/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>663958
>Even if succesful all it does is delay revolution in fw countrie
That assumes that the concessions in question are capable of being sustained for significant periods of time, which is highly debatable imo. There's also the issue of actually building up support for the communist party, so that when people finally do become receptive to those ideas the communists will he known as staunch allies of the workers instead of an anonymous clique of literally who's.
>Eventually such concession will be struggled against and cut,leading back to the initial conditions but with delay.
That increases antagonisms Anon. The whole point is to force porky to strike back against the concessions, which fuels conflict and radicalization.
>Having nations in the third world go socialist cuts the rate of profit in first world countries as well.
Which is why both struggles are important.

>>663974

As I said, there is an important opportunity cost.

Moreover as can be plainly demonstrated in this thread, fw people generally, due to their material conditions are really quite unreceptive/antagonistic to communist views.

That being said, go ahead and try to put together a party/org. My prediction is that it will remain marginal for the long forseeable future.

(And before you accuse of defeatism, a reminder again is that both strategies aim for revolution in the current first world regions, they differ only means and the timeframe in which they think it is realistic).

>>663963
It's hard to articulate an answer in an org as disorganized and theory-less as DSA. But it was interesting talking to the various workers who showed up to one or two meetings. The trucker who wanted to do an online anti-capitalist internet show, the active military guy who bemoaned how conservative and individualist his co-workers were, the Saudi kid who got deported for shitposting about the king.

I think we functioned best as a left-clearinghouse advertising and raising awareness of all the various left-causes going on in the area. Trying to centralize and articulate more of a line would turn off people immediately, and we'd end up like the Trots we talked to who were literally just a party of three people.

>>664007
>fw people generally, due to their material conditions are really quite unreceptive/antagonistic to communist views
Of course, but they aren't unreceptive to people who come to help them in the struggles of their daily lives. You aren't going to convince people of the necessity of revolution until their conditions become so dire as to make them see it. However they are likely to have a far more favorable view of communists who support them in strikes, fight against austerity, and provide mutual aid than those who do nothing appreciable for them. Even if this does not produce revolution, it at the very least will improve relations between communists and workers, as well as allow us to improve our organizational skills and tactics. This is the difference between a war of position and a war of maneuver. When fighting the former we have to accept that our options are limited, but this doesn't mean that we should be neglecting what we can do in anticipation of conditions changing, or the role we might play in bringing about such a change. Moreover, none of this is mutually exclusive with mutual aid to third world comrades and opposition to imperialism. I don't think that we are helping the movements of the third world by refusing to apply pressure to capital in the first.

>>664012
>I think we functioned best as a left-clearinghouse advertising and raising awareness of all the various left-causes going on in the area.
That's a pretty good description. A friend of mine described the DSA as like the Shriners of socialism. It's like a social thing with some added charity work involved. But I can't knock it too much because it was my introduction to socialist thought. It was the place where I showed some union organizer and member my copy of the Marx & Engels Reader and he gave me a thumbs up, and obviously he had been around the block a few times, but I had never met anyone who had read any of this stuff. I haven't done anything with them for awhile now but the thing I enjoyed the most was going to a picket line during a multi-week strike and spending nights out there with the workers. Not trying to convert them to our "ideology" or whatever, but just filling a hole in the line during the night shift.

>>660050
That's just sad.

>>660297
to the wall and bang-bang

>>660307
Comrade, finally I see someone here that really does praxis. And yes, most people always ask is for concrete solutions, and material analysis almost gives you the right ideas.

>>664036
>Not trying to convert them to our "ideology" or whatever, but just filling a hole in the line during the night shift.
That's good Anon, but at the same time I think we should be trying to plant the seeds of genuine class consciousness. That doesn't mean be an autist and preach the virtues of Stalin or whatever, but it does mean trying to link people's everyday problems to our social order when discussing them in casual conversation.

>>664049
i'm not joining a party since it would just be attempts to constantly tail at best
a lot of successful communist orgs like the RSDLP/Bolsheviks were merged from actual proletarian struggles for self-organization
no, popular fronts or whatever cannot emulate that either

>>664051
Thanks man. The problem I've encountered when trying to organize is that most people are just really blackpilled. It's not so much the argument that "socialism doesn't work" but rather that the situation is hopeless with mounting problems in the world that would require solutions on such a gargantuan scale while a corrupted, gaslighting class of politicians act as gatekeepers against real change. I've never even met somebody who claimed that capitalism will work forever, everybody knows that we will have to move onward towards some sort of different, some sort of socialized, planned systems at a point but they don't know how to get there.

