u/ElEsDi_25

People seem to think if Trump is gone things will “return to normal” in the US. But “going back” is just not possible in history. The best case in the US would require an FDR-level reformer to reshape the federal government just to undo everything Trump did and everything that allowed for a Trump and project 2025 to happen anyway.

But the Democrats aren’t talking about major structural reform. They won’t even openly call for abolishing ICE aside from their social democrat fringe that the party leadership hates more than they hate the Republicans. In fact they mock and fear monger over small groups like the DSA having a platform that includes structural change they think would increase democratic input into the government.

[This is for people who are concerned about the increase in state repression and erosion of democratic leverage. If you support unitary executive rule, increased militarism, and police state repression because you think it will only be used against those you dislike or fear, this discussion is obviously not directed at you.]

Hi, so tbh I really don’t like technocracy but I’d like to know what is the appeal to you. Why are you opposed to trying to achieve meaningful democracy? Do you see this project inherently right-wing and about putting humans into some order decided by people who then benefit from that arrangement of social reproduction?

What do you think are the major (likely sincere rather than straw-argument) conceptual error about socialism coming from pro-capitalists here?

I think one issue that pro-capitalists regularly treat macro social-economic ideas in Marxism as microeconomics or individual exchanges. This is likely due to an inability to conceive of economics outside of a liberal view of rational generic individuals on a market.

Maybe related, they seem to see Marxist critique in individual moral terms. Part of this might be due to how the mainstream conflates liberalism and socialism in the US.

Does this lineup with your experiences? Are there other common conceptual errors you run into? (Again not ideological difference or dubious versions of history, but more like straw-arguments from - sincere lack of understanding the politics or idea being critiqued.

…and bring empires to their knees.

Iran has a lot of military planning and strategy but it’s their ability to cut of shipping and trade that is really holding the US back.

This is a power that workers as labor and community members can also potentially wield. Most of the discussions of strategy online focus on electoral or arms as the only power in society… this is the power we clearly see and experience in nation states, laws and police/military. But capitalists also rule us economically by controlling our access to what we need and centralizing resources and skills and knowledge for their purposes. Their own needs become social mandates and “realities” because if you don’t cut taxes for them, they will threaten and might even follow through on pulling the economic base out from under your community and go to a more compliant labor market. But workers can also organize to make their needs “realities” and organized workers can and have taken control of logistics and economic choke points and wield a similar sort of economic power.

I see a lot of posts online praising Mamdani etc that are very politically shallow but the response from the left seems to mostly be a reciprocal mirrored response. Soc Dems post reform… Leftist posts “look another betrayal… another disappointment.”

A lot of this is probably people just falling into social media culture and responding to what they see in kind (and some of this may be due to political-philosophical differences in views between myself and the person making the post, idk.)

Why I think this is a bad approach:

1. it doesn’t provide any useful explanation to people and so feeds into the overall cultural cynicism much more than it draws people left (and imo unfocused cynicism tends to flow to the right.) Worse imo, many of these posts have a moralistic analysis claiming that soc dem limitations are part of some insincerity, a trick or op.

2. Without analysis it can’t provide any real counter, just idealism. “If not for them misleading the masses, everyone would obviously agree with my more righteous politics!”

I feel like ultimately this approach accomplishes nothing but making progressives/soc dems dig their heels in more or aid the establishment in characterizing socialism as insincere and a trick.

I think it’s important when making general arguments to make a steel version and assume good faith to show that even if AOC or whoever was a saint and had the best intentions and aims, ultimately she would have to bend to the “realities” of capital and state.

Since I think election-discussion in the US will be unavoidable until the formal declaration of a self-coup, I’d like the streamline the process. Before engaging in any online (not just Reddit) US electoral discourse, Socialists should complete the form below and return it to the Ministry of Practical Leftist Dialogue for review and certification. [And if you don’t know how to do that or what the ministry is… you’re just outing yourself, fed.]

