#i believe leftism is about people

[the-paris-of-people]

The past couple days online have been... interesting. I consider myself a leftist, think capitalism is corrupt, and think that it needs to be seriously reformed/overthrown. I admit that while I've thrown around phrases and terms like "burn it all down" and "the revolution needs to come" out of frustration without actually thinking about what a revolution entails: excellent organization, unity, and strategy to defeat the United States, the world's largest military superpower which has inflicted political and social destabilization across the majority of countries around the world. There also needs to be superb infrastructure and community to support the disabled, elderly, and poor populations who rely on government assistance and programs, healthcare, and accommodations while this so-called revolution rages on.

All I've received from the far leftist movement are lectures from condescending intellectuals who rattle off academic citations regarding ideological theory rather than practical, tangible steps to advocate for change in our local and regional communities. I have not seen one of them actually discuss conversations they've had with their friends, family, or Americans about what they want to see reflected for the future of the country. I have not seen one of them discussed how destructive, detrimental and traumatic a Trump presidency was for social prejudice and morale in the United States. I understand that for many marginalized groups they've been living in a facist state for centuries so the possibility Project 2025 doesn't galvanize them to see the two parties differently, but I don't think it is fair to white leftists falsely equivocate the election of both parties for the entire American population at all??? Or like at least specify the issues you're referring to in which you view both parties as the same????? Literally one TikTok creator who I used to follow talked about how true leftists are so much better than liberals because they aren't waiting for a presidential candidate to save the world NOW due to the accelerated apocalypse due to climate change but when asked how to change the world they suggest sharing ideas of your future utopia with other leftist groups. How the fuck is sitting around talking about living in a walkable community is great considered "saving the world now"? How are you going to dismantle and restructure American infrastructure to create these communities? How are you going to remove existing racial and social tensions to create a community where everyone lives happily side by side? Do people not consider reality at all?????

And is it not wrong for people to have a fucking sliver of optimism and hope at incremental change that's achieved within the corrupt bipartisan system of American politics, even if they know it's propaganda??? Is it wrong for people to have a singular fucking moment of relief in feeling like their values, beliefs, and lives will be better protected and THEY can advocate for change better??? Is it wrong when there's a couple months until the most pressing election in recent history for people to make the choice they feel will reduce the most amount of harm???

[zhuhongs]

just found out the lead singer of taiwans biggest death metal band is also an active parliament member since like 2015.... and is still active as a death metal singer. he's a pretty standard taiwanese center left anti communist from what i could gather. which like as a leftist i dont really agree with but i also dont know enough abt taiwanese politics to like make a full judgement. though he seems to be a standard liberal nothing remarkable, radical, or new, not overtly horrible but just bland. but that was something i definitely did Not expect. apparently he's very pro indigenous rights and self determination for indigenous people but being in a centre left mega party like the DPP does not seem like the best way to achieve that. But yea, just thought I'd share

[weed-cat]

.

[snekdood]

why do ppl call shark3ozero a debate bro when like. I hardly ever see him actually debate anyone..? usually he’s just talking about current events?? is talking to vaush like twice really enough for ppls black and white thinking to be triggered about ppl????

[wild-at-mind]

Sometimes just from someone's username you know they would reblog a post that's like omg Trump will do genocide and Harris will do genocide but with emojis and memes!!

And then you see that they did in fact reblog the post and you're like ohhh can we stop pretending this is any kind of leftism.

[stellardeer]

TL;DR - How would you kick someone out of your house without involving police? and Should you?

My no-note blog is probably not the best place to ask this question, but maybe someone will come along and answer, who knows.

So in the ideal circumstance that we abolish the police, I've been wondering about a specific scenario. Say there is a person in your home, for whatever reason, who has no legal right to be there, and you do not want them there (again, for whatever reason) but they refuse to leave and you want to forcibly remove them from your home.

Most people nowadays would threaten to call the cops on them, and usually that alone is enough to get people to leave. I've never actually had this problem myself, but I've known numerous people who've talked about these kinds of situations (and coincidentally they were all middle class, if that tells you anything...) I, personally, would think twice (or a million times) about calling the cops on someone, especially if the person in question is particularly vulnerable to police brutality. So, even if the police aren't abolished, I still want to know the proper alternative to handle this kind of situation.