Also, most people hate conservatives. The only people who liked conservatives were people where I could already see based on their expensive suit or handbag that they have a lot of money - or are just old as fuck. This idea that the "true working class" is conservative is bullshit - it's true that most people are not into woke shit either, it's rather that they just don't care and don't wanna tell other people how to live their lives and don't wanna be told how to live their lives either.

I know I'm sounding trivial now, but it's sobering when you log off and try to interact with other people, so it sometimes is that simple.

>>664062
The Bolsheviks went from clandestine meetings with a few thousand members to a mass organization with tens of thousands of members within the span of three years. The CPC started with a dozen delegates on a houseboat and became an organization that could bring millions of soldiers into the field.
>popular front
Any popular front would require the investigation of what are potential coalition partners. This highly depends on the situation in your country. Is it farmers? Intelligentsia? Downwardly mobile petty bourgeois? You would have to look what specific interests classes and stratas have, and how they can be reconciled towards a broader struggle against monopoly capital. I'm for a new popular front because just organizing within the leftist milieu with other small organizations that have stagnated for years has led to nowhere. So has union work. Social democratic unions have become graveyards of class struggle, as long as their leadership isn't replaced or when unions break away from the ITUC and join the World Union Federation that is communist we shouldn't put too much hope into union work while remaining to be union members, because what else.

>>664018

Due to limited time and resources, there is a trade off between a given dollar, kilojoule, second spent helping third world movements and first world ones in a given period.

This is a material root cause of the antagonism between fw and tw oriented praxis.

Beware of narratives that suggest that one or the other is merely being irrational. As I said in a priory view is that the underlying motivations for fwdism are non-rational; So while particular analyses may be incorrect, the ultimate motivations their practice fall outside the scope of correct/incorrect analysis.

Which is why, I have to emphasize again, I don't think their efforts are necessarily wrong (because your implicit goals are different); Rather I merely see them as a far less effective strategy for bringing about socialism relatively sooner, irrespective of whether the analysis a person holds is correct or not.

So please go ahead and build your orgs, hold your rallies, etc. But there is no need to attack and accuse third worldism of this or that. Eg. CPGB-ML focuses mostly on issues in Britain and some anti-imperialism. Zero time and energy is wasted on attacks and accusations that achieve nothing.

Next time you see a third worldist, unless they explicitly harass you, just ignore them.

>>664095
>As I said in a priory view is that the underlying motivations for fwdism are non-rational
I just gave you a bunch of rational reasons for supporting class struggle in the first world. Maybe you should actually ask what third world Marxists think you should be doing to help them. As far as I know none of the major revolutionary movements in the third world would agree with your dismissal of "first worldism".

>>664098

And I gave you a counter argument with a rational basis as well (namely that of opportunity cost and path with fastest results).

And of course one engages with third worlders, that follows directly from the strategy. Money and resources go much further there, and aside from some minor theoretical insight, is what they most desperately need.

As a very modest example, some tw comrades asked me why it is that fw people seemed so obsessed with bizarre sex focused culture war, I explained to them some underlying economic interests at play, and why it would be best to avoid engagement with such personas. I emphasized to focus on interacting with anti-intervention, anti-war, anti-sanctions focused people even if they are non-communist as their views more directly tw communist interests.

>>664054
Yeah, I agree with that. But I had just never done that kind of thing before so it was a positive experience.

>>662519
>>tell me to go sell newspapers at the local college
You outsmart them and sell the newspaper next to the exit of a factory/massive retailer center. Checkmate armchairers.
>>662633
It is interesting, but when Portland (and George Floyd) protests happened last year the FBI did engage in deploying operatives through these gatherings
>>662588
.>You can guess the race of the person who brought this up
A Karen… perhaps? IMO, Reparations is something not possible given the material conditions. Is like an ultra take, but in theory, and I find it a waste of time discussing that. But def, that accuser of house beaner to others should say through different ways and point out the failures of reaching to such discussions.
>>662687
>why do commies
>using commie unironically
you need to go back, and this:
>>662689
>>663285
>>denies that there is a first world proletariat at all
>No, the third world theory what says is that revolutionary potential can only be found in third world countries. Tbh, reject everything written by Mao after Krushit arrived to power. The fact that krushit erased the relationships with China, which was counting on the USSR to progress together, enabled all sort of mental gimnastics from Mao to theorize whetever irrational shit he could bring. Fucking krushit, the more I read about him, the more I despise him to the point is now at the same level with Yeltshin't, he could de-stalinize the USSR but the only thing thing Stalin was doing wrong, straining the Sino-Soviet relationships, he not only stopped that but accelerated it.
>663264
>splitting groups and bagging socialists on crimes than convincing them that there's a peaceful road to revolution.
There will be always a time for violence, you need to be prepared in any case. That's when finally arrives socialism and the ready-o-be-dead ruling class insists to cling into power.
>>664093
Whoops in this post I misquoted everything all over the place

