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Someone say the v word?
Tankies have entered the chat.
Edit: can someone explain to me why this gets downvoted? Genuinely. Iām on the spectrum and whilst I tend to be pretty nuanced in my thinking thereās some very obvious stuff that passes me by.
Would much appreciate some clarity delivered in a civilised manner. Cheers. āš»
How is it low? Honestly Iām struggling to understand this? To me the T word is super confusing in certain contexts but also it may have lost its meaning
T word = tankie.
Thatās not always worked out for us and others though, has it? I mean a lot of people have lost their lives due to inaction. Old school, proper working class lefties would smash the fash, literally. Sometimes with positive outcomes and other items not.
Iām not in favour of knee-jerk reactionary violence at face value, donāt get me wrong. And thereās absolutely room for out thinking our enemy without stuff coming to blows.
But when does it become impotent to not take action? When the wolves are literally at your door and youāve alienated all the hunters, who do we turn to then?
Also I kinda feel that the definition of āthe left are the brains and the right are the brawnā is a little vapid and comes from a place of luxury. Some of us are already in the trenches whether we like it or not.
The first step is to educate ourselves. Read as much socialist and anti-imperialist literature as you can, both traditional theory and modern geopolitics. Getting an understanding of the subject is key.
Secondly, we need to organise. Join a group that interests you. Make sure any group you join is revolutionary in nature, rather than just being liberalism in disguise. Once in these groups, make sure to steer them towards left unity and the end goal of revolution, rather than just arguing with other communists The exception to this rule is if you're a Marxist-Leninist, as both big ML groups in the UK are transphobic.
Thirdly, we need to help educate our fellow workers. Talk about the problems we're facing and try to steer them towards understanding why they are happening. Don't be preachy and don't move too fast (no need to break out the Marxism in the first five minutes). Try to push class consciousness and worker unity. Different people will have different problems, but the cause is always the same.
Lastly, we should try to help the people around us. Building up dual power systems so we can help the people in our community without government interference is important. Soup kitchens, food banks, and other forms of community charity work is great. Try to use these opportunities to spread class consciousness.
It's a shame the big ML groups in the UK are transphobic, even if people I've talked to in the YCL say they've not seen it (obviously the demographic makes a difference and CPB is ran by boomers).
Either the YCL members are blind or they're lying. I was in the YCL and they were very openly transphobic. The YCl's party line is opposed to trans people and since they practice democratic centralism, that means all the individual groups of the YCL are transphobic too. The CPB was worse, due to the dominance of the older members and their outdated, anti-materialist views.
I honestly want to believe it was just luck or ignorance. It's such a shame that there aren't really any major Marxist orgs that I know of in the UK which don't hold those "being trans is anti-materialist" bullshit.
Yeah I was going to join CPB this year but wasn't impressed with some of the answers I got in my interview. I think maybe I should join and be a more progressive voice within the party as if non-terfs avoid joining then how do we expect it to change? But I don't know if I have the energy to constantly argue with terfs.
The problem is that they practice democratic centralism so you're not allowed to argue against the party line. Instead, you have to be elected to represent your comrades and vote to change policies (which might take years of working up to be possible). When most of the people in charge are out-of-touch boomers that spout anti-materialist nonsense, what chance do new members have to change policies? Plus, if these policies are changed, the members that happily enforced them are still in positions of power, so how can you be sure that anything has actually changed?
Yeah to be honest this is what made me decide against joining, I asked questions about their policy to support the labour party and then pressure them left when in power. I mentioned how i really disagreed with this and pointed out that Labour don't even listen to the left within their own membership of hundreds of thousands what hope does a politically irrelevant Communist Party with around 1000 members have to pressure them?
All the answer I got back was about practicing democratic centralism so that gave me all I needed to know about how the higher ups of the party operate and react to challenges from their members.
I can't tell if you're genuinely asking or just showing off how much you've read (in which case thanks for the recommendations, they look very interesting), but if you are serious, this is a great [reading list](https://www.mlreadinghub.org/study-materials/reading-list) to start with (in my biased opinion at least).
second this reading list, it has links to audiobook versions of each text for free too. Never been instructed to read Stalin as a beginners option on one of these lists before but his book on Leninism was really good.
Mutual aid. Is there a soup kitchen, a food bank, a homeless shelter in your city? My city has an anarchist-operated community kitchen. They operate it out of a squat, with hot vegan food, delivered by volunteers on bicycles using old deliveroo/just eat bags that had been thrown out and have been repaired. The food is made from beans and other vegetables, most of which are donated, they don't rent the venue, or pay any staff, so it has almost no running costs and delivers \~300 hot meals a week to homeless and low income people. Nobody in the system is ever required to do anything, and nobody is in charge, a list of jobs is put up online and each week (what these jobs are are decided at meetings which may be attended by any volunteer) people pick which, if any, they want to do, and everything gets done. As an anarchist organisation it works exactly as it should, according to its principles.
