Good! There are also likely other orgs you can check out in your area if PSL isn’t a good fit.

PSL does work behind the scenes with respect to labor organizing and whatnot, plus what they can actually do is impacted by how many members they have. If you feel they aren’t doing much, you can ask them directly why that is or if there’s more they are doing you don’t know about.

Let’s go! Great work.

Not that I particularly value your slander one way or the other, but opening your comment with the insinuation that I am not of the working class and am out of touch with it simply because I disagree with you is baseless character assassination. It brings nothing to the table but the temporary satisfaction of insult, it doesn’t make your point any better aesthetically or logically. If your goal with this comment is to build a bridge, you don’t start doing so by setting the wood on fire.

Either way, I am certainly sorry to hear about your niece. However, any idea that the DNC somehow wouldn’t be just as willing to gut safety nets is wrong. You’re attributing the results of a system meant to represent the Capitalist class to the individual whims of party members, but that’s not the material basis for the state. The State is run by Capitalists, the parties are their limbs and hands.

The basis of the DNC and GOP is in corporate donors, and the revolving door with various industries tied to the US Government. Harris ran an even more right-wing campaign than Biden, why? Why did Trump win 2024? Why do elections go the way they go? Because as workers, the decision is not given to us, the system is pre-selected and gerrymandered precisely so that the will of Capital is always upheld.

The path forward is and always has been revolution. The admission that you mostly just cast your vote and occasionally protest while conditions necessarily decline alongside Capitalism is just kicking the can down the road while the damage gets worse. I can recommend theory if you want, or recommend orgs to join like PSL, but if you stubbornly assert that your only genuine political action can be within the context of the electoral system and you insist on putting all of the blame on the GOP rather than the system at large, you’re going to be watching as conditions get worse for you and your family no matter which party is in power.

The concentration camps were open under the DNC and expanded. Both the DNC and GOP make open use of camps like Guantanamo Bay and brutalize immigrants and foreigners, liberal media outlets like CNN obfuscate them while the DNC is in office and highlight them when the GOP is. It’s how consent is manufactured. It isn’t “one side” that has these camps open, both the GOP and DNC utilize them to terrorize people the US gov considers its enemies. The camps don’t close down for 4-8 years between parties, they stay running and often expand under both parties.

Neither is acceptable for workers. The working class needs Socialism. Capitalism is crumbling, the US is de-industrialized because financial Imperialism was incredibly profitable, but as the US loses its influence it loses its super-profits from Imperialism. Neither bourgeois party can or will make the transition from an economy where private ownership is the principle aspect to one where public ownership is the principle aspect, so the working class must force that through organizing and overthrow.

Finally, the bit on Nazi apologia is absurdly off-base, and insulting. You are minimizing the actual and real extent the DNC has expanded and utilized the very same camps you call “gulags” simply due to ignorance or partisan loyalty to the DNC. I’m apologizing for neither party, my point is that both are unacceptable, not that “the GOP isn’t as bad” as you are painting my stance to be. You should absolutely read Blackshirts and Reds.

You’re somehow even more off-base. Fascism is a result of Capitalism needing to defend itself through its own self-induced crises via violent means. There isn’t a “choice” to make between liberalism and fascism, they are the same ideology justifting the same underling Mode of Production, finding itself in different circumstances. In other words, if the US is in prosperity, its ideology is seen as “liberal,” if the US is in decay and responds to unrest with crackdowns, it is seen as “fascist,” despite the same motive factors applying in both situations.

Capitalism isn’t any easier or harder to defeat under the DNC or GOP, both are violent against worker organizing and have near-identical foreign policy (as is necessary to keep the Imperialist machine going). The DNC is not going to treat Socialists any nicer than the GOP, as the DNC and GOP are far closer together than the DNC is to Socialists.

I highly recommend you read Blackshirts and Reds, at least the first chapter as it goes over fascism (though the whole book is great).

You’re getting too lost in the metaphor, here. Capitalism itself is unsustainable, and neither the DNC nor GOP are willing to transition to Socialism, or even can. The only option is worker organization and overthrow of the system. There are no “sharks,” there’s no bouyancy in a dying Empire as Capitalism collapses, there’s either Socialism or barbarism in our future.

“Demanding that they do better” isn’t what I’m talking about. The system is designed precisely to not damage the profits of Capital. Asking the Dems as nicely as possible will not make things better. This strategy does not work. In order for government to listen to the working class, it needs to be owned by the working class, not Capitalists. Everything else would be table scraps.

Further, the Dems can’t prevent the country from driving off a cliff, the US Empire has been in decline as more countries have gone against its plunder. There’s less plunder now, so the working class feels the squeeze the most. We need to organize and sieze control.

No, they absolutely want you to think voting is the only way to achieve change, despite organizing being a far more consistent and effective lever to pull than voting. They want you constrained within the boundaries of electoralism because they set up the system so the house always wins, regardless of party.

You can join Leftist parties and try to build up alternatives that can avoid doom, you don’t have to side against the people trying to save us all.

Better to organize and join revolutionary parties that stand a chance to actually not sink, when neither the Democrats nor Republicans can patch the hole (move beyond Capitalism and into Socialism, that is). The hole is Capitalism, it cannot be fixed by parties who are bought by Capitalists to serve their interests.

