We’re supposed to be policy 1st. And yet I don’t understand the obsession with being a honorable samurai that plays by tradition. Why can’t a sheep put on the wolf’s mane when they’re greatly outnumbered and bide their time?
It’s not like the liberals would notice. They only know ideas. They’re still propagandizing shit like recycling, even though the trash bin is all thrown in the same truck and the bins with 3/4 holes aren’t even separated, same as it was 20 years ago. They should be really easy to manipulate, especially when truth is on your side, but like at least make them paranoid and unable to sleep at night.
I think it’s my fault for not wording the question better. I don’t want to deceive the people, it’s the ruling class I want to cheat.
There’s plenty of human rights enjoyers in the liberal crowd who I could bait into supporting socialism, with their material means, by just presenting it as a small bean to them. They probably can’t tell what socialism is without it being spelled out to them. What do they know I’m just a part of a self-improvement club that promotes healthy habits centering around combining individual potential with group effort. That’s not scary to a liberal, follows socialist principles and when the time comes the mask goes off, but instead of being traitor to the workers, we’d be betraying the rulers.
There’s plenty of obscure art you can use to signal your peers, who should understand and join. I think it’s also good to make yourself presentable and sympathetic to the common person, if you happen to get in trouble they’re gonna be more agitated if someone they knew personally, who was a wonderful person, got sent to a prison f.ex
They can lie about you all they want, but it will be pointless, when the people know you by your deeds. It’s good to have revolutionary optimism, but it’s extremely important to thread carefully, or it becomes revolutionary idealism.
This is too bold of a claim to take at face value or incorporate into a strategy. I don’t think it’s very true either. Rights are already a liberal trap for those who want emancipation, liberation, or revolution to be re-colonized by the imperial state. Liberals believe in rights because it is a system that uses the ills of imperialism to justify said imperial system. If a socialist told me they were using this strategy with success, I would assume nothing beyond their labor being co-opted by empire.
IMO this is a fundamental problem, and it indeed rings true that communists need to be quite honest about everything we say about what we believe. Especially when engaging with things that are ostensibly agreeable between communists and liberals. We do not have an advantage on this terrain, and we must differentiate ourselves or else we will lose ourselves.
Deception is not our chief weapon against the ruling class either. Our weapon is realizing and actualizing that we don’t need to appeal to any power but our own, and with that power we can have our way with the world. I believe this power will not grow by trying to trick liberals into being communists.
You make a good point about rights. In particular, I think of the USian fetishizing of the constitution. There are plenty who believe in it to an almost religious degree yet are more reactionaries than they are something resembling communists. And they don’t need to be communist to believe in it because the liberal framework does have belief in individual liberties and rights to a degree; in fact, it tries to have this exist alongside capitalism, in spite of how contradictory this can end up getting.
I tend to think that in the US context, and possibly similar western contexts in other countries too, communists need to be wary of playing into “you believe in rights too? yeah, let’s go” and instead focus on teaching people about power and where it derives from. That the reason the so-called rights keep falling short of the seeming ideal on paper is not because “humans are imperfect” or “the system is corrupt”, but because the system of power, who controls the means of production and distribution, is intentionally oriented toward an exploitative ruling elite, not toward public good. And that liberalism is designed not for the purpose of the common public good, but for legitimizing and sanitizing this model of an exploitative ruling elite. “Trickle down economics,” in spite of being said by a member of the US republican party, is I think a good example of liberal philosophy. The idea is that the ruling elite are creating something of value, which is then passed down to the greater public; instead of the reality, which is that the greater public is creating something of value and the ruling elite is seizing the majority of gain from the greater public for personal use. So it is not trickle down, but rather siphon up. I know I’m preaching to the choir on that, but I wanted to go through the thought process of it and why the distinction is so important.
In that case, there’s not much stopping a party, besides the laws and the state and such. It’s often a bad idea simply because it can give great excuses for stronger repression, but it really depends on the situation. The Bolsheviks for instance did armed bank robberies. Any self-respecting party must have its clandestine wing, it’s just not as crucial and shareable as the main party tasks of building worker power structures.
Regarding the rest of what you wrote, I didn’t quite understand it, but good out-and-about militants are naturally going to be known in their communities for good militancy. Whether they openly declare to be party members or not depends a lot on security and clandestine action, but you’re right in that receiving support from workers is a must. It’ll just happen naturally if the partywork is good.
That’s okay I appreciate the feedback. It may not seem like much, but I’ve been repeatedly criticized on my communication skills and clearly I know now I have to go study how to communicate better so I really appreciate taking your time to point that out with everyone else who has.
It’s an annoying skill to develop, so no judgement. I’m autistic, so I usually spend ridiculous amounts of time rehearsing and practising. Feel free to elaborate if you think I misunderstood your point.
I think I made the post after prolonged frustration with failures of socialist movements within Europe, more specifically. It’s difficult to figure out where to go from here. I’m also neurodivergent and due to things like family history, location, a bunch of other stuff. I’m left with trying to figure out how am I supposed to deal with like 10+ simultaneously happening contradictions, mostly by myself because of how fractured the movements have become if I focus on 1 issue I tend to get ostracized by others and if I focus on all of them, how do I do that without becoming an idealist?