I'm a pretty weak, easily overpowered person, so my first instinct would be to like.. call someone I know or go get a strong neighbor or something to help me get this person off of my property.

I know that the specifics of the situation also play a key role here, too, on how to handle it. Like, if the person is reasonable, I would hope that just telling them to leave would get them to go - easy enough. But if they refuse to move.. what do I even do? If it's someone that I know very well, I might think to take a break and just walk away from them and hope we can sort things out once we've calmed down. If it's someone that I don't know very well, though, (not even necessarily an intruder, but just say someone who is overstaying their welcome) and especially if tensions are not even high, I wouldn't really know what to do. Some states even have squatters rights, so like.. sometimes you literally CAN'T do anything about this person being in your home, and in some cases they can even get you kicked out. I think it's kind of obvious that if the person clearly has violent intentions towards me, then I have a right to defend myself, but again, I am not going to be able to do that by myself, and I don't know what the legalities are around asking for help from another citizen, i.e. not a cop, if someone means to do you harm?

And what if you do ask for help and your helper ends up injuring the person in the process of trying to get them out?? I'd imagine it's still better than calling a cop, and risking getting a life-ruining criminal record, or worse, shot and killed. But I'd also imagine there could be grounds for them to sue if they get injured by the helper since the helper is not a professional of any kind and not protected in anyway. Only some states have protections against self defense anyway, and I don't know if it even counts if you invited the person into your home willingly and they weren't being violent to begin with. Like.. if they person is just stubbornly standing there and then your burly neighbor puts hands on them first, I don't think that even counts as self defense for the homeowner? At that point if the person fights back then they have a case for self-defense.

And I don't know what the leftist attitude is towards personal property like that anyway, like should we even have a right to our own home? I don't know the leftist view on that, I get the idea that individualism is not the move, but like.. do we still have our own personal space? Space that we are allowed to bar others from entering? Even if that space extends to the entirety of a 2-bedroom home? I'm asking sincerely, because I really haven't read enough socialist theory, so I don't know what the opinions are on home ownership in general. Like in an ideal society, would we supposedly just allow the person to stay for as long as they like, as long as they aren't hurting anything? That's another part of it, like what if they aren't doing any harm but I still don't want them there? Am I wrong for wanting them to leave, even if I don't know them? Supposing even if they are an intruder, if they haven't stolen anything or hurt me or my animals, but they just... won't leave, should I even be mad about that?

But again, forget an ideal society, let's take it back to reality, assuming that I live in the US and the laws are exactly the same as they are in this moment, police are not abolished, but I am choosing to not involve the police in this matter... what is the right thing to do???? Should I just resolve myself to accept that this person lives with me now?? I don't even live in a state with squatters rights, so I don't legally have to, but.. should I? (more thoughts and anecdotes if the tags if you feel like reading)

[hummingbird-hunter]

The thing is, I have nothing against socialism or communism as a political ideology; trust me, I'm as anti-capitalist as they come. The leftism is really not the problem here.

The problem is when in their leftism, people – Americans, really, and western Europeans – use the ussr as this sort of goal, this complete antithesis to the modern capitalist society, this almost-utopian place to live. They use hammer and sickle symbol, the ussr anthem; sometimes, as a joke, sometimes, not so much.

Not only that clearly shows that they know absolutely nothing about the ussr – it's also spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not, which is especially insidious now, when russia is literally committing a genocide.

The ussr wasn't a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. It was a totalitarian dictatorship, responsible for colonisation and genocide of multiple people and cultures. Just like the russian Empire before it. Just like modern russia continues to do now.

For many Eastern European and Central Asian people, hammer and sickle is not just a symbol of a political ideology. It's the symbol, under which people were starved to death, imprisoned or executed for daring to write in their own language; in which cultures were erased, people – forcefully assimilated, stripped of their own national identity.