>>664062
I believe that if you don't like an org's line, then it's okay to just… not join. Or do something else. Or float around and try out different things. I've seen people get personally wrecked by bad orgs with toxic internal cultures. I think worse than joining a party that would tail at best is winding up in Jonestown.

Personally, I'm feeling like Vijay Prashad here. He's responding to a question from a girl who said she was getting burnt out. But I liked his response which is that orgs or groups (or at least healthy ones) can foster a mentality that one isn't indispensable, because people on the left can develop a messiah complex and they feel bad about themselves when they aren't saving the world. But it's not like you're so individually important.

>>664143

This is good advice. A well structured org. has policies and procedures for replacing personnel, especially on a temporary basis.

>>664113
>namely that of opportunity cost and path with fastest results
Except for all the revolutions in the third world what real results have we seen? Most of the time it seems such movements become drag on for decades before fizzling out (like the FARC, or Tamil Tigers), or else they become locked in a stalemate like the NPA, Naxals, Zapatistas, etc. If they succeed in taking power at all (which rarely happens without aid from other state actors) they tend to become highly isolated and impotent like Cuba and the DPRK, or else begin to integrate themselves into the capitalist order like Vietnam and China. This is assuming they don't just get destroyed by imperialism. Not only this, but your own reasoning is self-defeating in a way, since if only insignificant numbers of people in the first world can be brought to an anti-capitalist position, then it also follows that only an insignificant number could be brought to third worldism, and thus their impact on the actual outcome of these struggles will in turn be insignificant, or at least far from decisive. Moreover the issue of concessions/social democracy and their neutralizing effect on class struggle persists despite communist participation in these movements. Lenin himself acknowledges that trade union consciousness and organization emerges spontaneously from the working class. Therefore in isolating ourselves from the struggles of the first world proletariat we are not somehow accelerating the contradictions by preventing the granting of concessions. Such concessions, where feasible, will be granted with or without our participation, because trade unionists and social democrats will struggle for them on their own. The only effect of our abstention then is to forgo any influence the communists could have on shaping these struggles, radicalizing people, establishing a presence in working class institutions, building an independent base for our movement, developing our own organizational capacities, etc. Obviously I'm not about to go out of my way to bash TWists irl, but I don't buy your position at all.
>And of course one engages with third worlders
Did they tell you to neglect class struggle in your own country?

>>664143
yeah, that's why im just reading marx and vibing

>>664174

The reasoning isn't self defeating at all. All socialist struggle presents a prisoner's dilemma / free rider problem at the individual level, whether in the first world or the third world:

One's individual contributions are always marginal everywhere. The strategy of third worldism is merely one that attempts to make better use of meager resources.

—

All actual revolutions that have historically occurred have been in the periphery and poorer regions (Russia, China being the biggest).

None have occurred in the imperial core to date, and there are clear material reasons for this (even the immense destruction of WWII only got communist some 25% of the vote).

—

On the consession struggle, you are correct to point out these happen independently of communist agitation.

The third worldist strategy thus views as significant participation as potentially quite wasteful.

—

As for neglecting class struggle in my country, nobody needed to tell me anything. The fact of the matter is, there aren't any significant organizations here. At best there is collection of a few individuals here and there who sympathise.

Being determined my consciousness.

—

Of course you won't buy the twdist strategy you won't even give it a charitable consideration and feel compelled to attack it. I even understand the emotional drive behind it as I have explained. I'll even go further.

Recall that the first post I made was merely asking if people had some experience with third worldist praxis. I didn't attack anyone in the thread for participating in the cpusa, dsa, etc*. But instead of just ignoring it you responded aggressively.

This compulsion shows an additional non-rational commitment against third worldism (because if it were merely a commitment to fwdism, you could simply say that you feel there is significant rev. potential in your area and leave it at that).

*In fact it may be dialectically necessary for people to do so from third worldist view, as only with repeated failure on an intimate individual level will at some people consider twdist strategy.

