getfiscal posted:to be fair, pissing your uncle off at thanksgiving is pretty fun.
not as fun as pissing on your uncle tho
littlegreenpills posted:there was something on (I believe) LLCO's Guidelines On How To Be A Good Communist which ran along the lines of "being abrasively 'radical' in the way you interact with strangers, acquaintances and friends is worse than useless. discussing and explaining our ideas with receptive and interested people is key. but people aren't going to be receptive or interested in the beliefs or ideas of bitter, isolated, and repulsive hermits who are a pain to spend any time around. if all you want is to win petty battles on the internet or piss your uncle off at Thanksgiving, go join the libertarians. you're the left's worst enemy"
the point of berating family members' politics isnt to sway their opinion, its to shame them into uncomfortable silence so i can fucking eat my turkey in peace
But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.
To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.
To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along--"So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell." This is a ninth type.
To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.
To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types.
They are all manifestations of liberalism.
Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.
We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.
All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.
hth
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:lol you just wrote like a million words no one will ever read... n00b liberal
thats an lf classic
Bablu posted:i'm consistently amazed you're not a muslim yet, babyhuey
i thought about it once but i come from a strong atheist background philosophically, i think no matter how far i go away from that i'll always think religion is retarded somewhere in my heart. also im not as fickle and cynical/depressed as babyfinland, though if i ever go down his path and c+p long, pointless passages from agamben you have the right to ban me.
speaking of which, anyone catch thug lessons post in d&d about rorty being the better version of derrida? i think we can all agree here than analytic philosophy is garbage and belongs in d&d along with thug lessons.
babyhueypnewton posted:speaking of which, anyone catch thug lessons post in d&d about rorty being the better version of derrida? i think we can all agree here than analytic philosophy is garbage and belongs in d&d along with thug lessons.
me doing an imitation of bablu's kobe avatar
Bablu posted:yeah the other day i spoke to a guy who was called mehmet somethingorother and wore a star of david on his neck and it was all i could do to not ask him what was up w/that
the necklace was a trophy
gyrofry posted:that was former knitting subforum mod Pussy Carnage
africa wins again
generally the reaction seems to be interest and people acting like im smarter than them. like a lot of people texting and calling me for advice from the polls on election day and at first i tried to explain options to them and let them "decide for themselves" but as the day wore on i was like "vote yes on this ballot initiative, no on all the rest, vote for kyrsten sinema if you want and either leave the presidential box blank or write in "Peta Lindsay/Yari Osario Party for Socialism and Liberation. vote green here in the local election, democrat there, leave the US senate blank, and vote no on all the judges if you've got time on your hands"
my dance crowd is a lot less liberal on average than the rest of my crew and they're the most fun to talk to about it because they think "socialist" is just a perjorative term for liberals and that's what socialism looks like so when they encounter someone who actually identifies as socialist and left of the democrats they dont know what the fuck. like one time i was at denny's at like 2 am with a bunch of dance friends and people were talking about the election and i wasnt going to say anything because i was tired but somebody asked who i was voting for and i was like "well, i voted for obama in 2008 but ive moved further to the left since then and i feel sort of betrayed by the democrats and by the whole process so im either leaving the ballot blank or writing in a socialist third party candidate" and most people just kind of nodded politely but my dance partner was like "wait, why would you vote for a socialist" and she was just utterly flabbergasted like it was self-evidently a bad thing and i was like "well, maisie... because i'm a socialist and i agree with their ideology" and she just looked really confused and somebody changed the conversation to talk about why they were voting for obama
that's pretty representative of the reaction i get from my conservabuddies
Edited by angelbutt_dollface ()
drwhat posted:i don't claim that i'm a marxist or a socialist or anything, i just engage people on specific issues and try to bring up points that demonstrate the inherent insanity of the system we live in and most people tend to agree and understand. communism is at its heart about reconstructing genuine human social relations and there are many reasonable ways to articulate that aspiration to all sorts of people without being a tedious academic or a giant asshole. hth
this is a good strategy but i find it hard not to be conspicuously socratic (why do you think that is? what motivation would they have for doing that? what would be so bad about x?) about it and it seems a little deceptive/disingenuous not to lay one's ideological cards on the table
on the other hand, as ive illustrated above, telling people you're a socialist usually just confuses them because it doesnt really mean anything to most americans anymore
deadken posted:when i was in america i told people i was a marxist-leninist and they were like 'yeah thats cool lets get some coke.' except sometimes they agreed with most of the stuff i said and then continued supporting obama because romney wants to ban their uterus or whatever. who are these dance people lol
yeah that's what generally happens with my usual crowd who tend to be highly educated humanities types, who are either in school or working in the non-profit sector, but they're a minority in arizona, and its only because of my own over-education and non-profit sector background that im part of that world rather than one more representative of the political conciousness of the area
the partners dance scene (swing and ballroom, anyways) has way more mormons (the reason being you can go out at night and have a good time and talk to/touch girls/boys without drinking), high school educated folk, evangelicals, and others who pretty much live in the stereotype of right-wing america. ultimately this group of people is more representative of arizonans as a whole than my older group of friends from before i took up dancing
salsa/latin dance people are decently "lf" because of the dominance of latinos in that scene. fun story: one of my dance buddies is a peruvian named "pavel" (pronounced "pah-bel"). i asked him why he had a russian name and he said its because when he was born his dad was planning to move to the USSR
deadken posted:when i was in america i told people i was a marxist-leninist and they were like 'yeah thats cool lets get some coke.' except sometimes they agreed with most of the stuff i said and then continued supporting obama because romney wants to ban their uterus or whatever. who are these dance people lol
We rule the world bitch ain't nothing gonna stop this train.