It's the propaganda of being "the same people, the same nation" that russians love to use; that westerners love to believe, for the sole reason of the oppressed daring to look similar to the oppressor; for the sole reason of Americans being unable to look past their own history and realize oppression comes in many shapes and forms.

By using the ussr symbols in your political movement, you're denying the atrocities commited under that symbol and spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not.

It's not "progressive" to wave around a hate symbol.

Do your research.

[catboybiologist]

saw a call out post that said you used to be an alt-right reddit white supremacist edgelord prior to transition. is that true???

EDIT: HEY IF YOURE GOING TO REBLOG OR RESPOND TO THIS PLEASE REBLOG MY OTHER VERSION OKAY? Don't be weird about speaking over people whoa actually experience racism please.

Yeah yeah, this is bait, and I doubt that the callout post you're referring to even exists.

But seriously.

Have we not learned by now not to believe callout posts, especially about trans women?

Seriously. I'm only answering this ask as a PSA. People can and will invent shit about trans women all the time. I've made it on kiwifarms at least once, and don't care to check if its happened again. I'm not big enough to have organized crusades against me, but people write false fallout posts about smaller blogs all the time.

This is one mechanism that makes Tumblr feel increasingly hostile to trans women- false dog piles organized by transphobes masquerading as whatever they need to be to get the dogpile started.

Beyond online interactions, myself and many other trans women have transphobes that they knew irl who might be compelled to pull the same bullshit.

I thought we were beyond this.

If you want an actual response (although I feel like I shouldn't grace this with any):

Closest thing to this being true is that I was a pro-capitalist neolib when I was like, 15, and didn't really leave much online trace of it. Had a touch of new atheism type arrogance and "le enlightened" type stuff. Didn't fall down the alt right pipeline, and def was not a white supremacist.

That's over a decade ago.

My reddit femboy days predate my transition by two years, btw, and I was already well into my faggot leftism by then.

[xbuster]

This role playing as the protagonist of the world needs to stop.

There is absolutely a problem of self-importance in leftism where people like this try to act like they’re the moral center of the universe because they retweet leftism and that everyone who falls short of doing that every day isn’t really virtuous and needs to be educated. Even children need to be online activists even though children shouldn’t even have a platform. They’re children. It’s just an excuse to scold people because scolding someone means you’re above them and that makes you feel important.

Posting doesn’t make you an activist. Posting doesn’t make you a good person. Likewise, not posting doesn’t make you complicit nor does it make you a bad person.

This is about a 15-year-old Russian posting art in support for Palestine but not talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on social media. A 15-year-old. Genuinely what is a 15-year-old expected to do? Stop Russia from killing Ukrainians?? Adults can’t even do that.

[traegorn]

"Actual leftism involves making pragmatic moves" you say?

"Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory."

-Marx, 1850.

Perhaps gain more than a vibes-based understanding of leftism before speaking on it. PA voter here, voting 3rd party.

Ah, we gotta theory bro here who thinks leftism starts and ends with Marx. Believe it or not, we've learned a few things in the last hundred and seventy five years. When we talk about making pragmatic decisions, we know that incrementalism is the only way progress has been made.

Here's the thing, you can't boycott an election. It's a two party system. EIther Harris or Trump is going to win, and Daddy Revolution ain't coming.

Time to put the book down and take some actions that will make an actual difference, and if Trump gets a second term, we don't be able to do that.

Your vote for a third party will only help put Trump in power, which will set us back another twenty years. There will be two seats up on the supreme court, which would cement the conservative majority. Trump has stated he want to use the US Military to round up his political opposition, and is using Nazi rhetoric about immigrant populations. Trans rights are under attack, and the only thing that's stopped it at the national level is the Republicans not holding the white house. Trump wants to pull aid from Ukraine, which would allow Russia to continue their genocide there.

In 2016 we were fighting for a higher minimum wage, and now we're fighting for basic rights that were destroyed by those four years of Trump.

And, like, the people in Gaza want us to elect Harris, as do other members of that community.

So if you really do claim to care about the things you say you do, you'll do the right thing and vote for Harris.

Because if you have the values you claim you do, I can't think of any reason other than selfish ego why you wouldn't.

