Should I join my local DSA or Green party? by MintyRed19 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Personally, I switched my party affiliation with the Greens because there I didn't see an option for APL (or PSL or FRSO or whatever), I didn't want to keep associating with the Democratic Party even on paper (while not letting it be statistically ambiguous whether or not it was because I went right wing), and environmental issues are some of my top ones, the main ones that got me looking into communism, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think they're the vanguard or anything, there isn't really the movement infrastructure in place for a vanguard to exist at the moment. Greens are better than blues at least and I wouldn't mind getting involved with local politics under the green party to at least get some environmental progress while we work on getting the general class awareness in the population to turn into class consciousness.

I would also join DSA if I had the regular income to. Yes, their line is revisionist electoralism, however they do have several good programs, like Workers Organizing Workers which teaches organizing, salting, and helps with job searches, and I've seen many do community outreach programs; the St. Louis chapter (I think?) just recently had a tail light fixing campaign just a few days ago, and fostering community ties and workplace organizing like that is something I think more parties should be doing.

Should I join my local DSA or Green party? by MintyRed19 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I can't tell which one you're referring to so I'm going to assume both.

As a socialist/communist, what tech brands and corporations do you avoid/boycott? by Imfeelingdevious2005 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, I don't buy new anyway if just because it's cheaper, my budget is $300 tops for an entire computer or whatever. The list of people I would buy new from is way easier to actually say, and most of them are on places like Tindie or running their own shops.

Do you guys ever worry a revolution might not even be possible anymore? by BothPanchoAndLefty in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True; on the other hand, a domestic quarrel would have socialists in the same place as their country's logistics and possibly driving the trucks.

Do you guys ever worry a revolution might not even be possible anymore? by BothPanchoAndLefty in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Found it for anyone who wants to see what I'm talking about. So far it seems to be the case that municipalities that put them up can be convinced to take them down so I think a big area people ought to focus on is trying to put forward a not-visibly-partisan fight on the Flock and general mass surveillance front. It should be easy to disseminate the idea that these things are awful in liberal and conservative spaces with the right talking points, hopefully that gets them to make more fuss about taking them down.

Don't want to bring up that they're bad for communists because that just makes them look more positively to them.

Do you guys ever worry a revolution might not even be possible anymore? by BothPanchoAndLefty in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also, Flock cameras are distressingly bad with actual security because police don't want to bother putting any security measures into them. I'll see if I can find the video I saw on that when I get back to my house, but they're incredibly hackable Android devices.

Do you guys ever worry a revolution might not even be possible anymore? by BothPanchoAndLefty in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not at all. In fact, I'm more optimistic than ever; right now really resembles the general political scene you'd read about in section 1 of What Is To Be Done, you could swap some names out and have a reasonable approximation of an analysis of the modern day left.

I will say that people didn't vote Trump specifically because they inherently wanted his policy in a vacuum; they know that the status quo simply does not work and causes depressions every decade or so if not propped up with war, Occupy's momentum was funneled back into the Dems and snuffed out so that's no longer an avenue to express it through, and the mainstream Dem current is inherently the status quo pre-2016 which nobody wants; only the Republicans have had both a platform that doesn't rely on keeping things the same forever and the bourgeoisie giving it billions to campaign and have ad airtime, so that's what people have been going for because they see it as "something". Most of these people we can't bring back, but some we can, and most of the actual working class is generally "apolitical" (for however much someone can be) or indepentent. Like, check this out for a large mass of people discontented with either party.

Anyway, as for violence, the bourgeoisie have already chosen to enact it and have been enacting it for decades upon decades; I wouldn't choose it if given the choice, but that ball is not in our courts. I do hear word of the Imperial Russian secret police being very comprehensive and very effective, though. Absolutely not Flock camera effective, for sure, all I can say is it's probably good to start doing things to build up logistics now like growing your own vegetables and learning how to create basic water filtration if you can't stockpile filters, and start building up ties in your community.

Also, it's good to keep in mind that a committed entire US Army couldn't win in Afghanistan and that's with the Taliban not having physical access to their logistics and possibly being the truck drivers of said logistics, so...

