Chapotraphouse

This is such an epidemic on reddit. That is, people in left-wing spaces always talking about "Americans aren't doing this, Americans aren't doing that, why won't anybody do something". Like you said, that's US, that's YOU as socialists or whatever. Who the hell else is supposed to change things? DSA/PSL/FRSO/Code-Pink/Samidoun/whatever are the opposition in the US. There is no other "adult in the room" that you can just whine at and have things fixed. There are no official rules. There is no bigger plan. What we have now is what exists.

Was listening to the most recent ChapoTrapHouse episode and they do the same crap. Endlessly complaining about Democrats. Like what do you want Democrats to do? You hate them. They're evil. Why are you complaining that they're not doing something you know they aren't going to do? (It's because they need something to talk about on a podcast, I get it, whatever)

If you don't have an organization or can't join one or anything then you can also just go get to know your neighbors. That sounds super small and inconsequential but neighbors who know each other work together, and neighbors who don't just assume that everyone else deserves the bad things that happen.

Get active in your community, socialist or not. Help each other with small things or big things. Be there. If your community sucks this is how you change that, by being part of the community that doesn't suck. And when the time comes all these little communities who are already helping each other will absolutely come out and help their nearby communities and it spirals into revolution before you know it.

I think many of the users who did this eventually stopped using the site

yeah seriously. honestly, unless you live in the global south or imperial periphery, quit with the performative "we're doomed because the American proletariat sucks so much ass, wah wah wah" bullshit. if you're American you want an excuse not to do shit while simultaneously feeling better than the Rest of the Treatlerites, if you live in another imperial core country you benefit from the same fucking satanic exploitation (and honestly your working class gets a bigger slice of the suffering-pie since a lot of yall are social democracies).

if you already do stuff or idk live deep in CHUD country and there just aren't any orgs near you, disregard this post it is not directed at you. 

Talking to my org tonight about escalating past protests. The locals are good at organizing emergency pickets but need a push to go past that.

I have probably been a bit too vitriolic towards Americans in the past few weeks. It's easy to make fun of them, but as someone in another Imperial core country, my own country's people aren't much better when it comes to any sort of class consciousness and geopolitical understanding. It's easier to make fun of someone for the worst opinion possible, than it is to actively agitate and educate in a country full of "almost as bad but not quite" opinions.

"Nooooope. Not getting out of this chair."

Good call to arms. This-type-of-post is often very guilt-trippy but I thought you did a good job of trying to motivate people without being too insulting or whatever.

This is, to varying extents, also true anywhere in the core vassal states.

I specifically mean join a local chapter of an existing socialist organization that exists and is real

If only there was one. I've been talking with the nearest PSL chapters. DSA doesn't exist here. PSL doesn't exist anywhere near here. The guy I'm in contact with at the PSL isn't even in my state.

Even if you have nothing going on at all, you can still go out there and be a better person in any way you're capable, someone is bound to notice it and join you eventually. Small acts of generosity have the potential to change your community.

I think that what's necessary, I don't want to do, and don't want anyone else to do. I don't see a better option than watching from the sidelines, and event after event killing me inside a little bit more each time. It's gotten to a point where I was to hear someone say "This time feels different" to bring me back down to earth and realize "oh, nothings gonna change"

We need revolutionary optimism now more than ever

Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.

— Marx (source)

Applies to life in general I’d say. Communists have to understand the power and necessity of the example. Sometimes people just need an example to follow and they’ll follow it if the conditions are otherwise there. Heck, Christianity has shown us how effective this is with the WWJD thing.

Being a communist is about setting the example, demonstrating the path forward in practice.

Communism is not merely critique, it is not merely negation of capitalism. That is the starting point only. Communism is essentially a positive movement, ie a new thing posited, put forward. In Hegelian terms it is negation of negation. It’s too easy to forget this and get stuck in critique mode. But to build is to be creative, and creativity is an entirely separate mode of thought; this is, for example, why writers separate the tasks of drafting and revision.

W.

could the admin amplify/pin some posts which assist in local organizing? maybe that's a service that's actually helpful and constructive, rather than, you know, merely pinning dozens of inane megathreads.

Very submissive