[thebreakfastgenie]

I no longer trust people who call themselves leftists on the internet. Not because I hate the left, I just don't believe that many self-identified leftists are on the left. Leftist identity became cool, but that didn't drive real, committed leftism, it drove an empty, aesthetic alignment with leftism as a set of poorly-defined vibes. We've been seeing teens and young adults who identify as leftists use leftist language to make functionally conservative arguments for a while now. Social media makes it worse, because it drives a performative leftism that's more about looking cool and "winning" interactions with meaningless comebacks than about either doing or believing in anything. I don't think this is without precedent; there were plenty of reactionary beliefs within the hippie movement, especially reactionary beliefs held by men about women. From now on I'm adopting an actions speak louder than words policy for leftists. It's not enough to say "I'm a leftist." You have to prove it.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Anyway, time to clean out the bloated follower list:

Abortions are healthcare

Abortions that are not coerced are often the right choice for folks

People who had an abortion and it improved their lives are good and moral and ethical people

Bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are important and include trans healthcare

Trans people are the genders we say we are, and if you disagree you're not only a bad person, but you're also scientifically, morally, ethically, and factually wrong in every way that matters

Trans unity is the only way forward and everything inconsistent with it is aiding and abetting the people who want us silent and/or dead

Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland is no more or less important than everyone else's; you either believe self-determination in one's ancestral homeland is a right or you don't, but excluding Jews and only Jews is antisemitic

Jewish survival and continuity is important, and our lives are not worth less than other groups

If your leftism doesn't include fighting antisemitism in all its forms, you're a bad person and a bad leftist

Literally all of the above can boiled down to trusting people to know themselves and valuing the lives of people like me. I will not be arguing about any of the above, because I should not have to defend my humanity or the humanity of those like me.

[tanadrin]

RE "revolutionary leftists are revolutionary because they know they can't win electorally."

It astounds me a little that there are leftists who think that a communist revolution is more likely to work than, like, fifty years of community-building and electoral politics. Sewer socialism, union activism, and other boring activities have brought much more success in the U.S. than agitation for a revolution.

What I mean is, setting aside the moral concerns (violence is bad, even when it's necessary, and if there are practical alternatives then we should pursue them), I am not a revolutionary leftist because I think we would lose a revolution. For one thing, there is a considerable right-wing element in the country that is much better prepared for this kind of thing, and I think that the majority of the institutions in the U.S. would pick fascism over communism if they had to choose, but also, prolonged violent action is ripe for breeding authoritarianism.

Goatse is concerned that "the party" might "abandon or neglect its primary ends," but what is leftism if it is not, at bottom, an attempt to improve the living conditions of all people, et cetera et cetera? To the extent that social democratic parties successfully pursue this end to some degree, they're better than than an ostensible communist party that talks the talk but commits human rights abuses. And, more than the fact that U.S. leftism has some pretty fierce opposition that would probably fare better if The Revolution happened tomorrow, I think that, even in winning, we would lose, because what came out the other end would look a lot more like Stalinism.

I think one thing the hardcore revolutionaries in OECD countries don't realize is that the reason they can't marshal support for their revolutions is that the socialists won most of the issues that were salient in the early 20th century--workers got more rights, better pay, unions were legalized, etc., etc. But it didn't take restructuring the whole political economy to do it, which is immensely frustrating if you believe that any society without your ideal political economy is inherently immoral and impure, so in order to justify an explicitly communist platform you have to rhetorically isolate it from the filthy libs and feckless demsocs who it turns out have been pretty effective within the arena of electoral politics in which supposedly nothing can ever get done, and treat them as of a piece with the out-and-out fascists and royalist autocrats of the 1920s and 30s.

Which, you know. Is not persuasive to most people! Most people understand intuitively the vast gulf between the SPD and the Nazis; they see that, milquetoast and compromising though they may be, the center-left can deliver substantive policy improvements without the upheaval of a civil war or political purges, and this is attractive to people who are not of a millenarian or left-authoritarian personality.