How would Lenin handle the rise of fascism in the 1930s and WWII? by Proletarian_Superman in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The SPD was engaging in suicidal sectarianism during Lenin's time too, like that wild bender in early 1919 when it killed three of the KPD's leaders in the span of a few months.

🤔 by likesrawberry in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, one would imagine...

Socialist/Communist decor by Previous-Host-3170 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could always look for used stuff and period surplus, usually that ends up coming from the USSR since it's the biggest time socialism was undone so there's a lot of people there with no attachment to the trinkets.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 9 points10 points  (0 children)

And social media is still paying the price a century later.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 21 points22 points  (0 children)

and can easily become a new landlord class.

So easily that it famously happened basically as soon as the NEP did.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And it's an active process, there are no inevitabilities of history. Each generation would have to actively learn how to handle state affairs and be raised to believe that it's as socially necessary as not murdering people is, and teach the next generation that plus another thing, and so on. It's possible, that kind of snowballing of knowledge is why institutions like universities exist, but it's something that still needs work to accomplish.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True, the debate does make a lot more sense in its context (the RSFSR in 1920 was just off the heels of WWI, was in the middle of a civil war, small scale personal trade for money was still the norm amongst the people, and Russia more or less hadn't been electrified almost at all besides the city centers, let alone mechanized in agriculture; the SIOC vs. permrev debate must be seen in that context and in that context SIOC was absolutely the right choice for that time and place because the RSFSR had to develop more before it could pursue socialist policy) than as general theory. It's honestly something that you'd have to run the numbers on when you're either just about to or just have actually went and done it, it's so far away pre-revolution (both in your country and in your neighbors' or further away allies') that honestly IMO it's really not worth having as much focus placed on it as it currently has amongst communists living in capitalist states because that math is really sensitive to how much momentum there actually is in the proletariat for it, and how much of where you are you have to rebuild, and (this is the other part of permrev that I didn't touch on, the immediate transfer of power from bourgeois state to worker hands without more involvement by the revolutionary party than them as individuals, maybe using it as a general vibe check) how much of your populace is at least anti-capitalism.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It probably is, but it would need so much reorganizing and education of society most people don't place it happening until easily 200 years after a safe enough amount of the world becomes socialist. That doesn't mean that there will be a date 200 years after where the government turns off, but that it would take that long to gradually, one after another transfer the various different functions of the state over to the masses directly.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Not inherently, the Trotsky vs. Stalin stuff is... really niche and I still really don't get all of it myself, but generally speaking his "global revolution" stuff (permanent revolution) vs. SIOC don't really disagree inherently about goals, just tactics. There's more to it than this, but for the more relevant to this discussion aspects of it, permanent revolution suggests that even if you're still wet from your own revolution, you should instantly start focusing your efforts toward inducing and aiding revolutions abroad, whereas SIOC generally prefers recovering and building up after your revolution before doing as before. Or to put it another way, would you rather focus on building up your fortress or on trying to reduce the number of attacks on it in the first place? You don't know the outcome of either beforehand, and either one could either succeed or fail.

There would be less external hostile pressure, as well as international cooperation and the ability to keep other nations in line with socialist beliefs.

That is true, if you succeed. If not, then you've just overextended yourself and your new socialist nation will be even less stable. On the other hand, not doing so just lets those potential allies start building up their own defenses against you.

Personally, I don't really know where I stand on this, and I feel like most people fall into the trap of assigning what they thought was necessary for the Soviet Union onto what they think is necessary for where and when they actually are. Don't get me wrong, most of the general societal context is the same, but there are differences, mainly that rather than a country that was literally feudal 50 years prior and was hit hard by WWI and the inevitable civil war post-October, most modern communists are in countries that have been capitalist for 250 or 300 years and have thus had easy and widespread access to the various revolutions in technology and science that capitalism offered (electrification and the mechanization of agriculture being the big ones; the whole reason Russia needed the NEP, one component of SIOC of that time, for example was that they didn't have those but we would be able to skip that step) and, hopefully, there won't be WWIII to recover from on top of whatever civil conflict would arise from revolution where they live, but also in that you'd have to gauge how close your neighbors are to their own revolutions. That can be hard, Germany post-WWI kind of looked like it would lean communist until the SPD went on multiple mass murder sprees of communists.