And even if I end up alone that doesn’t seem like a justification to turn my back on people. You don’t need to be loved to be capable of being a force for good imo. If I can save the life one one child that’s enough, if I can do more then all the better. I don’t care if people piss on my grave afterwards. This is not directed at the reader btw I know 99% of people care not at all for me +/-
just some added context to what I was trying to communicate.
IMO you are caught up in savior narratives and rationalizations. It is OK to take care of yourself. It is OK to not sacrifice everything to gain basically nothing. There is no God to prove yourself to, no Christ to advocate for you, no spot in Heaven to reward you.
As for others, I can say I am overwhelmed and unsatisfied with everything. I cling to what is most important to me. I have already lost a lot in recent months, and I am resolved to not lose anything else. The cacophony of contradictions is overwhelming, and if others cannot quiet themselves enough to hear it all, then they are compromised, but most of all I just need people to oppose and face imperialism in whatever domain they are in. For some reason this seems to be the one thing people won’t face, and instead they exploit subordinate contradictions so they don’t have to prioritize imperialism.
Is this not a justification to harm yourself for nothing? I think the ruling class currently believes this and they do whatever they want with no connection to anyone but their own power. Good is fundamentally subjective, but the love from others is a necessary grounding force that gives it meaning. Love builds the consent needed to imagine collective futures and the accountability needed to set them in motion.
I’m not saying this to tell you to get connected to the real world, or to touch grass and make more likeminded friends, or to stop feeling the way you do. I’m saying this to say you need to take care of yourself and love yourself in dark times. I do care about you and people like you. Your mind and your will and your desires. Your hatred and malice for evil. I also have a lot of love for other autistic people that just can’t fucking take this shit anymore. A person like you is far more valuable to me than whatever reward you would trade yourself for in the face of loneliness and darkness. You are a pearl and you must not cast yourself before swine just for a fleeting sense of belonging in a world we do not belong in. Not everyone is on our side and it isn’t our fault. If graves are to be defaced, let it be all of ours.
I think you speak a lot of truths in there. If it wasn’t for principled socialists, who remained true to the cause, despite the darkest of times, we would not have the likes of Michael Parenti. He has great courage and a very strong will.
At the same time I don’t want to fall into great men theory. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do, to be honest. I don’t think I have the smarts to figure it out, but I’m trying to learn. That’s why I’m asking the questions, instead of just acting on instinct.
In the other reply you said:
It’s precisely because I don’t believe I can convert them that I am completely lost in what to do. Being principled has left me powerless, if I wanted better job opportunities I would have to have had to concede and give up on my beliefs, at least temporary. Now I’ve just become another strain on our already incredibly thinly stretched resources, in a world where every group already has life rafts full, what are they supposed to do, toss our their own to save me? That’s asking for the unthinkable.
I don’t think I could have become another Parenti or anything even remotely close to that. I don’t know who I’m signaling to help when I go to a protest when I know liberals won’t care anyways, if I had become a demon I could have at least used the resources to save people whose lives ended prematurely because we didn’t have the money. I keep losing people and there’s nothing I can do to save them.
Could any one of us have truly remained loyal to the cause without even a single person who had to engage in Liberalism for the sake of funding us? Just because we have someone else do it for us doesn’t make us any better. And it’s not like I blame comrades for giving me hope built on lies, it must be excruciatingly painful to be honest with me so I’m never gonna blame anyone for it, at least try to not to. I can sometimes have emotional outbursts and it’s difficult to control sometimes, despite all my efforts I’ve put towards improving.
You know the tv show about the autistic doctor? idk if it’s good I haven’t watched it, no time, but I have seen some responses and regardless of how well it portrays autism the reaction from the audience seems pretty spot on. At first people are accepting, some might even cheer on you, but as time goes on people get fed up, unless you can manage to put on a mask well, it’s a common experience for disabled people. One of the first things kids in wheelchairs tend to complain about isn’t the inability to walk, it’s the fact that nobody wants to be their friends, because they struggle with mobility.
I can offer people friendship, but I can’t do anything to help build something that’d let them walk again. All I can do is lie to them that it’s gonna be fine when I know it won’t be fine. And the only person I can make act is myself, because if I had enough of a willpower I could have at least sold my body to get money for studying being a scientist and try to build legs for some people, but I’m weak and haven’t accomplished anything. I make art that doesn’t get any followers and is incapable of inspiring any change. I’m not good at communicating, people often struggle to read my posts there’s no way anyone would be able to read my books. And it’s not like it’s because I gave up. I keep trying and trying every day. I haven’t skipped an art lesson in 2 years now. I read at least a few pages every day. I listen to how others talk and try to study them. I’ve sought help from therapists and other professional guidance, whenever I’m able. And what makes me sad is that I’m surely not alone like this.
Don’t get me wrong it would still be wrong what’s happening, even if people weren’t running for their lives in hopes of success, but the fact that many people try their absolute darndest and end up failing, forgotten, that’s what makes me depressed about Capitalism. It’s not that it makes people overwork themselves, yes it does and it’s bad, but even when it does so it forces people to run hard like horses for absolutely nothing and only the strongest get to survive. We live in a sick game.