Which isn't to say that communists don't often make important points! It sucks having to fight a constant rearguard action against the interests of capital rolling back the social improvements of the 20th century, and it sucks that liberal governments in Europe and North America have historically been quite happy to bankroll and logistically support fascists and tyrants in the third world against communist movements (which invariably only exist as communist movements because these same fascists and tyrants have crushed more compromising movements and only the most militant organizations have managed to survive).

But I agree with you: communists also talk a big game about how liberalism is the real fascism (what's that line from Disco Elysium I see quoted everywhere about how everybody is secretly a fascist except the other communists, who are liberals?), while also being awful at democracy. Suppressing dissent because your small clique of political elites is the only legitimate expression of the people's will (which you know, because you have declared it to be so) really is some rank bullshit. A system with competitive elections is still, well, a system with competitive elections, even if those elections are structurally biased in certain ways; all the bloviating that attempts to justify communist authoritarianism cannot really obscure the fact that authoritarian systems are cruel and brittle, regardless of the ideology being served.

[artbyblastweave]

If youre still doing it, heroify Lex Luthor

The fish-in-a-barrel answer is Tony Stark, but the intuitive answer, not to mention the version I've actually seen executed at least twice- is that you ask the question- what if he's right, about Superman being bad news?- and then you go from there.

I'm actually going to take this opportunity to talk up one of the few Mark Millar comics that I recommend wholeheartedly, Jupiter's Circle, which is interesting in that the setting's Luthor analogue, Jack Hobbes, is essentially playing Luthor's cope-and-seethe angle completely straight, as a thing which he legitimately believes and which he's ultimately basically correct to believe in spite of most superheroes being at least decent people.

What was interesting to me about this portrayal is that Hobbes eventually decides that he miscalculated, that he can do more good by working with the Utopian as his friend and confidant than by fighting him every step of the way. It's a straight-up Lex Luthor redemption story. But the thing is that the setting of the comic as a whole is predicated on the idea that he was actually completely correct- although he doesn't live to see it, although he dies thinking he was initially misguided, the long-term trajectory of the setting is that superheroes eat the world, politics and activism alike subordinated to their petty grievances and soap opera idiocy. A major plot point of the second volume of this was that Not!Batman's turn towards militant leftism gets completely written off by his 1960s contemporaries because they're so used to reading his behavior through the lens of whiny rich-kid superhero interpersonal drama that they just can't parse it correctly. The comic advances that there's a self-centeredness and egotism inherent to the superhero that makes them suck ass at effecting long term positive change, but they also aren't going away, and they can blow up skyscrapers. At the point where I stopped reading, the setting was implied to be caught in a kind of boom-and-bust doom cycle where the superheroes gradually create a singular hegemony, then collapse into hyperdestructive infighting over what to do with that hegemony once they run out of conventional supervillains to fight- the aftermath of which clears the board for a new wave of the classic silver age cops-and-robbers game, which then gradually hegemonizes, ad infinitum. (This is a line of thinking that crops up in a lot of Millar's capepunk work once you know what to look for- Wanted, Old Man Logan, and to some extent The Ultimates all being examples.)

Another example of Heroic Lex Luthor, which I've written about before, is the comic Edison Rex, a comic whose pitchline is that the setting's Luthor analogue, the titular Edison Rex, turns out to have been completely correct that the setting's Superman analogue was an unwitting sleeper agent for an alien invasion, and steps up to replace him as Earth's foremost protector after finally neutralizing him- but since all he really knows how to be is a supervillain, his management style and problem-solving methodology from his time as an ends-justify-the-means anti-superman crusader translate to the new job with extremely mixed results. The comic ran 18 issues and remains unfinished, but it was pretty good.

[kazzeyy]

As someone who had their feminist and leftist awakening here on tumblr in the early 10s, I have to say that the way online leftism has evolved is really directly correlated- in my opinion - to the rampant antisemitism, lack of critical thinking and reading skills, and straight up support for terrorists that I see across platforms.

I do not regret the way that this site helped me think about certain topics and pov’s for the first time, but the way the internet exists now is very different than even then, and it’s been a change for the worse.

