MayoPete

It's a weird nitpicky thing that makes no sense. If you can't even use the actual name for the CPC why should I believe a single word you say about China?

Are most libs just this ignorant or is there some sort of narrative/propaganda behind getting the name wrong?

Everything is fine

I don't know what to do with my life. My local organizing is in limbo and I'm not sure I want to keep doing it for several reasons. I don't have a job, lost mine when my campaign work officially ended on 12/1. I used to write code for a living but really don't want to go back into it. It's not what I want to do for a living. Also....

Capitalism is dumb. Really really stupid. I hate how there are so many people busting their butts working in Amazon warehouses or meat packing plants, or those kids mining rare metals in Africa, making scraps and actually making all of these modern Capitalist treats possible. And then there's people who are clicking a few buttons on a stock broker app and pulling in thousands of dollars just like that!

Actually working for an honest wage feels like a scam at this point. I get to be pushed around, mentally distressed (hooray Autism) and eventually stressed out to the point of burning out for whatever wage I "agree" to take (aka whatever "the market" says I'm worth). OR I can turn the trading I'm doing into a "system" and hone it to a point where I can pull in $300-500 per day making trades on the market.

I'm not even talking about a fancy trading strategy with a bunch of indicators or other nonsense. I'm just scalping SPY, buying Call or Put options at a certain point and selling them when they go up in price by 20 cents. 25 contracts x .20 profit / share / contract = $500 - $25 in broker fees = $475. In theory I could run this every day and be in and out of my trade within minutes. The full strategy has risk management rules and then the "hard part" is picking the right entry point for each trade.

I'll be running a back test on this simple plan but I know from actually doing it on a smaller scale that it works. It's so dumb how I can make (and lose) a month's rent on a single trade.

It's disgusting. On one hand I am glad I have this "gift" of hyper-focus so that I can dig into topics like day trading and figure it out. OTOH there's a lot of jealousy over people who I see out and about as "normal" and knowing I'm not going to be them. Part of me wishes I could just deal with a 9-5 job like most people and maybe empty my mind of Politics. I'd be less informed but maybe happier?

The other thing that bothers me is that Capitalism is pushing me towards this route. I'd rather be spending my time learning how to make music, mixing with the gear I have, reading some of these theory and history books that are piling up, or doing something actually good for society. However I need money to survive and after going through plenty of really bad programming jobs I guess I'd rather try to make money on my own. So here I am, becoming the financial equivalent of a river leech, sucking some blood from my host each day, and those hosts being parasites themselves, those stock prices rising from stealing the labor value of everyone possible, charging as much as possible, screwing over everyone as much as they can get away with.

Can't escape ads anywhere

I'm writing this as a response to the linked thread and realized it should be it's own post.

I'll be brief: My DSA chapter is in the planning stages of what we will focus on next year. We are a smaller chapter so we are working to pick programs that we can realistically do with a handful of people.

I read a lot on here about how orgs such as this one are doing everything wrong... so is there a step-by-step guide to doing the "right" thing?

Potential programs we may pursue next year (these are being put up to a vote in a few weeks):

• A internal membership development program. Lots of political education including a reading group for the new translation of Capital Vol. 1

• An agitprop program. We will teach each other how to work Canva/GIMP, design flyers, posters and other media and start being more outgoing around the area with our advertising.

• A "mass line" project where we plan to hold community "listening sessions" in the more impoverished parts of town.

• A Crisis Pregnancy Center awareness campaign. We would point out these centers around town, agitate against them through awareness campaigns and maybe lobby to get them banned in our area?

What would you pick and why?

Recently I posted a pretty harmless meme in my DSA chapter's Discord (see image). It was in response to South Korea's recent spate of Fascism.

In response I had comrades jump down my throat, attacking me for critical support of AES states like DPRK and China. According to these comrades "there is no real Socialist nation."

As tempting as it is to quit DSA I think I should stay and try to educate.

