LiberalSocialist

In this post that I found while browsing via Popular, people are openly talking about Marx and capitalism. In another post I saw, people were praising Lula. These are both posts I found via Popular, ie these are the ones the algo is promoting and are getting a lot of traction. That’s a good sign!

I’m sure there are plenty bad parts to Reddit, and the site as a whole might be astroturfed to hell, but there are so many people there that are open to socialism, maybe more than any other popular social media platform.

Maybe you can’t praise China or talk about Russia, but I feel everything else is game. And honestly? I think that’s fine. If we can get the average Redditor to turn to socialism and to bring down western imperialism, then that is already gonna be the biggest possible help the global south can ask for.

EDIT: AOC is doing what the unions wanted her to do.

https://hexbear.net/post/236928/comment/3033122

DISCLAIMER: Before you jump on me, the below post is to show how much of a dead end electoral politics is. You cannot vote in socialism.

But you should still vote in socialists. The more, the better. Building up the organisations needed to actually bring in socialism is much easier under a more left-adjacent government.

AOC and the other progressive Democrats did not vote for the anti-strike legislation because they’re liberals or hate workers or anything. Their vote was necessary to pass the 7 paid sick days bill. That was the agreement between the progressive and conservative Democrats.

But this nuance is fucking lost on people here. When you play the electoral game, you have to compromise. Every elected official will do so. AOC, Bernie Sanders etc. are not betraying the working class when they support such bills. They’re doing the best they can.

But it’s as if the people here don’t want the best. They just want empty gestures. And when people like AOC do the smart thing that would at least benefit some people, they act as if AOC is the same as Nancy Pelosi.

Guess who wants you to believe that? Guess who benefits from that? The Republicans. It’s grifters like Jimmy Dore and Infrared and Glenn Greenwald that push this rhetoric all to drive more leftists to either apathy or direct support for people like Tucker Carlson and DeSantis who are the “true” populists.

The vote passed by like over a hundred votes. The handful of progressive congresspersons couldn’t have stopped it. But what they could do, was get the other bill with the paid sick leave passed in exchange for a vote that was already going to pass. I mean, it’s like people are forgetting that the latter vote barely passed. Almost no Republican voted for it.

Why? Because the Republicans hate the working class more than the Democrats.

Please don’t forget that.

TLDR: AOC, even if it doesn’t seem like it at times, is better than most Democrats and all Republicans. A Congress and Senate filled with people like AOC will be exponentially more conducive to implementing socialism than any other. It will still not bring in socialism. Socialism can only be achieved by a revolution. But creating the conditions and the organisations and the class consciousness necessary for that revolution, is easier under a social democratic government than any other.

It makes my blood boil.

There’s this new video by a good YouTuber - Value by Unlearning Economics. There was also an article by Ben Burgis for the Jacobin which argued the same.

Is it possible, as both these people argue, to separate Marx’s critique of capitalism from his theory of value? To keep the former and discard the latter?

Edit - I’m not siding with the video or with Burgis, btw. I think Marx’s value theory is correct. I’m just looking for people who can shine some light on this new(?) phenomena of leftists speaking out against LTV while trying “save” Marx’s critique of capital. To me, that just seems like a pointless and hopeless endeavour.

I’m sorry. I failed to understand how deeply the Western propaganda machine is embedded within all that we consider “news” and uncritically believed the AP article because it “seemed true” i.e. confirmed my biases.

Then I got pressed and malded in the comments, when called out.

Thank you for education me. I have some serious learning to do.

Special thanks (and apology) to @Awoo @kristina @American_Communist22 and everyone else who engaged with me over multiple comments. Sorry for being so thick-headed. I’ll do better in the future.

This is unexpected.