I now, with a more fully formed brain, can even see how some of the things being parroted to me on here at the time were one dimensional takes with no room for nuance or questioning without being labeled a bigot of some kind.

I never thought I’d be thankful for growing up in a very republican town (and family), but now I see that having deeply known a pov so different from mine helps me be even more informed of my own ideas and WHY I believe them. And I also see all humans as nuanced beings with different priorities. Doesn’t mean I like them, but understanding them is so important.

The complete dehumanization of those you refuse to try to understand or listen to and the subsequent infantilization of those you are insistent on supporting…it’s giving no critical thinking skills and a complete lack of moral clarity.

Being from NY, I can’t help but have looked at the “protests” on oct 7 here on the streets, with banners in favor of the very terrorist organizations (or adjacent) who killed my friend’s parents on 9/11, and feel an even deeper kind of sadness and disgust.

If you support people who support terrorists, you support terrorists. If you support people who are ok marching alongside swastikas and hezbollah flags, you have been morally corrupted. If you genuinely feel the greatest evil on this planet is a democratic nation made of mostly Jews the size of NJ that is resisting against Islamic imperialism, you are an antisemite. If you think the Palestinians deserve leadership like Hamas…you must hate them.

Imagine supporting people who are making lists of Jewish practitioners to avoid. Imagine thinking you have the moral high ground when your “side” are the ones mourning a terrorist’s elimination but praising someone committing suicide.

Idk what it will take for some people to wake up, but I fear it will be something so horrific, and it won’t be until it affects them.

[batboyblog]

I just saw someone call "vote blue people" fascists today on this godforsaken website. They also rambled about Jews Zionists a little too much and repeated some blatant blood libel points so like, I shouldn't take anything they say seriously but.

Is that what we've come to? People voting for Democrats, the party that wants to destroy the world and its people the least... Fascists? Is there no winning with these damn people? What the hell is considered acceptable to them anymore?

hm, I mean I think there are a number of different types of these people. I think there are people who grew up in Republican households and took on all the anti-Democrat baggage and their leftism is rebellion against mommy and daddy but not very deep.

I think there are people influenced by the silly idea that the worse things get the better it is for the Communist Revolution thats totally about to happen any day now we swear, Karl Marx the once and future King will rise from his sleep to lead Britain in its hour of greatest need or whatever.

I think the media are really failing, because they love an idea of "balance" but like when it comes to say Republican criminality there isn't balance? there's no Democratic counter point? so they have to under cover Republican scandal and also lean into an unthinking narrative that whatever Republicans do is somehow Democrats fault? in some way "why didn't Democrats stop them?" well because thats not how it works? why did Republicans do it in the first place? why wasn't the public aware thats what Republicans would do if elected?

I think the antisemitism is a big factor this time around as you mentioned the raving about Zionists or whatever, putting all issues on the back burner to somehow "punish" Democrats for the fact a war broke out in a foreign country on the other side of the world when a Democrat happened to President.

which leads me to the final part, propaganda. When Trump was President he recognized Israel's annexation of two areas, East Jerusalem which has long been talked about as the site for a Palestinian capital, and the Golan Heights a legal part of Syria. This is the first time an American President (or any world leader) had recognized land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War as a PART of Israel, rather than occupied. Trump went further and put forward a plan drafted by Israel and right wing American Israel hawks which would have reduced Palestine to a bunch of little islands of sovereignty cut off from each other by land annexed to Israel. A Palestine of bridges and tunnels. And Netanyahu claimed, and I believe him, that Trump said he could go ahead and annex that land even if the Palestinians said no to the deal (which they did)

do you remember the big protests then? no? none? you don't recall any of this? strange... because there are big bot networks boosting content about this conflict, making sure it makes it into your timeline, making sure you tie it to somehow be Democrats fault and that its the most important thing in the world and showing how upset you are by it is the single most important thing imaginable. All day, every day.

As far as Palestine goes, there are two options. The Party that believes in a two state answer, and the party that doesn't. Trump already signed off on annexation once, when he's back in office, now, after October 7th? ooof. Any one who's serious and not cooked knows which is the better choice.