Comrades also jumped on me for a comment I made months ago in response to some right wing BS where I said "maybe Democracy isn't always a great idea". The point I was trying to make was that Trans rights and other basic freedoms should never be put up to a popularity contest... I'm ok with a state that defends these rights and doesn't allow a reactionary majority to vote them away!

During this thread, people brought up multiple times that DPRK isn't Democratic because the Kim's have always been the figurehead, China isn't Democratic because "reasons" (racism), China lies about their suicide rates to WHO, etc.

Frustrating. I'll post more details in the comments.

My question: What constitutes a "real" Democracy? Is it leadership changing hands every few years? We don't have that in the U.S. Is it secret ballots? All the nationa above have that. Is it that the people's votes and voices actually change the government actions? We saw this in China unfortunately when people demanded ending the COVID lock downs early. It was the wrong thing to do but done for the right reason.

And is there any hope for these people in my chapter? One of them was basically racist against Chinese people and they seem very set in this "not real Socialism" mindset.

I finally have a decent DJ setup for the first time in years. I saw someone else posting some nice Jungle on here... any recommendations in these genres?

Atmospheric Jungle / DnB ([https://virtualwound.bandcamp.com/album/vw001](pic related)

Neurofunk / HARD DnB like this [https://youtu.be/zA7U8VbgZyM](Freeland - We Want Your Soul Raiden Remix)

Breakcore

Where will the libs go now 🤔

tl;dr I believe we are failing to "bridge the gap" between disaffected libs and baby leftists. I want to help fix this.

I want to focus my efforts next year on creating effective propaganda, learning how to make better propaganda, and sharing this with comrades as much as possible.

The Comfortable Class

I live what American politicians would call a "middle class" lifestyle. I live in a suburban area surrounded by other people who seem to have the same broad level of comfort to me. While in Marxist terms we would all be Proletarians or "working class", I'd prefer to add a sub-class to this that I'm calling the "comfortable class". We're not owners of Capital nor small business owners so Bourgeois or Petit-Bourgeois doesn't apply here. However, we're also not a paycheck away from homelessness, nor are we reliant on food stamps or other direct aid to live. We're probably working one main full-time job with a steady schedule. Maybe we have a "side hustle" but it's not necessary to keep it going to pay bills. I think you get the point.

Life may be somewhat comfortable, but it is not good. It's not good for anyone. Maybe I'm just projecting here, but I don't see anyone around me that's actually happy. Everyone seems pissed off, more aggressive, and on shorter tempers than I've seen ever before.

How I joined the Left

Without doxxing myself too much... Based on my identity and class position I should be a Republican. Or at least a centrist Democrat. But I'm not. I am part of the LGBT community, have a diagnosis for Autism, and never quite fit in with "normal" people.

I started my political life phonebanking for Obama, then did some Democratic Party politics for a while, fell in love with Bernie Sanders and resonated with everything he was saying, fell out of love with Democrats, and slowly drifted farther left until I became who I am today.

I believe I got here because of my non-typical identity plus a lot of patient reading, listening, and debating politics. Politics is one of my "hyper focus" subjects, which means I tend to consume way too much of it as I get fixated on learning as much as I can. I can't expect others like me to follow this path.

I feel like a lot of us have similar backgrounds or similar back stories. A lot of us are neurodiverse, disabled, or some form of queer. I'm glad we're able to come together and help each other under this banner of Marxism.

We can't wait for material conditions to get worse

It's something I see a lot as I try to reason with what to do as a Leftist. I've been told several times that we have to wait until the material conditions deteriorate enough for people to see our side of things. I don't want to wait... A lot of people are suffering NOW! And I'm not just talking about the peripheral nations; life sucks in the U.S. too! It's just easier to ignore than in a place like the Philippines.

Reaching the frustrated "normies"

We can't build a revolution with the numbers we have. We must grow!