>>664199
>None have occurred in the imperial core to date, and there are clear material reasons for this
Using that reasoning we could say that none have occurred at all without collapsing, receding back to capitalism, or becoming tiny and irrelevant, and so we should give up altogether. Basing our ideas on what is possible entirely on what has happened so far necessarily leads to a lack of innovative and original thinking. If we accept the premise that capitalism cannot continue indefinitely, that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is inescapable in the long term, then it follows that we need to do everything possible to speed up this process, and accelerate the antagonism between labour and capital. Third world revolutions help this process yes, but so does the expansion of worker power in the first world. The difference is that if we focus only on the latter, we do nothing to expand the reach of our own movement at home, and nothing to influence the character of the worker institutions that emerge from this process. That in turn also limits our ability to effectively aid the third world, since if workers know and respect us they are more likely to answer a call to oppose imperialism. This is why actual third world revolutionaries reject third worldism, they recognize that struggle must he waged on all fronts. Class struggle in the first and third world should not be regarded as separate entities, but as two parts of a cohesive system. To attack capital in one also means to attack it in the other.
>I even understand the emotional drive behind it as I have explained.
Sitting around and playing psychologist when it comes to this stuff is largely pointless. You accuse me of holding positions based on irrationality and an emotional desire to help my community. I could just as easily accuse you of being in the grip of emotional, irrational, pessimism. Neither accusation can be proven and is just a lazy attempt to discredit the other person instead of engaging with their arguments.

I spent a year working with a union and it really opened my eyes to how corrupt modern unions really are in this country. The union rep we had would walk around trying to convince people that they needed to join our union in a 5,000 custom made suit and dress shoes riding around in a 50,000 dollar sports car. They would sell the union like some.type of corporation or legal firm trying to "sell" the idea of union to people rather than just level with people and try and appeal to our solidarity and shared interests.

It was blizzar as hell. They would hide the union contract from people because in it was a clause against striking it.

The whole thing was a mess.

>>664295

I didn't accuse you of being irrational. I said you had non-rational commitments. Reread the post.

Irrational means against reason. Non-rational includes things outside the domain of rationality.

For example emotions, animal behaviour, etc.

—

I did engage with your arguments, one at a time. Many of them I showed to be strawmen.

For example: The accusation of defeatism.

Another example: The accusation that twdism say there is no first world proletariat.

—

Finally, the problem with your analogy is that we aren't discussing the long term viability of socialism* we are discussing the extent evidence for fwdism and twdusm.

* You can always refer to the problem of induction and say have no guarantee that the future will ressemble the past.

To use this as basis to dismiss current evidence problematic. At the very least to have to make a good argument for why things might change.

—

Now let me finally repeat this to you: Struggle locally in the first world has not only few results generally at advancing socialism, but my individual case has been a total waste of time.

Every person has limited of resources. Look at other posts in the fucking thread. Until things radically deteriorate, the most you will do is run a reading group that holds meetings and rallies at best. And that's fucking fine.

If twdist strategy is wrong, practice will demonstrate it to be so. If a revolution happens in the fw I will be ecstatic. So far the evidence is not your side however. So a different strategy is not unwarranted.

>>664326
>If twdist strategy is wrong, practice will demonstrate it to be so.
To date it already has been demonstrated as wrong, that's kind of my point. Practice has thus far shown every attempt to result in failure. Even successful third world revolutions have universally resulted in failure, reversion, or isolationism. In some cases, like China, they have even resulted in phenomena which counteracted the fall in the rate of profit and aided imperialism. The opening up of Chinese labour markets for example.
>At the very least to have to make a good argument for why things might change.
If the rate of profit really does fall inescapably, then it follows that they must change, since compromises are ultimately unsustainable. Evidence for this can be seen in the decline of the middle class and the early stages of the re-emergence of class struggle. The question then becomes what we can do to ensure we are in the strongest possible position when these changes reach a critical point, and also how we can accelerate them.

>>664313
Which country?

>>664334

By comparison, first world attempts at revolution never got off the ground, and communist in those countries have disintegrated into idpollers, larpers, socdems, etc.

So by the same criterion you fail harder (Hell I'll take a DPRK like remnant over strictly nothing any day)

—

Again I am well aware of the basic difference in strategy. Twdist view is that focusing primarily on aiding the third world is the greatest accelerator.

What you claim is yours is to balance support.

Again, all I am asking is not be attacked and accused what appears to become kind of sabotage simply because one us allocating time & resources a little differently.

Like what difference does it make to you that one spends an hour talking to a tw com instead of fw com and giving couple bucks to them? How many fwcoms even contribute more than token dues (if that) to fw orgs?

