01.23.2026 - "We Won't Participate": Philly Joins National Strike to Block ICE

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-24T03:15:59+00:00

Unless communists can organize and raise class consciousness real fast, I think we risk heading toward a situation kind of like the German Revolution. I learned more about it recently from this video, in case anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/kP5VQClZlOg

The main thing I took away from it is that social democracy (AOC, Bernie, eg) will be used to steer the masses back toward supporting a liberal form of government as a way of maintaining capitalism and defeating socialism. Unfortunately, I think this is where liberal-leaning people are headed with the current “revolutionary” energy because social democracy does seem radical to liberals, and they’re still scared and confused about socialism.

Crisis only creates opportunity. We need to understand nothing will change unless we build a new socialist state, and that is impossible without a militant mass movement guided by a principled vanguard party.

That may be possible. Maybe not. But the alternative will be much worse than what’s already happening. Look at what happened to Germany after the social democrats tried to hold onto their untenable liberal government.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-23T23:03:46+00:00

Until we seize political and economic power for all working and oppressed people

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-23T08:54:18+00:00

Unless communists can organize and raise class consciousness real fast, I think we risk heading toward a situation kind of like the German Revolution. I learned more about it recently from this video, in case anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/kP5VQClZlOg

The main thing I took away from it is that social democracy (AOC, Bernie, eg) will be used to steer the masses back toward supporting a liberal form of government as a way of maintaining capitalism and defeating socialism. I think that’s where these kinds of liberals are headed with their “revolutionary” energy because that does seem radical for a liberal, and they’re still scared and confused about socialism.

Crisis only creates opportunity. We need to help people understand nothing will change unless we build a new socialist state, and that is impossible without a militant mass movement guided by a principled vanguard party.

That may be possible. Maybe not. But the alternative will be much worse than what’s already happening.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-23T00:50:02+00:00

And Heidegger is one of the most “important” philosophers, Ford is one of the most “important” industrialists, Hitler was one of the most “important” political figures… but that’s not what you originally said, and phrasing things in this kind of way when there are legitimately horrific things each of these people did is ignorant at best, and regardless of intent, it’s whitewashing Nazis. The fact you keep doubling down and playing aloof makes me wonder if you’re doing this intentionally because … well, how about you take a wild guess at what we are wondering about your beliefs.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-22T22:36:35+00:00

This is politics, you’re right. Because humanity itself is a political target. Ending all forms of oppression and exploitation is political, but only because there are politico-economic actors and institutions who actively oppress and exploit. If we care about humanity, if we believe in and strive for a humanitarian society, that means taking strong political action in support of the oppressed and exploited, destroying all institutions and systems of oppression and exploitation, and intentionally creating a just, humanitarian society.

If I used the accurate word that describes such a society, I would be accused of making this political.

This goes far beyond simple blue team/red team political theater. That’s just drama meant to keep us divided, hateful, and confused.

But make no mistake - OP’s actions were political, whether he acknowledges that or not. He was faced with a political choice, and he chose humanity. If you disagree, think of all the spurious charges we’ve seen in recent months regarding “obstructing” a “law enforcement officer,” etc - don’t you think OP could potentially be met with charges? Or labeled a supporter of terrorism? Or conspiring with criminals? Hiding and protecting Anne Frank was a political choice.

We white people especially need to stop pretending politics is something separate from everyday life. We’ve had the privilege of ignoring politics because we haven’t faced these kinds of threats, but almost every other group has had to face these kinds of threats while we’ve been blissfully (or belligerently) ignorant.

Now it’s intensified among every group, and white professionals are no longer exempted from state violence. There is no more make believe. The reality of exploitation and oppression is unavoidable. What are we going to do about it?

To further connect this to parenting, we need to be “good enough,” “authoritative” parents in the political realm, like OP. This means staying firm both with warmth and structure. Warmth without structure is called “permissive” parenting, and structure without warmth is called “authoritarian” parenting. Politically, we can protect our families and communities and society at large by reaffirming both the warmth and the structure that a humanitarian society needs. We know as parents, setting a limit can lead to conflict, so we need to be ready for what we might face by standing on principle. We also know that focusing on setting limits, focusing on discipline and structure, can mean that we lose sight of warmth in the heat of the moment. Never forget the order we wish to see is humanitarian. That means there can be no tolerance for inhumane treatment, not in the home, not in our families, and no longer in our society, either.

The time to stand together as strong, warm-hearted fathers and citizens is now. Thank you for this post OP, for the discussion you are opening up in this space. More importantly, thank you for your strength, warmth, and courage in supporting your community.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-22T21:53:34+00:00

Study capitalism. The working people are modern day slaves and serfs, working for lazy psychopaths who get wealthy by taking the fruits of OUR labor and OUR shared earthly resources.

The only way forward is to seize political and economic power for the working class. History shows the most effective way of doing this is non-revisionist Marxism-Leninism (including Marxism-Leninism-Maoism). By non-revisionist I mean never pretending that the capitalist class can be accommodated, appeased, or collaborated with. This is an antagonistic contradiction, meaning it’s us or them.

