this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 90 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (31 children)
  1. Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.

  2. Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer more advanced reading lists regarding Marxism if you'd like, but this is a good starting point.

  3. Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.

  4. Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.

  5. Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must do so.

  6. Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

I think an underrated piece of theory that the right-wing seems to understand and utilize more than the left is Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. They seem to be very good at recuperating our theory and twisting it to their own ends, while we on the left struggle to détourne their words and ideas in a way that promotes leftist thought.

I think media theory in general is a big aspect where the left is losing.


EDIT:

Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others.

Also, one of the best ways to survive a fight is to escape it. If getting armed isn't practical, a high-powered flashlight that can temporarily prevent an assailant from seeing you clearly enough to attack and approach is a good move. A group with laser pointers can work, too. Can be quicker and more accurate than pepper spray, but more effective at long range than close.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

That's an interesting point! I agree that Capital does a great job of subverting, de-fanging Leftist theory, co-opting it and churning out opportunism. "Hollywood Resistance," if you will. I think Lenin said it best in The State and Revolution, at least with respect to Marxism specifically but applicable broadly:

What is now happening to Marx's teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this "doctoring" of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now "Marxists" (don't laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the "national-German" Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers' unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!

Also good point with respect to Self-Defense!

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also, I wonder if we should be considering the move to organizing on secure channels instead of in the open in places like here on Lemmy? Like Matrix has end-to-end encryption out of the box and its at least similar to Discord.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago

Depends on the purpose. For organizing? Yes, I agree. For agit-prop? Lemmy instances vary in security. Some instances have Matrix rooms as well.

In this critical time, I do think it is important for well-read leftists to channel the defeat liberals are feeling right now and try to push them to read more and take a more active role in politics. That becomes harder in Matrix rooms vs open federated servers.

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