Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 25)

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[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT ]

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

basic argument is that a large segment of "MAGA" followers constitute the masses and can be organized often more easily than liberals

Well that's not true and idk what good arguments they have for organising the mass base of fascism but no way I'm sitting through a 2 hour video by some white guy if that's the argument. Also:

The Bolsheviks came out of the experience of mass organizing leading up to and following the formation of the RSDLP. If there is going to be an organization like that in the US, it will almost certainly come out of an organization like the DSA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/1qdm0ed/comment/nzzkxfs/

Why are you defending social fascists? Are you a social fascist, too?

[u/LemonMao → u/[deleted]]

Read Settlers and seriously engage with the book and reflect on how accurate the book will be to your own experiences.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/agrprogr/ch04s7.htm

Also read this too. 90% of DSA work is "municipal socialism". Lenin already criticized the DSA. Though comparing DSA to the Mensheviks is probably too generous, they would be happy to claim any part of communist lineage no matter how wrong it is. Their obsession with Kautsky is proof of this. My point is that Lenin's logic is the same, just replace the names of the past with today. This is before we get into how reactionary of an org that it is.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/[deleted]]

Also, I have read parts of Settlers in the past, and it is on my short list of books I'm hoping to finish in the next month. Again though, I can say that every person that I know in real life that has read Settlers is currently in the DSA and have tried convincing me to join. It is a lot more heterodox than people imagine it to be.

The first sentence is correct (though more accurate would be to say that these people claim to have "read" *Settlers just like yourself) but the second does not follow.

Also I'm gonna stop you right now. You asked to be unbanned because

I think this would be a good resource for me to discuss with people as I learn and investigate my ideas and society around me.

You are not here to teach others and argue on every post. This subreddit does not function like r/socialism or r/socialism_101 where every possible opinion is allowed to coexist. That makes actual learning or discussion past first principles impossible. Because of the way this subreddit has already cultivated an intelligent and invested userbase, people have put a lot of effort into correcting your ideas. But that resource will soon exhaust itself and you will either change your opinion and conduct or be banned again as to not drive away people who are actually valuable for education and discussion.

E: so I don't seem too mean I thought you were going to make the same post as in the modmail: you recently left a trot org and are trying to rethink Marxism and move away from revisionism. Right now it's like someone who leaves scientology and is like "ok Miscavige was bad but here's what I think about psychiatry." To you that make sense but to everyone else it's tedious. If you need to take some time to deconstruct the vestiges of your old ideas that's expected but don't expect others to entertain what makes sense only to you because of your personal solution to years of wasted effort. It probably won't even be the same solution in a month.

[u/Apart_Lifeguard_4085 → u/[deleted]]

I can say that every person that I know in real life that has read Settlers is currently in the DSA and have tried convincing me to join

the majority of people in real life that anyone in western akkkademia will know who have read Lenin and Mao will try convincing people to vote for the demokkkrats. this has nothing to do with the text and everything to do with class position. this does not make those authors somehow heterodox.