I’m seeing a massive leftward shift in /r/politics now that election is over and the Biden consent manufacturing astroturfers have left.
Every third comment is a solid progressive take, lots of class conciousness.
Now since this is an independent community, and we cant be banned for brigading, what do you guys think about manufacturing our own consent.
Below is an example of an informational post that can bring communist ideas to potentially thousands of people if it is made one of the top-voted comments in a post with 10k+ upvotes.
spoiler
Austerity, privatisation, financial deregulation and loss of labor union power is what is causing America’s problems. Please read these texts, they offer an alternative view of society and solutions.
- Communist Manifesto (30 pages) - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
I know you think “communism is scary” and “communism doesnt work” etc, but just read the Manifesto, just give it a try. At the very least, it gives an idea about what communists want, why they believe what they believe.
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Albert Einstein “Why Socialism?” - https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
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ABCs of socialism - https://s3.jacobinmag.com/issues/jacobin-abcs.pdf
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Excellent video that debunks most of what people “know” about socialist states and socialism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP8CzlFhc14&list=PLvNQvOq4XvUQ_oo_NISIXrB351pYUwyPp&index=1
If you guys think this is a good idea, ill pitch it to the mod, we can make a sticky that contains all the comments to be brigaded.
Yeah, the Manifesto slaps, but it is dated and without a fair bit of historical context it can be hard for modern people to relate with it.
A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Like, who the fuck is Metternich or Guizot (or the Czar for that matter)? What is it about their rule in particular which makes them stand out as the faces of evil? Someone living in the time period would understand the inherit rottenness of these rulers, and the contours and totality of their conspiracy to oppress and lord over the masses, but nowadays? These are just names. Hollow, empty names. Unless you crack open a bunch of history books or podcasts, it can get very esoteric. This is particularly true for USians, which for the most part recieve little to no formal education on 19th century Europe. We might touch on the French Revolution briefly, maybe the Napoleonic wars (if lucky), but beyond that, nothing. We talk about the industrial revolution, but it is almost completely contextualized around the US.
I’m not one to say we need to dumb things down for the proletariat. I’m just a humble manufacturing worker myself and though it didn’t happen overnight, this stuff all makes sense to me. But we have 150 years worth of literature and propaganda to choose from. We have the ability to write our own literature too. Pamphlets, manifestos, books, blogs, etc. If anything we should be talking about the unholy alliance of Schumer and McConnell, of Bezos and Purdue. We need shit that connects to the here and now just as much as we need shit which roots our struggle in the world-historic conflivt of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Bukharin’s ABC of Communism is another good Manifesto replacement. Particularly good is how it focuses on the destruction of small/artisan production and its replacement with massive, monopolized factories. A lot of people can agree with those points, but only the right wing talks in this language.
true, and if someone is receptive to the ideas, they’re eventually going to read that anyway. Its far better to post stuff that doesnt completely ignore the past 150 years of history and has relevant anecdotes for the present. Like yeah, I’m a nerd, I enjoy reading about people’s contemporaneous feelings on the decades leading up to WWI, and how much of a different world they thought was possible and who was able to correctly predict what’d happen. Most people don’t give a single shit about that sort of thing though, and would much rather read theory that discusses Bezos, the 2008 economic crash, the gig economy, and other relevant stuff to them, rather thoughts on if the new unified germanic empire has more revolutionary potential than prussia.
I honestly think we should be brigading a lot more, it only takes like 200 people to meaningfully alter the comments of a thread, even ones that are fairly big and on /r/all.
No reason we should cede one of the biggest websites on the internet to rightwingers.
Hot take, I don’t think the Communist Manifesto is the best thing to read for someone who doesn’t know shit about that sort of stuff, because it doesn’t say that much that is concretely relevant and easy to understand for someone today who doesn’t know history and can’t easily make the connection between then and now.
Its literally 170 years old, there must be something more relevant we can recommend.
It’s not that it is irrelevant exactly, it is just that it requires some effort to understand the relevance, which defeats its point as an intro text.
Gotcha fam it’s called Why Communism? by Moissaye J. Olgin
This is a good idea, but what you need to do is create the environment where the neolibs accuse every left of them of coming from here. Let them do the job of pushing people here.
So what your saying is, we should screenshot this post and put it on /r/neolib or /r/drama to stir shit lmao
Post MLK quotes, libs will feel guilty for downvoting.
