cimbazarov

Have to hand it to her for having consistently bad takes. Makes it really easy to hate her

Not sure if this counts as right wing, but I sympathize with some of Dostoevsky's philosophy. If we look at how fascism triumphed over socialism, there was an irrational and emotional component to it that drew people in, which in some ways socialism fails to do because it's rooted in objectiveness. And I believe Dostoevsky touches on this in his works where he has characters that are disillusioned with society but also disillusioned with the revolutionary movement, because it all boils down to objectiveness. I believe he is a reactionary, but also in real life he was part of revolutionary movements so he has real lived experience of what it's like to try to change society, which I find interesting.

That being said I do think socialism can have a subjective appeal to the masses, in that it aims to ensure prosperity and liberation for all.

Maybe I'm biased but you can even see the difference in cultures between predominantly Catholic countries vs Protestant countries. The former seems to have alot more distinctiveness and (not very, but slightly more) collectiveness

I don’t know if this is a cultural US liberal thing of thinking oneself too unique for a movement

It's mostly this. We are brought up with individualist propaganda and great man theory bullshit to explain how everything works in our society. Then you get people who feel alienated at the mention of a "society" or "community" cause they think they're special snowflakes that don't fit in with everyone else, when our culture is designed that way.

We need to organize better. There is a lack of militant groups that aren't just straight up fascists.

How to build up an organization, idk, that is the hard part. I feel like the most compelling thing you can ask someone is what would they do if shit really went down? Police won't protect you. Your company won't protect you. Your friend group or family is probably too small or weak.

Maybe its possible to sway left wing groups to be more militant and armed?

At least shit really hasn't hit the fan yet that we can still organize.

Inshallah comrade

Bernie and AOC have demonstrated that they will compromise on their "principles" ( if you even consider them that) to fallback to the Democratic party line. Putting our support in them is not a way to move their supporters to the left, but for them to move leftists to the right.

I think AOC is just a careerist, and Bernie is genuine, but functionally they are the same. I think of it similar to the SPD in Germany during the late 1910s and how it compromised with the bourgeois which killed any real revolution from happening.

Bernie wants billionaires to "pay their fair share" and then what? Is that really the root of the problem? They start paying more taxes and everything becomes fine for us?

I think in order to move people further left, we have to break their trust in AOC in Bernie. They have to see that there is no politician out there that actually is fighting for their interests, and their salvation lies in their own hands and they must organize.

Edit: oops I meant to reply to your other comment

I mean with the defunding of USAID maybe? China giving an alternative to the IMF that allows countries to take loans to develop themselves in a more flexible way. It seems more promising than it ever has for the third world.

I think the working class in the west and eu is still too disorganized for a revolution. I believe the material conditions are there, but the class conscious and organizational structure to guide the working class are not, for various reasons.

100% agree that education focuses way too much on test scores. I went through alot of college realizing that "I dont have to actually learn this stuff, I just have to know what questions will be asked on the test and have good answers for those". When you approach it that way as a student, you dont actually go through the process of really learning the material and cultivating your mind. After spending alot of time out of college and reading alot more, I realize that true education is having the space to acquire knowledge and wrestle around with it until you really understand it, and socializing with others about the material. You kind of do this when studying for tests, which is why I guess tests have been around for so long. In my time though there was the internet, which was just kind of like an extended library that was easier to search, and I realize that it saved me the hassle of needing to socialize with people about the material, which I think is pretty important when learning. LLM's are probably going to result in worse outcomes, though maybe test scores will remain the same.

I had a friend in college who I thought was very intelligent, because he would basically take every assignment or exam and distill it down to what needed to be done to fit in with the grading system. I realize now just how harmful that approach is to truly educating yourself, yet it seemed right at the time because that is how the education system is designed (and it relates to capitalism because people want to use education to get a job and to get a good job you need good grades etc.)

It's also pretty telling whenever I ask someone if they ever studied for a test and forgot all the material on the subject right after. That is contradictory to the whole purpose of education.

Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat.

banger quote. So he's calling out the people who say they are against the war, but take no action that would impede the government from waging the war.

The war cannot but evoke among the masses the most turbulent sentiments, which upset the usual sluggish state of mass mentality. Revolutionary tactics are impossible if they are not adjusted to these new turbulent sentiments.

I think this is important when analyzing our own modern day situations, and not just taking what Lenin lists out here and applying it willy-nilly. It is my belief that we do not need to gain the support of the masses before performing an action because if we can understand the "turbulent sentiments" correctly, then we can come to a conclusion of what the correct action is. By performing the correct action we gain support of the masses. I think of it kinda like the whole UnitedHealthcare CEO situation, but the killer was not organized and only arrived at a correct action by chance.

Those who stand for the "neither-victory-nor-defeat" slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments,

This is a nice way of framing it. In the end our goal is the revolution and everything we do is to achieve that end.

edit: I dunno how you are going about selecting texts, but could I submit a vote for Theses on the National and Colonial Questions

Forming a study group seems like a no brainer now that I realized Lenin, Mao and even Marx had their starts in study groups

Unfortunately I think I alot of people would be turned off by it being marxist, even if they dont have a real conception of what marxism is. I'm kinda wondering if its worth going straight to marxist texts, or maybe start with something more borderline to attract liberals that can potentially be converted.

This is actually the first time I've seen the original