's ugly history of being the millionaire paper, obfuscating it's support of slavery in the past and the present. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-...pisode-98-the-refined-sociopathy-of-56190471/
Citations needed is very good. But I'll take the time to push the in-depth version of the podcast: That episode focuses Alexander Zevin's book that is a really fantastic piece of work that shows in detail and empirically how liberalism has evolved: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3090-liberalism-at-large also please also listen to the LRB's podcast that features Zevin, he was also recently on the aufhebungabunga podcast which is also a very good podcast: https://aufhebungabunga.podbean.com/
jordan uhl's tweet sums it up perfectly:
the energy of this solidarity is so strong
i must confess that i was extremely close to making a lame 'solidarit-eh' joke
I nonetheless will appreciate its existence as a Platonic ideal.
It's the best. I can't remember a political rally that even comes close to this level of sincere humanity
I couldn't help but squeeze my hand a bit at the parts that applied to me, and feel for everyone else for the parts that didn't. It's so easy to relate to and feel connected to everyone there.
Comrades! Mail your ballots, get to the booths, and feel the BERN! Let's go get that clown fascist pig.
It's the power of humanity. That power that connects us. It's so special to see someone take that and manifest it in such a simple and powerful way.
🎉
Comrades! Mail your ballots, get to the booths, and feel the BERN! Let's go get that clown fascist pig.
*slowly raises hand*
Admittedly I'm a recent convert, I was a SocDem in the past but I'm all in now.
Anyways, while Canada has resisted the rise of right-wing nationalism seen in other countries, I do kind of envy the rise of figures like Corbyn and Bernie. I hope the NDP can one day capture that same kind of enthusiasm.
that's definitely where i stand as well
like it's good to see fascist chuds like maxime bernier crash and burn but at the same time the lack of a grassroots push for truly leftist politics concerns me with ineffective centrism and rural ontario hockey uncle conservatism being as futile as they are
i'm finally getting involved with local groups now (only shifted further left in the past year) so hopefully we can spark something special. solidarity o7