>>664366
>Like what difference does it make to you
Chill m8 I just like debating theory on leftypol, it's not like I go around banging drums and denouncing the evils of third worldists.

>>664378

Then why did you feel compelled to respond at all to the first post? Its not like it was an invitation to debate.

I mean I responded because it was attacked with many a strawman and other accusations.

Perhaps it is the degenerate culture of imageboards that tend to towards shit disturbance…

But anyhow, by all means continue with whatever fw activities you do. Just leave us alone.

>>664342
United States

>>664546
So you're telling me that pic related is accurate? If so, don't lose hope. If they're really this bad then eventually the antagonisms between workers and union leadership will reach a critical point.

>>664313
That's one of the reasons people under unionized jobs reached the lowest valley last decade. Few want to be in a union because they pacted with the ruling class.
What people could try is to replace the union, organizing, and shit, but then again, the morons are indoctrinated against your own interests and will accuse you of doing the right things as if these were bad things.
Covert action, training in theory explaining how this emerged (unions alone in capitalist society becomes part of the capitalist system), anonymous pamphlets to create class awareness, might be the right strategy if one plans to stay there for years.
>>664556
Didn't he die?

>>664313
>The union rep we had would walk around trying to convince people that they needed to join our union in a 5,000 custom made suit

Sounds like trade unionism with american characteristics to me

>>663244
I know a lot of people here like to shit on the founding fathers, but tbf to them in early America class divides only existed in the south, in the north they system of yemon farmers lead to thier being only one economic class, and in the south at the time of the construction was written slavery was projected by most people to die out. In such an environment abolishing political parties makes sence. And under a future claseless society an absence of parties would be a good thing. What the founding fathers didn’t know, is that Slavery would expand, not due off. And that industrialization was not only inevitable but would create new class divideds. A no party state and one party state are functionally the same. Political parties exist to represent different class interests.

>be me
>college student at University of Vermont
>go to BDS March in town
>thier ends up being a clash between pro-BDS and zionists
>some of the zionists start acting autistic
>ask them to calm down
>they start debating thier points with the BDS crowd
>after hearing the back and forth I realize that I’m the only non-Jew on either side
The BDS people were cool, some were associated with PSL. Thier we’re some people from the college DSA chapter. They unlike the zionists didn’t have any (visible) autism. Just though the story was funny.

>>665820
>That's one of the reasons people under unionized jobs reached the lowest valley last decade. Few want to be in a union because they pacted with the ruling class.
if that was the reason they would have collapsed a long time ago. although i think a lot of unionized workers during the 2008 recession found that their unions wouldn't do anything meaningful to save them since they had allied with the ruling class and their bailout schemes

>>665930
these workers who had enjoyed union membership up until that point probably went on to vote for trump though, and they're not really proletariat in any useful sense anyways

>>665934
>these workers who had enjoyed union membership up until that point probably went on to vote for trump though
Liberal detected.
>they're not really proletariat in any useful sense anyways
They objectively are proletatians.

>>665930
Also a lot of the unionized factories just closed and never reopened

>>665832
>like trade unionism with american characteristics to me
Nah, sounds like co-opted unions to anyone with enough functioning braincells.
A kind reminder that anything under a capitalist state runs through the capital, even unions.
>>665934
https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=honors_thesis
Don't want to point out you are speaking out your ass, but yeah, you are speaking out of your ass.
>inb4 muh trump won
He didn't win the vote count, only the electoral college which is a facade of "democracy".

>>665897
>after hearing the back and forth I realize that I’m the only non-Jew on either side
That's like a Curb Your Enthusiasm bit

>>665987
>A kind reminder that anything under a capitalist state runs through the capital, even unions.
Yeah, unions never achieved anything. They are useless, go back in cagie, wagie.

>>666045
I never implied "anything". Nor I did an absolute statement.

>>665897
>after hearing the back and forth I realize that I’m the only non-Jew on either side
Lmao

>>663821
I can find like 5 threads on "anyone got resources for organizing" but none that seem to address my question. Can you give a link? ( like >>>/edu/### )

>>666384
I mean, NTA but I'm surprised that many jews would be BDS, simply because most I've met and talked to were pro-Israel because it's a safe space (sample size of 3, so yeah).

>>666423
If anything I think it is the exact opposite since only Jews will care so much about Israel and Palestine due to proximity to it that they will be willing to outside to protest for and against it.

>>666443
Makes sense. People I've run across in the Palestinian cause were disproportionately Jewish compared to other orgs I've been around. The only person I've met who was actually beaten up by Israeli cops for protesting that stuff was Jewish.