Leftists are going to continue to point out that relying on Imperialist bourgeois parties to implement the necessary changes to uplift the working class, ie advance into Socialism and leave Capitalism behind, is a losing game where the house always wins.

I remember around the election that liberals would try to tell the Leftists with these same, consistent critiques, to wait until after the election, but it looks like that was just an excuse to tell Leftists to never speak up.

It gets even worse when you read about how Organic Composition of Capital rises over time. Good meme, comrade!

Gotcha, thanks for elaborating! I’d say historical evidence points to the opposite on his claims of revolution, revolutionary governments have been the only ones to manage to successfully present a meaningful alternative to Capitalism. One thing common to Western leftism is the endless search for “purity” in movements, looking at every revolutionary government from a place of brutal critique without putting themselves in the shoes of the revolutionaries. Jones Manoel’s Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution best explains why this is a problem so prevalent in the Western left.

The question of revolution comes relatively soon, this is one case where anti-Capitalists of all stripes are relatively aligned. Be they Anarchists or Marxists, the fundamental problem of reform is trying to overcome a system designed to uphold the present status quo by working within it. Illegal struggle will necessarily come up.

Glad to see you continuing your journey! I’m not trying to tell you what to think, by the way, just explain the Marxist perspective (specifically Marxist-Leninist). Your journey is your own.

Thanks for the feedback! Yep, Marxism doesn’t have to be difficult to generally grasp, but the specifics and details take a long time. Ans yep, Anti-Dühring is quite long indeed, it’s probably Engels’ most important work.

The thing that confuses me about Real Utopias is whether the author rejects revolution entirely, or wants cooperatives within a post-revolutionary Socialist system. The former has no real chance to actually damage Capitalism, while the latter is already used in countries like China as they gradually build into higher and higher stages of Socialism. Socialists already advocate for building up Dual Power, the Soviets for example were already in place before the October Revolution, but also understand that as this Dual Power grows the resistance from Capitalists grows as well, Revolution still becomes a necessity.

Just my two cents, I haven’t read the book myself. Glad to see you’re sticking with it!

No problem!

You’re pretty close, generally. Pol Pot wasn’t a Marxist at all, though, the Khmer Rouge rejected Marxism, and his form of “communism” was deeply anti-materialist and was idealist in nature. He was also stopped by the Vietnamese. Hoxha is Hoxha. The Korea bit and USSR/PRC bits are of course oversimplified, but broadly accepted as correct.

You could also use it as a learning opportunity, explore Marxist thinking and viewpoints.

Sounds like Blackshirts and Reds did its job! As you point out, its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. In being a short and direct cry of support for revolution in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR, which set Socialism back dramatically at the time (especially because the 90s really did seem like China had abandoned Socialism, when we now know that that wasn’t the case and Deng’s gamble paid off), it also skimps out on thorough analysis and deep historical account.

I want to add that the purpose of my list is to equip the reader with solid foundational knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, so that the reader may better make up their own conclusions and further explore theory and historical texts (though I do include a section on history later).

As for Envisioning Real Utopias, I hadn’t heard of it until you told me, truth be told. My immediate reaction to trying to establish cooperatives to “overcome Capitalism” is that it doesm’t work like that. Cooperatives are better in that they avoid the excesses of standard firms, but since they fundamentally rely on exclusive ownership there is a barrier to scaling, and a lack of a collective plan. It merely repeats petite bourgeois class relations, an individualist view of the economy rather than a collectivist, resulting in an economy run by competing interests rather than being run by all in the interests of all. I actually wrote a comment on the communist perspective on cooperatives a few days ago.

I also think that, eventually, you’ll want to read Anti-Dühring. Engels counters the cooperative model from a Marxist perspective. It’s the much larger book the essay Socialism: Utopian and Scientific comes from, so if you’re down for a challenge you can read Anti-Dühring instead of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Ultimately, it boils down to 2 possibilities, neither of which are good for the cooperative model:

1. We try to build cooperatives within Capitalism, and establish our “seed bank” cooperatively. This runs into several errors:

-The state will dismantle any legitimate threat to the Capitalists if Capitalists cannot find a way to profit off of this new development

-Cooperatives alone are not enough to overcome Capitalism, rather, they replicate it in a different form

-Production is already extremely complex and monopolized, the age of small businesses growing to huge powerhouses is dying. Cooperatives will always be at a disadvantage when competing with established businesses

2. Cooperatives are the basis of a Socialist economy, where the workers have dismantled the Capitalist state and hold power over Capitalists, also called “Market Socialism”

-Cooperatives compete and eventually begin to replicate bourgeois class relations, if the public ownership of the economy is not the dominant factor, ie in control of larhe firms and industries. A few cooperatives would scale and create a new Capitalist relation.

Those are just my perspectives based on your summary. Cooperatives certainly aren’t bad at all, and are a part of Socialist economies as a minority of the economy, like Huawei in China or the collective farms in China. However, public ownership is still the key factor, as it goes beyond the profit motive and into allowing humanity to finally direct production for the needs of all, and not for the profits of the few.

You’ll have plenty of time to develop your own opinions, cooperatives are certainly better than traditional firms, but you’ll find Marxists typically don’t agree with “utopia building” and other cooperative forms of ownership, and you’ll best see why generally in section 2.

Won’t find me weeping for an active defender of genocide being put in the cemetary.