Haha they say great minds think alike! It seems like a huge coincidence with the number of people here.

I keep coming across your username here lately, and I get so confused for a second every time

This is often an issue of how you communicate, and learning to communicate effectively with the working class is an important skill to develop (and can be difficult). Saying things that are so far ahead of where they are that they can’t understand is ineffective. Starting from points of unity and building trust are two of the most important things you can do, and persuading them to completely change their position happens over several conversations, not one. People don’t change their minds because you can prove you’re more right than they are; they change their minds because their lived experience of capitalist contradictions pushed them to look for alternative explanations, and you need to be a trusted person ready to guide them to the next step when they’re ready.

Oh boy. I can’t wait for people who bray about public health being a failure while ignoring steady defunding over decades.

Public healthcare is only a failure in capitalist countries for this reason. Without changing the social order, publicly funded healthcare is just a temporary concession to the working class, and when they take concessions away, they always tell us they was bad for us all along and that our suffering when they end is proof of that.

I have! It’s not extensive, but it’s a good overview of foundational educational concepts all Marxist-Leninists should know that you can build from. It’s pretty short and accessible. It definitely shouldn’t be the only thing you read on the topic, but I do recommend it.

I also find it really useful for guiding me in teaching these concepts to other organizers.

Yeah, and I think this is why they end up sounding ultra-left when they lack political clarity.

Yes, he has openly stated that he believes the PSL is “Dengist” and tells people to avoid it for that reason. He makes a lot of wild bad-faith claims about the PSL, and he has plenty of other very problematic and/or confusing views. I appreciate his work on the audiobooks, but it’s unfortunate that that gave him a platform to spread his own ideas. He should be a cautionary example of what happens when you read a lot without the kind of deep collective study and practical work that allow you to understand what you read correctly and stick to unfounded opinions rather than letting evidence change your mind.

If you can follow what you read, you are understanding well enough at this stage, especially if you’re not used to reading philosophy and how it works. You’ve barely started, and these are complicated philosophical concepts! You have some good reading recommendations here, and I would recommend trying to understand what they’re saying as well as possible (go slowly if you need to), but don’t worry about going beyond that yet. This is also a philosophy firmly rooted in real-life class experience, so organizing with your community will help you understand with time (and your study will make you a better organizer at the same time).

I think this just happens when they see problems with the current system (a natural consequence of living in capitalist society) but still dogmatically support it. Anarchism and “non-communist leftism” and “progressive” liberalism are useful to the capitalist state because they allow people to question and oppose what’s happening in our society but still come to the conclusion that almost nothing can be done. It’s not a big leap for people to say that imperialism is bad or that people’s basic needs should be met, but it takes a lot for masses of people to turn against ruling class ideology, so it’s expected that these kinds of leftist/liberal identities would be common in a capitalist society.

Immature black-and-white thinking is separate from the self-identification you’re talking about. I don’t think a statement like “I’m a gamer” is liberal. It’s natural for humans to try to understand themselves and their purpose and identify this way. I think any ruling class does use this natural characteristic for its own ends though.

I just googled it to see what this was about, and it looks like counter-protesters were shouting racist and homophobic slurs as well as “death to Palestine” and “we love ICE.” That has to be obviously worse to almost everyone than “we support Hamas,” and it looks like he hardly mentioned that at all.

I think he’s so scared of appearing anti-semitic that he’s letting it affect his messaging, and of course that’s exactly what the Zionist bad-faith actors accusing him of anti-semitism wanted.

When I hear his name, I think about how his influence turned my friend from an actual communist into a vaguely left anarchist (an “anarcho-syndicalist” like Chomsky, which in my opinion is a functionally meaningless term in our social context) who believes state department propaganda and opposes any successful model for socialism to the point that they just support liberalism. Intellectuals like him that support the status quo (even if Chomsky might believe he doesn’t) divert potentially revolutionary energy away from effective action and teach people seeking information and hope after finding class consciousness that individual action is the best they can do.

A full list can be found here

Kids are unhygienic and also are sick more often. Holidays are also stressful in addition to being during cold and flu season, so that makes your immune system weaker. It’s not like you’re somehow immune to adults’ viruses but susceptible to kids’, but lots of people do notice enough of a difference that it can seem that way.

These sound to me like people who don’t apply the Marxist method to actually understand and try to change society. Their perspective gets warped the more they continue to talk this way with each other. It’s sad that it happens, but I’m glad you recognized it and left (and it sounds like this org had tons more issues than even that). I think the next step is to work with the working class in real life. We all need more education all the time, but working with the people is an essential type of education that affects our ability to understand and apply what we read at home. It sounds like you’ve already read some good theory and probably need to start with real-life work with the people rather than another reading list. That being said, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire was transformative for me, and it sounds like it might be good for you right now too, and On Practice by Mao explains some of what I’m saying and is also really solid if you haven’t read that yet.

If there is no Marxist organization in your area, I’d begin with whatever vaguely left or even liberal organization can at least get you organizing experience and exposure to the people. It might be frustrating, but you’ll still learn. The PSL is a great Marxist organization, and you can join the PSL Action Network online from anywhere in the country and learn about what they’re doing in real life and start to connect with them through that. You can do that at the same time as whatever work you’re getting involved in locally, and it might help you make your local work more effective. Once you’ve learned through these things, maybe you’ll be the one to start the local Marxist-Leninist organization or connect with the people who can start it with you. It sounds like you’re thinking right and are prepared to do the work that needs to be done next!

His example proves how committed and educated and principled people can become a true threat to capitalist power very quickly, and it should inspire all of us.

I don’t know anything about this guy, but his post reads like someone who has never gotten offline.

Are you organized in real life? In addition to its necessity for getting anything done and for studying correctly, it’s very grounding to work with real people on real problems, and it’s calming to see even small wins. Rage is a natural reaction when you have nowhere to direct your feelings and are focused more on hatred for the capitalist class than on love for the people, but when you’re channeling your feelings properly into productive action, rage fades.

Yet again, the thing that the right has been fearmongering about for decades is being done by the right.

Yes, that has been the case in my life experience, and I don’t think they would say “all” if they didn’t mean that. That’s why I have never told anyone anything along those lines.