chapotraphouse

This is just the default behavior in China (and most past and present AES countries). In China, saying you're a communist means you're a card-carrying member of a communist party. If you're in the party for purely careerist aims or you cheated your way into becoming a member, people will say that you're a shitty communist but a communist nonetheless. Meanwhile, nobody gives two shits if you think communism is cool and act like the perfect communist, whatever the hell that means, if you're not a member of a party. China isn't like the US where you can never go to church but still claim to be a Christian because you "have a personal relationship with Jesus." China is a place where you can disbelief the existence of gods but if you perform the proper religious rites, people will say that you are devoutly religious.

Okay but engaging in socialist practice mostly looks like reading, writing, thinking a lot, listening, and talking to people. The standards of productive labor under capitalism are unnatural, but we internalize them as a measure of ourselves. Granted, being a socialist begins with an uneasy feeling that basically never goes away, but comradeship is actually really great and worth the headaches. But before I started experiencing some of the good things from engaging in struggle I had to, or like try to, abandon a lot of these capitalist conceptions of value, which alienates us from our own humanity.

We need more people engaging with socialism and politics, not chiding others about their crypto liberalism, not beating oneself up about not doing enough (but do more please.) Thinking, developing our self and our ability to reason, learning about socialism is engaging in socialist activity. Its not enough like forever, and eventually in order to keep growing you have to apply those developments to try and make changes for the benefit of workers and everybody else, but if you're at the point where you're just realizing you still have some liberal tendencies even though you trash libs all day on social media, then you're probably okay to just study and just finding some socialists to have regular discussions with.

right wing folks jump to action much more readily than us. no wonder they are still advancing while we crawl.

even mangione was kind of chuddy and he had to be the one to deliver us the head of a ceo.

are lefties that depressed and hopeless? i think our collective armchairs have been heating up lately.

It simple wild that I encounter this thread while scrolling on 🍠

It's dang true though, and the fact that anyone can reply to that defensively is a joke. WTF is your political ideology if all you do it turn it into an aesthetic and a set of cultural markers? That's not an ideology, that's a fashionable outfit that you put on, a subculture. You shouldn't be a socialist the same way you're a goth or a punk or whatever, it should be a plan of action that manifests itself in your day to day activities.

Socialist is a pretty broad term. So this is kind of a silly point to argue.

But historically in many countries a communist was an active party member.

If you weren't a member you were a "communist sympathiser" or a "fellow traveller" if you were some sort of anticapitalist or antiimperialist activist.

And like that too was enough to get you brought in front of HUAC or murdered in some countries.

We all live in the 21th century and these words and meanings are going to change, I know I will alternate somewhere between the simplicity of "I'm a communist" to the nuance of "I think Marxism-Leninism has provided us the best answers to overthrowing the present state of things"

Got mutual aid tomorrow comrades🤘fuck the police

Socialist practice is what you do before the big game.

Mask.

Damn, I almost responded to that comment. I would have been Hexbear Famous

I'm a socialist with liberal characteristics

Nice try.

Sometimes I am poop when I should be shit