It’s really just a progression of finding out how fucking evil the ruling class is right? Like learning how many people the US government has fucking murdered for bananas and shit really pushed me from rad lib soc dem to ML. Or is there more to it than that? Because if it is that simple we need a good way to agitate that better that doesn’t require a fuck ton of extracurricular reading.
Dispel the idea that if only there were more personal responsibility & bootstraps things would get better, institutionally or personally.
The machine is working as designed
It also requires rigorous work to purge imperialist brainworms. Domestically they might be great but if they still tow the government line on places like China, Venezuela, even Iran and Russia, then they need more education.
Yeah thats what I mean, though I would argue that most radlibs/socdems don’t really blame 5he US govt for all the evil shit it does domestically. So often I get the feeling that even with things like slavery they don’t blame that on the government as ann organ of the ruling class. It’s like “a tragic mistake” or “We fixed it so it doesn’t count.” It’s like they have “the bumbling empire” trope both within and outside the US cemented in the core of their brain.
I have a hard time when I try to tell people that the media and government are in cahoots with the billionaires.
It like people don’t understand what grants people power these days or what power means.
I think a (maybe the) big thing is realizing that the problems created by the bad system are not just because of individual bad actors.
The big hurdle is understanding the state as a tool for one class to oppress the others. Without that there is hope of reform which leads to economism, chauvinism, and other revisionist tendencies promoting class collaboration over class struggle.
Unfortunately, just reading State and Revolution is not enough to be convinced of that, and many Americans (especially white Americans) will never learn that through experience, only through extensive reading, particularly about how the state has been used to oppress the dominated class, including imperialist domination.
Personally I don’t think we can outpace the hegemony of class collaboration in the US through education until the empire (and it’s ability to sustain a labor aristocracy) is severely damaged. Only then will Americans’ experience of the state actually line up with the Leninist understanding.
It also requires losing faith in the given mechanisms of change in society.