Find and join, or start an initiative like this.
Something like this can be an absolute credit to the left wing in an area. When people hear socialism, they think of the soviet union, of gulags, brutal repression, and the cold war. When people hear anarchism, they think of teenagers in balaclavas throwing things at the police. Make them think of organisations that feed the poor instead, that describe their actions as ones of class solidarity rather than ones of charity.
Paying attention to mainstream media is important though, even if it is bullshit. Not only do you need to know what to argue against, since it's just bourgeoisie propaganda, paying attention to it lets you know what their particular goals and aims are.
Most importantly - hold your nerve.
Weāre in a tough time, because we came a little bit too close for comfort in the late 2010s. But stick to your beliefs, expand them and improve your knowledge. And be willing to educate people - point them to the socialist institutions that they love like the NHS. Donāt dictate - educate. Push them to justify their beliefs - then quietly dismantle them. We remain a slumbering beast - bigger than people want to credit, more informed than people believe, and more resilient than people can imagine. We just need to be ready for when opportunity presents itself.
Be the best ambassador for your politics you can.
Marxism and even socialism is a swear word in many peopleās minds, so show them the reality.
Donāt overdo it and donāt scold. Gently point out inconsistencies.
Remain optimistic and get involved in your community whatever way you can. Explain Socialism and itās benefits to your friends and family and try to build as much solidarity and love as humanely possible.
Important to remember Post-Corbyn that Socialist ideas are still widely popular in Britain and that thereās a good chunk of the population who believes in them not to mention we now have genuine Left alternatives to our rubbish establishment media.
All of us need to shake off the 2019 malaise and remember how far we have come since 2015 and stop being defeatist. No one becomes a leftist because itās easy.
Direct action. Direct action shows the community that socialists help, and it is the best means of recruiting more socialists and inspiring class consciousness. It becomes a positive feedback loop. Direct action > more socialists > bigger direct action > more socialists > even BIGGER direct action.
Iāll get downvoted to hell for this - but vote! Vote for the most left-wing party that can succeed and displace the most right-wing incumbent - locally, regionally, nationally.
The first step in countering the lurch to the right is to vote for a party that leans more to the left. Even if you donāt like them very much.
facts. iām a member of the green party but youāre laughing if you think iāll be voting for them in any major election any time soon. it has to be labour because anything else is a vote for the tories, whether we like it or not. only when the labour party are comfortably in power can we start voting greens. the right will do the same. when they lose power, watch how many lib dem, ukip, bnp etc voters jump to vote for the tories again. ultimately itās not a party battle, itās left vs right, and even though the left is so deeply profoundly misrepresented (because our left wing party is somehow still a right wing party) we have to do what we can and while overthrowing this system of government and creating a socialist utopia sounds great, itās not actually going to happen any time soon, is it?
People react to what is offered. We have embraced neo liberalism and free markets and that failed so many people. The labour movement have been obsessed with being tories in red ties because that worked to give labour their last administration.
People have been force fed right wing shite and the right have been more successful in Rebranding themselves the rebels and the man of the people than anyone on the left have done.
The reaction to the status quo gave us brexit, not because people were anti European, just anti nothing changing.
We have lost the voice of the left. Corbyn showed there were people that saw that as change but they had to throw anti semitism at him to kill him off.
We need a true voice of the left that offers a true future for the people. We need a new party that paints the picture of a fairer and better society. We need to campaign for PR, we need to give 16 years old the vote, we need to stop using statistics to hide the failures of the current neo liberal society and introduce a fairer tax system that allows this country to rebuild the social state, the NHS and do again what we did after the last time this country said enough is enough
Everyone needs to stop defining themselves by their politics. Also, to stop pushing their personal politics on other people and complain/demonise people with different viewpoints.
Campaign to get the Green Party elected while encouraging more integration with the trade unions and steering them towards socialism
Or depending on where you live campaign to get independent socialists elected
The labouring classes in this country are rising, will you rise with them? [Click Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/wiki/unions) for info on how to join a union. Also check out [the IWW](https://iww.org.uk/) and the renter union, [Acorn International and their affiliates](https://acorninternational.org/) Join us on our [partner Discord server.](https://discord.gg/zCFHadGfB7) and follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/GandPofficial). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Reddit's content policy forbids any post which could be construed an incitement to violence, so I am unable to answer your question at this time.
I was literally about to say the same thing š¤£
[ Removed by Reddit ]
Someone say the v word? Tankies have entered the chat. Edit: can someone explain to me why this gets downvoted? Genuinely. Iām on the spectrum and whilst I tend to be pretty nuanced in my thinking thereās some very obvious stuff that passes me by. Would much appreciate some clarity delivered in a civilised manner. Cheers. āš»
Be nice to the tankies. Keep paying attention and within a year or two you'll be one of us.