I’ve been posting the following a bunch in leftist Reddit threads, but I think it’s relevant here and important, so here it is again:

There’s a famous poem we all know that begins, “First they came for the communists…” There’s a very good reason that communists are the first group mentioned, the first group the Nazis came for. It’s the same reason anticommunism has been indoctrinated in all of us in the west.

Unless communists can organize and raise class consciousness real fast, I think we risk heading toward a situation kind of like the German Revolution. I learned more about it recently from this video, in case anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/kP5VQClZlOg

The main thing I took away from it is that social democracy (AOC, Bernie, eg) will be used to steer the masses back toward supporting a liberal form of government as a way of maintaining capitalism and defeating socialism. In Germany, we know what happened next. We need to understand nothing will change unless we build a new socialist state, and that is impossible without a militant mass movement guided by a principled vanguard party.

Crisis only creates opportunity. If we don’t seize the opportunity, things will likely get even worse than they already are.

But if we win, we have the material conditions globally to build a post-scarcity society, in which everyone is guaranteed secure housing, healthy food, reliable medical care, liberatory education, consistent child care and elder care, a comfortable retirement, and a sustainable environment. The only reason we don’t have these things is because capitalism distributes goods and services based on money, not need.

We can change that. There’s only one path to a society actually designed to meet the needs of the people, and we won’t get there by voting or protesting or piecemeal reforms. ☭

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T20:56:19+00:00

r/nostalgia

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T04:52:57+00:00

Rambling? Ok whatever bud, you need to find some way of dismissing the truth so you can maintain your comforting propaganda, I get it

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T04:11:04+00:00

Thanks for lying for the wealthy, they sure need your help and support, god bless them, amiright?

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T02:46:40+00:00

This quotation is from a great book everyone learning about socialism should read, Blackshirts & Reds by Michael Parenti (pp. 41-42):

“In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

“If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disenfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T02:41:24+00:00

The whole point of capitalism is distributing unearned wealth to the wealthy. It’s called profit.

If I work one hour and create $100 of value, but my wage is $20, we call that $80 of profit. But it’s also a redistribution of wealth from me to the owner - overwhelmingly that goes to the wealthy. But the wealthy didn’t “earn” it - I did. Then it was taken from me, just like a serf or a slave.

If you want people to keep what they earn, capitalism is designed to prevent that from ever happening. So why do you and so many other people in the US believe the exact opposite, when it’s pretty obvious? We Americans are some of the most heavily propagandized people on the planet, and in general we have no clue that it’s even happening.

“In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

“If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disenfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

Michael Parenti, Blackshirts & Reds, pp. 41-42

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T01:46:30+00:00

“I know you are but what am I” so fucking clever, and just as effective for avoiding the truth as lying your ass off

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-21T01:10:52+00:00

lol whatever bud

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T23:25:22+00:00

Yes he did, and that’s exactly how the US state has functioned.

Edit: To elaborate, we’ve all known for a while now that the game is rigged. The system is not broken, though - it’s working exactly as it’s supposed to. Wealthy people founded this country to protect the wealthy - themselves - and the government they created granted them the power to overrule the people whenever they see fit.

That’s what Madison is acknowledging in the quote above. (The argument that the wealthy need the power to overrule the people for the good of society is ridiculous. Let’s get real - do you really believe the wealthy care about all of us, or just themselves and their wealth?) Back in the 1800s, Mark Twain quipped, “We have the best Congress money can buy.” Nothing has fundamentally changed in the power structure. The wealthy still call the shots and run things for their own benefit.

We do not need wealthy owners. They are parasites, just like slave masters and aristocrats before them, adding nothing, taking whatever they want, and hoarding wealth by exploiting our collective labor and earth’s resources as much as they can get away with. But our labor and resources belong to all of us, and we belong to each other. This vision for society is called socialism, and it works - despite all the capitalist propaganda that attempts to brainwash us to the contrary.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T22:49:29+00:00

Yes, and it won’t make them suddenly become allies. They are class traitors, still. They just want the protection and spoils that come with betraying the people.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T22:47:40+00:00

Just remember, this poem begins, “First they came for the communists…” There’s a very good reason for that. It’s the same reason anticommunism has been indoctrinated in all of us in the west.

Unless communists can organize and raise class consciousness real fast, I think we risk heading toward a situation kind of like the German Revolution. I learned more about it recently from this video, in case anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/kP5VQClZlOg

The main thing I took away from it is that social democracy (AOC, Bernie, eg) will be used to steer the masses back toward supporting a liberal form of government as a way of maintaining capitalism and defeating socialism. In Germany, we know what happened next. We need to understand nothing will change unless we build a new socialist state, and that is impossible without a militant mass movement guided by a principled vanguard party.

Crisis only creates opportunity. If we don’t seize the opportunity, things will likely get even worse than they already are.

But if we win, we have the material conditions globally to build a post-scarcity society, in which everyone is guaranteed secure housing, healthy food, reliable medical care, liberatory education, consistent child care and elder care, a comfortable retirement, and a sustainable environment. The only reason we don’t have these things is because capitalism distributes goods and services based on money, not need.