There has to be a way to reach people who are beginning to see the cracks in the current system, but are struggling to find real solutions. People who are disenfranchised by our current electoral system, that don't vote because they see no point, that are checked out of following which person is President because nothing ever changes. People that aren't going to naturally drift towards the left because of their life circumstances. "Normies"

Read this post from a non-voter in NC. There are a lot more potential revolutionaries from this group than from the place I came from!

How do people become leftists today?

There's a common Marketing concept known as a "engagement funnel" or "sales funnel". What this funnel model shows is the path a potential buyer of a product or service falls through to get from zero ("I don't even know you exist") to a sale ("I bought your thing and am becoming an evangelist for your brand").

What does the Left "funnel" look like?

You start with the general public. Take out everyone who is a committed Fascist, Conservative, and die-hard Democrat. That's one part of the funnel.

The people who get to the next stage are potential Leftists, but now they need to know that Marxism exists. That takes another huge chunk of people out of the equation. With the sorry state of education in the U.S. this is a huge gap we have to overcome. How can someone become a Socialist if they've never even heard of that word?

Next we have people who have at least heard the S-word, but now they are turned away for some reason. Maybe it's propaganda claiming we killed 100 million people with a giant spoon, or Uyghurs, iPhone vuvuzela, or one of a hundred other talking points that keeps people from looking at what we have to offer. Lots of people fall out of the funnel here. I believe there's enough material out there to debunk all of these tired attacks at this point. Maybe they're not in the most accessible format but the content is definitely out there for people to find.

What's left? We are now looking at people who know Socialism exists and are curious enough to learn more about it beyond the mainstream smears. Great! This is our potential base of recruits! What do we have for these people? Maybe some of them are watching Second Thought or streaming Hasan, or maybe they're listening to Chapo (that's how I started)? If they're lucky, they know about these things and eventually want to learn more about this whole Socialism thing.

This is where the easiest-to-patch gap in our funnel is.

If people somehow get enough knowledge or inspiration to get past "I like the occasional LeftTok video" what do they have to welcome them? Read theory. Read Settlers. Read Marx. Read Lenin. Read Blackshirts and Reds. etc.

A lot of reading, and not easy reading either.

I believe everyone on this forum is at this point. We're all through the funnel. I have these books and more on my reading list, I'm doing study groups, etc. But most people, even those who would be comrades, aren't going to get to this step. They're going to fall out of the funnel because learning about Socialism is too hard! It's Hasan and then BAM here's a mountain of books to read!

Summary

In the marketing "funnel" that is converting people to leftism, we are falling short in two places:

• There's a major gap in the funnel where people would find out Socialism exists at all.

• Getting people from casual left "content consumer" to a true "revolutionary"

We need agit prop to cover both these gaps. What do you think?

Cultural imprinting is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the landscape of cultural meanings — which in turn changes how we are perceived by others when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser "says" something about you. But you aren't in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign.

This is an important read as we start producing our agitprop. There's a lot to think about as we try producing messages that will actually break through to the masses.

This org has been emailing me to apply for months. IDK how to feel about it. On one hand it's one of those things that probably looks good on a resume & being in D.C. would be sweet. OTOH this looks like a neoliberalism incubator... but I also need money.

The top reasons voters gave for not supporting Harris were that inflation was too high (+24), too many immigrants crossed the border (+23), and that Harris was too focused on cultural issues rather than helping the middle class (+17).

Other high-testing reasons were that the debt rose too much under the Biden-Harris Administration (+13), and that Harris would be too similar to Joe Biden (+12).

These concerns were similar across all demographic groups, including among Black and Latino voters, who both selected inflation as their top problem with Harris. For swing voters who eventually chose Trump, cultural issues ranked slightly higher than inflation (+28 and +23, respectively).

The lowest-ranked concerns were that Harris wasn’t similar enough to Biden (-24), was too conservative (-23), and was too pro-Israel (-22).

We have a lot of work to do. The general public doesn't understand their own economic system and blames everyone except Capitalists for their eggs costing $5 instead of $2.

Also those numbers around "Israel" and Palestine...