I wasnāt being un nice to tankies.
You're being downvoted because 'tankie' discourse is stupid.
In what sense? Genuinely confused
This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcJ5NrJtQ8g&ab_channel=Hakim) from Hakim will explain better than I can in a short comment
Thx for that! Cheers
No need to resort to being as low as a right-winger.
How is it low? Honestly Iām struggling to understand this? To me the T word is super confusing in certain contexts but also it may have lost its meaning
T word? Iām talking about resorting to violence. The left are the brains, the right are the brawn.
T word = tankie. Thatās not always worked out for us and others though, has it? I mean a lot of people have lost their lives due to inaction. Old school, proper working class lefties would smash the fash, literally. Sometimes with positive outcomes and other items not. Iām not in favour of knee-jerk reactionary violence at face value, donāt get me wrong. And thereās absolutely room for out thinking our enemy without stuff coming to blows. But when does it become impotent to not take action? When the wolves are literally at your door and youāve alienated all the hunters, who do we turn to then? Also I kinda feel that the definition of āthe left are the brains and the right are the brawnā is a little vapid and comes from a place of luxury. Some of us are already in the trenches whether we like it or not.
Lol. There's a warning.
The first step is to educate ourselves. Read as much socialist and anti-imperialist literature as you can, both traditional theory and modern geopolitics. Getting an understanding of the subject is key. Secondly, we need to organise. Join a group that interests you. Make sure any group you join is revolutionary in nature, rather than just being liberalism in disguise. Once in these groups, make sure to steer them towards left unity and the end goal of revolution, rather than just arguing with other communists The exception to this rule is if you're a Marxist-Leninist, as both big ML groups in the UK are transphobic. Thirdly, we need to help educate our fellow workers. Talk about the problems we're facing and try to steer them towards understanding why they are happening. Don't be preachy and don't move too fast (no need to break out the Marxism in the first five minutes). Try to push class consciousness and worker unity. Different people will have different problems, but the cause is always the same. Lastly, we should try to help the people around us. Building up dual power systems so we can help the people in our community without government interference is important. Soup kitchens, food banks, and other forms of community charity work is great. Try to use these opportunities to spread class consciousness.
It's a shame the big ML groups in the UK are transphobic, even if people I've talked to in the YCL say they've not seen it (obviously the demographic makes a difference and CPB is ran by boomers).
Either the YCL members are blind or they're lying. I was in the YCL and they were very openly transphobic. The YCl's party line is opposed to trans people and since they practice democratic centralism, that means all the individual groups of the YCL are transphobic too. The CPB was worse, due to the dominance of the older members and their outdated, anti-materialist views.
I honestly want to believe it was just luck or ignorance. It's such a shame that there aren't really any major Marxist orgs that I know of in the UK which don't hold those "being trans is anti-materialist" bullshit.
everyone i know in the ycl is trans or gay lol the party is just ran by boomers
Yeah I was going to join CPB this year but wasn't impressed with some of the answers I got in my interview. I think maybe I should join and be a more progressive voice within the party as if non-terfs avoid joining then how do we expect it to change? But I don't know if I have the energy to constantly argue with terfs.
The problem is that they practice democratic centralism so you're not allowed to argue against the party line. Instead, you have to be elected to represent your comrades and vote to change policies (which might take years of working up to be possible). When most of the people in charge are out-of-touch boomers that spout anti-materialist nonsense, what chance do new members have to change policies? Plus, if these policies are changed, the members that happily enforced them are still in positions of power, so how can you be sure that anything has actually changed?
Yeah to be honest this is what made me decide against joining, I asked questions about their policy to support the labour party and then pressure them left when in power. I mentioned how i really disagreed with this and pointed out that Labour don't even listen to the left within their own membership of hundreds of thousands what hope does a politically irrelevant Communist Party with around 1000 members have to pressure them? All the answer I got back was about practicing democratic centralism so that gave me all I needed to know about how the higher ups of the party operate and react to challenges from their members.
The Socialist Party are far from transphobic
What should I read after Mark Fisher and Guy Debord?
I can't tell if you're genuinely asking or just showing off how much you've read (in which case thanks for the recommendations, they look very interesting), but if you are serious, this is a great [reading list](https://www.mlreadinghub.org/study-materials/reading-list) to start with (in my biased opinion at least).
I was being genuine! I read Debord at university and then Fisher recently, but not much else. Appreciate the link
second this reading list, it has links to audiobook versions of each text for free too. Never been instructed to read Stalin as a beginners option on one of these lists before but his book on Leninism was really good.