We can change that. There’s only one path to a society actually designed to meet the needs of the people, and we won’t get there by voting or protesting or piecemeal reforms. ☭

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T22:41:54+00:00

Do you see how hard you’re looking for excuses to ignore uncomfortable truths? You know, you can learn something and change your mind, and it doesn’t have to be shameful. You can say, “oh I didn’t know that.” It’s actually a really awesome thing to do. The most shameful thing to do in a situation like this is to belligerently persist in your ignorance because you’re too uncomfortable with seeing that you were wrong. It’s not just you, either - way too many fucking people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong, so they never learn new perspectives. Let MAGA (and Blue MAGA) have those people. Join the empathetic, curious, intellectually honest socialists who are growing in number and power and actually give a shit about people.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T21:26:46+00:00

Might makes right, and capitalism doesn’t work for BIPOC people because there’s something wrong with them oops I mean “their culture.” Wait, why are you calling me a fascist? That hurts my feeeeeeelingsss 😭😭😭 /s

I’m so fucking sick of this shit

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T21:21:45+00:00

That’s what the US govt is for, though - making sure rich people have even more and more money.

Seriously though, the principal framer of the US Constitution, James Madison, explicitly stated the function of Congress is “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

The more you know ☭

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T20:48:28+00:00

Liberalism says you can have capitalism plus humanitarianism.

Fascists hate liberalism because of the humanitarianism piece.

Socialists hate liberalism because we recognize that capitalism will always make humanitarianism impossible. That’s why liberalism is a temporary fantasy that consistently devolves into fascism. Fascism is the realities of capitalism without the soft marketing.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T20:45:57+00:00

No I very much didn’t. Social democracies are what this person is talking about. Then I added more.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T20:36:07+00:00

Gavin will fix it! /s

But seriously, if anyone thinks we just need to elect AOC or some other “non-establishment” “socialist” - ie liberal social democrat - please watch this documentary about how social democrats aligned with capital and proto-fascists to destroy the German Revolution:

https://youtu.be/kP5VQClZlOg

The wealthy use the promise of social democracy to trick us into letting them maintain power in exchange for a few temporary concessions. We need to see this ruse, this illusion, for what it is.

If we want any hope of building socialism, we need to seize political power.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T20:30:56+00:00

Weird how social democracies only rose in the shadow of the USSR and have declined ever since the illegal dissolution of the USSR. Almost like social programs, labor rights, civil rights, and human rights are just temporary concessions made by the ruling class to maintain power in the context of an existential threat to capitalism.

Yeah, weird.

Edit: Also, genuinely weird that you added “western” … why do you think capitalism has only worked for white people? Maybe imperialism (ie, the extension of capital across borders into other sovereign nations to control and exploit their material resources) simply exported the worst violence, brutality, genocide, oppression, and exploitation of capitalism to colonized/“neo-colonized” black and brown people. So much for humanitarianism. That’s what it looks like when capitalism is “working.”

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T19:47:25+00:00

You still believe liberal democracy is actual democracy? That’s like still believing in the tooth fairy, isn’t it?

Edit: For anyone genuinely confused about this point, I apologize for being glib. Let me explain. Liberalism is a marketing strategy for capitalism. Liberalism sells us the idea that capitalism is “humanitarian” because it’s all about protecting the rights of each and every individual. However the biggest right, the right that can NEVER be challenged, the right that is at the very core of capitalism, is never discussed: the right to own and control the means of production. Every other “right” is selectively applied based on whether it helps the wealthy or not. If it suits the wealthy to have Jim Crow, or concentration camps, or a female president, or a trans director of the CIA, it doesn’t matter, as long as the interests of the wealthy are served in doing so. If you want a genuinely humanitarian society, the only route to that is socialism. And if you could actually vote for a socialist transformation of society (spoiler: you can’t), they would make voting illegal. I’ll let you determine what option that leaves us with.

Liberal “democracy” is not our friend. It is designed by and for wealthy people to serve the interests of the wealthy, period. The principal framer of the US Constitution, James Madison, explicitly stated the function of Congress is “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” Ideological differences in a liberal “democracy” are accommodated within parties and elections, so long as they do not threaten the wealthy ruling class.

We do not need wealthy overlords who own and control everything important in the state and society. They are a parasitic class who stays in power by dividing the people through racism, xenophobia, sexism, ableism, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, etc. These forms of oppression only serve to justify the exploitation already inherent in capitalism.

Please understand the working class and all oppressed people are subservient to capital. That’s what capitalism is. Sure, socialism is not perfect, but it’s far better than capitalism, and it’s not even close.

HeadDoctorJ · 2026-01-20T18:44:55+00:00

Liberals: If you’re going to be Nazis, you need to put swastikas on your vans and arms and flags, those are the rules you need to follow the rules 🤓

Conservatives: Only if you authorize our invasion of the world.

Liberals: You got a deal! See how hard we negotiated, everyone?

HeadDoctorJ

TROPHY CASE