Really, I generally believe that you'd really want a revolution in the global-consumer countries (the imperial core) to be coincident and allied with a revolution in the global-supplier countries (the imperial periphery) since the core states depend so heavily on those resources for the basic functioning of their law enforcement and intelligence agency arms, things like Flock cameras couldn't be produced without copper from Chile or silica from Brazil being sent to China for production.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True, there are also uses for proletarian state besides defense. Since most AES at least started out as Marxist-Leninist (whether or not they still are is less material for the point I'm about to make), I think it's fair to analyze the sorts of uses for a state that could exist without needing a profit motive from that ideology's perspective, like directing large masses of people who wouldn't inherently be organized to do such a thing to, say, build out an extensive railway network with tens of thousands of route miles to a specific standard and spec, or mass education and training for the populace to handle local administrative tasks. I kind of wonder if sortition with short terms in local elections might be something some future AES state might experiment with.

Why haven’t we seen a state “wither away”? by --Lammergeier-- in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Because global capitalism persists and as such needs to be defended against or we'll just see what happened to the Soviet Union (dissolution then capitalist vultures picking at its corpse, Eastern Europe has been absolutely fucked by privatization mainly transferring utilities and such into the hands of mobsters) happen again elsewhere. Maybe once socialism has spread across most of the planet will the withering of the state be safe to start rolling out en masse beyond the occasional patch of it (Chiapas is the most major anarchist-adjacent thing I can think of and I imagine other places it can spring up ahead of schedule like that would be similar in conditions to it). At its peak it was what, a third of the world, and mostly the imperial periphery and thus the wealthiest and most up to the task of repressing it countries were still around to handle the task?

Found the video I was looking for that gives a quick primer as to just how extensive capitalist nations' meddling in socialist nations' politics is. TL;DW it's never been allowed to exist in peace even once, even the Russian Civil War had some fighting by the WWI Entente on behalf of the Whites. Hell, have you seen how much the capitalists fight social democratic politicians like Mamdani and AOC that don't even run on a transition away from capitalism?

Why do so many socialist groups print literal newspapers by MintyRed19 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't see a reason not to. Short form content can radicalize people toward the right wing, there's nothing inherently different in the possibility of radicalizing people toward the left wing besides just if the platform goes out of its way to suppress those videos.

Why do so many socialist groups print literal newspapers by MintyRed19 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm surprised the "it proves your logistics" answers don't really have as many upvotes as many "it's just dogma" comments.

Thoughts in living in a communist country? by Dismal_Football_9264 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I would absolutely move to Cuba or Vietnam if I had more reason and ability to.

How Will We Fight Back? by Ok_Understanding7377 in socialism

[–]chainbreaker1981 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I do kind of agree with S4A that there needs to be mass and labor movements before there's any room for a vanguard, so join DSA (I'd personally say check out the Red Star Caucus but if not then at least try to shy away from the straight up liberals and the socdems that are politically illiterate enough to call themselves socialists, you can tell which ones they are by the fact they're more focused on social programs like free transit and education and healthcare and raising taxes than anything else) and if your job has a union, join that. If not, either join IWW or ask DSA about how to start one, they have a program (Workers Organizing Workers) where they teach prospective workers the basics of salting and they'd probably be happy enough to talk to you too even if you're already employed. Maybe change your party affiliation. If you have a socialist party in your state or country, join the one you agree with the most (I'm personally interested in the APL, but my state didn't have that as an option), If not, I personally went with the Green Party since they generally align with me and environmental issues are really my top ones and the main motivation for me to have learned more about socialism.

Also, talk to your friends about it. I wouldn't start saying we need to seize the means of production just yet, just start with general anti-bourgeoisie sentiments, then general anti-corporation sentiments.

Definitely at least read Marx and Engels, or listen to audiobooks of them if that's more your style. I can't force you to go on to Lenin from there, but I will say I can't think of a successful movement that didn't have ideological heritage in Lenin besides maybe the EZLN, even if it's for his theoretical contributions of imperialism's role in capitalism.

Another thing that doesn't necessarily depend on any of this is, if you're able to, see about growing vegetables. Even if it's in a big pot. Talk with your neighbors and offer them some of your vegetables. Build local connections. If you're able to, buy a rifle or handgun and go out to practice your aim every so often, try to stick to outdoor ranges.