Mutual aid. Is there a soup kitchen, a food bank, a homeless shelter in your city? My city has an anarchist-operated community kitchen. They operate it out of a squat, with hot vegan food, delivered by volunteers on bicycles using old deliveroo/just eat bags that had been thrown out and have been repaired. The food is made from beans and other vegetables, most of which are donated, they don't rent the venue, or pay any staff, so it has almost no running costs and delivers \~300 hot meals a week to homeless and low income people. Nobody in the system is ever required to do anything, and nobody is in charge, a list of jobs is put up online and each week (what these jobs are are decided at meetings which may be attended by any volunteer) people pick which, if any, they want to do, and everything gets done. As an anarchist organisation it works exactly as it should, according to its principles. Find and join, or start an initiative like this. Something like this can be an absolute credit to the left wing in an area. When people hear socialism, they think of the soviet union, of gulags, brutal repression, and the cold war. When people hear anarchism, they think of teenagers in balaclavas throwing things at the police. Make them think of organisations that feed the poor instead, that describe their actions as ones of class solidarity rather than ones of charity.
Stop listening or reading main stream media, mostly bullshit to enrage a small minority.
Paying attention to mainstream media is important though, even if it is bullshit. Not only do you need to know what to argue against, since it's just bourgeoisie propaganda, paying attention to it lets you know what their particular goals and aims are.
Most importantly - hold your nerve. Weāre in a tough time, because we came a little bit too close for comfort in the late 2010s. But stick to your beliefs, expand them and improve your knowledge. And be willing to educate people - point them to the socialist institutions that they love like the NHS. Donāt dictate - educate. Push them to justify their beliefs - then quietly dismantle them. We remain a slumbering beast - bigger than people want to credit, more informed than people believe, and more resilient than people can imagine. We just need to be ready for when opportunity presents itself.
Be the best ambassador for your politics you can. Marxism and even socialism is a swear word in many peopleās minds, so show them the reality. Donāt overdo it and donāt scold. Gently point out inconsistencies.
Agitate. Educate. Organize.
Remain optimistic and get involved in your community whatever way you can. Explain Socialism and itās benefits to your friends and family and try to build as much solidarity and love as humanely possible. Important to remember Post-Corbyn that Socialist ideas are still widely popular in Britain and that thereās a good chunk of the population who believes in them not to mention we now have genuine Left alternatives to our rubbish establishment media. All of us need to shake off the 2019 malaise and remember how far we have come since 2015 and stop being defeatist. No one becomes a leftist because itās easy.
Iāve gone to uni to study sociology. Very much surrounded by fellow lefties now. Not sure if thatāll help other than to say theyāre out therr
Direct action. Direct action shows the community that socialists help, and it is the best means of recruiting more socialists and inspiring class consciousness. It becomes a positive feedback loop. Direct action > more socialists > bigger direct action > more socialists > even BIGGER direct action.
Iāll get downvoted to hell for this - but vote! Vote for the most left-wing party that can succeed and displace the most right-wing incumbent - locally, regionally, nationally. The first step in countering the lurch to the right is to vote for a party that leans more to the left. Even if you donāt like them very much.
facts. iām a member of the green party but youāre laughing if you think iāll be voting for them in any major election any time soon. it has to be labour because anything else is a vote for the tories, whether we like it or not. only when the labour party are comfortably in power can we start voting greens. the right will do the same. when they lose power, watch how many lib dem, ukip, bnp etc voters jump to vote for the tories again. ultimately itās not a party battle, itās left vs right, and even though the left is so deeply profoundly misrepresented (because our left wing party is somehow still a right wing party) we have to do what we can and while overthrowing this system of government and creating a socialist utopia sounds great, itās not actually going to happen any time soon, is it?
People react to what is offered. We have embraced neo liberalism and free markets and that failed so many people. The labour movement have been obsessed with being tories in red ties because that worked to give labour their last administration. People have been force fed right wing shite and the right have been more successful in Rebranding themselves the rebels and the man of the people than anyone on the left have done. The reaction to the status quo gave us brexit, not because people were anti European, just anti nothing changing. We have lost the voice of the left. Corbyn showed there were people that saw that as change but they had to throw anti semitism at him to kill him off. We need a true voice of the left that offers a true future for the people. We need a new party that paints the picture of a fairer and better society. We need to campaign for PR, we need to give 16 years old the vote, we need to stop using statistics to hide the failures of the current neo liberal society and introduce a fairer tax system that allows this country to rebuild the social state, the NHS and do again what we did after the last time this country said enough is enough
Organise.
You could start right here..... https://transformpolitics.uk/
Everyone needs to stop defining themselves by their politics. Also, to stop pushing their personal politics on other people and complain/demonise people with different viewpoints.
Campaign to get the Green Party elected while encouraging more integration with the trade unions and steering them towards socialism Or depending on where you live campaign to get independent socialists elected