1. Is socialism possible through electoral means alone? Y/N
2. Do you currently or potentially support a political party? If so, what one or what kind of party would you potentially support?
3. My overall strategy for advancing socialism is________________
4. Elections are related (positively/negatively) to my overall strategy________________
5. Some of the main near-term intermediate steps to get from here to achieving my overall strategy are…
   a.
   b.
   c.
   d.

[The rules here say no politics which I am interpreting as no partisan or party politics, not discussion of the state of the world and relation to a film. While I think “everything is political” not everything is partisan and so please let’s try to keep specific politicians etc out of the convo and just talk about more underlying things.]

I am not a fan of Christopher Nolan’s movies or style but came away really impressed after reluctantly going to see the Odyssey with some friends. In short, I was emotionally impacted and invested whereas his movies generally leave me cold.

The other thing that seemed unusual to me was that the specific themes this iteration of the story added or stresses seemed topically relevant to me and this is not something I associate with Chris Nolan either. For example, I read an interview with David Goyer who claimed that domestic spying or references to Occupy Walk street etc were added to the Batman movies just for grounding, putting real issues in a comic story makes it seem more relevant or weighty.

But - and maybe I’m just reading into this - from the Odyssey I got a sense that this might be subtextually about the war on terror and breaking “Zeus’ law” of “post WW2 ‘liberal internationalism’” and self-unraveling of the old US international system of the UN etc. This isn’t really a hot topic for discussion in the US like #Occupy populist protests or government surveillance but idk this was what I kept feeling from the last third of the film.

Production would have started long before current current events, so I am not saying the movie is about the current admin, more the war on terror and general US situation imo.

Anyway did anyone else have this sense or alternate topical takeaways? Or did it seem just much more interested in the characters/tale and spectacle to you?

View Poll

Aren’t the rich one of the main impediments to the free markets you guys want?

Is it good or bad for the free market if Amazon controls a major chuck of all online commerce and can gate-keep and dictate market terms to small business?

Is it good or bad that the Ellisons and Disney co will own most of media distribution and that most of what we see and hear is from a few highly consolidated companies?

Do you think capitalism has developed the internet in positive or negative ways?

I’m middle aged and so I didn’t use the internet until I my late teens and not as a regular thing until I was an adult. To me it seems self-evident that the potential and utopian claims of horizontal markets, undermining big corporations, and web democracy have just become increased corporate monopoly power feeding slop to us while building a 1984-like video screen that watches us while we watch it.

Capitalism seems to hold back the potential of the internet while making it a toxic place only good for collecting data and addicting viewers to deliver ad space. Rather than connecting us, social media makes everyone paranoid that their interactions are actually bots with propaganda or sales pitches.

I hate the online left. I used to just ignore it and use the internet for diversion and entertainment but now it seeps into actual activism. When young leftists adapt their gamer and twitter mentalities to politics it just creates a useless toxic mess.

Here are 5 general internet habits that I think infect the online left and have negative and counter-productive effects. Where do you disagree or do you agree and think there are other things I missed?

1. Reductive mentalities. Social media incentivizes reductive edge-lording and punishes nuance with being ignored or (often bad faith) misinterpretation. (This is why I am calling this phenom a cancer… it would be ignored otherwise.)

2. Performative power. There is no economic-social status automatically online also there is no direct IRL connection that might establish an organic connection or authority. So people associate themselves with some authoritative or powerful proxy… a influencer personality, a state power, rich people in general, doctrinaire appeals, random metrics pulled out in discussion after a quick google… “facts bro.”

3. Cynicism. The ultimate way to never be wrong on the internet is to treat everything as fake or falling short. Cynicism is a river that always flows right and the online left are cynical to the extreme due to our current lack of actual influence in mainstream politics or world events.

4. Inherently reactionary (not necessarily politically reactionary.) Social media promotes cynicism and passivity and just talking about the news cycle or any random stuff that enters “the discourse.”

5. The marketplace of ideas. Even if we conceptually reject this idea, we end up recreating the idealist view that debate matters and that ideology comes not from real life things but from reason.