Tag: anarchism

Leftists who turn their personal beefs into political ones should be ashamed of themselves.

The personal is political but not like that. The revolution is impossible if your ego is more important than building a viable movement.

Honestly building communism means being sociable.  People adopt the beliefs of their peer group.  So we can just absorb people like a big red amoeba if we just keep making more friends and inserting them into our social group.  Getting some cultural consensus and influencing the base consensus assumptions people have about reality (as neo-liberal ideas became cultural consensus for awhile) so go to that party, join that book club, go for drinks with your coworkers, make memes, and build communism.

You can get non commies to repeat commie ideas if they hear them often enough, and once you get those base assumptions (like the labor theory of value) in there it’s a hop skip and a jump to waving a red flag and singing the internationale.

Also humor is a great tool because it gets shared for its amusement value even by people who don’t necessarily agree with the politics, and is a great way of slipping ideas in under the radar. Also it challenges one of the biggest shitty assumptions about communists (which is that were dour and humorless and no fun)

Make an effort to be nice, welcoming and non-prickly. Invite people to board game nights (with a bunch of communists), invite them out for drinks (with a bunch of communists), to house parties (with a bunch of communists), and dinner parties (with a bunch of communists) and don’t waste time having insular minor theoretical arguments with weird Trot sects, just out organize them.

In the end, the prostitutes began to look after their own interests. A little time had elapsed before they began thinking of vindicating them­selves. One day they realised that they also could be in the revolution. Immediately they turned out the patrons to whom the houses belonged and occupied the working premises. They proclaimed their equality. After a number of stormy debates, they formed a trade-union and presented a petition for affiliation to the C.N.T. All profits were equally shared. Henceforth, instead of the usual former picture of the ‘Sacred Heart,’ a framed notice was hung up in every brothel announcing: ‘You are requested to treat the women as comrades. – The Committee. (By order.)

Mary Low, Red Spanish Notebook

I just don’t get primitivists, like if you wanna go live in the woods, go live in the woods, and stop writing anti-civilization manifestos.  No other truly leftist tendency is going to stop you, but the rest of us like pooping indoors and would prefer to continue to do so.  Have fun.