You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list, maga was already told they don’t like that word. Speak the ideology of unionization while avoiding the things that can be associated with Marxism, communism, socialism, while remembering they don’t understand those things, they just have a trigger words they know to hate.
As an aside when speaking to maga, don’t let the conversation ever be Dem vs GOP, always frame is as workers vs elites. In the former we are divided, in the later we have solidarity.
Historically, such a strategy doesn’t actually work. Sooner or later, you get accused of being a godless commie or a tankie anyways. You can either stand firm in your beliefs and attempt to sweep away the dirt of the Red Scare to accurately contextualize Socialism and AES states, or fail to support them at all, leading to issues like Trotskyism (poor understanding of theory and a lack of support for AES) or PatSocs (Nationalist Socialists in the Imperialist countries).
You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list
If you don’t read theory, you’re going to have a hard time with praxis.
I just said dont say marxism or communism because a huge percent of the population are literal sheep who have already been told thats bad
I tend to find that labeling things is a lot of wasted effort, but shrugging and owning the label other people give you is a powerful method of reclaiming the language.
If you’re an affable, compassionate, well-organized, and appealing organizer, and someone comes around calling you a Far-Left Sicko Commie, then that’s actually pretty great for Far-Left Sicko Commies everywhere.
The struggle I see, more often than not, is with individuals who come into an organization dogmatically adhering to a party line that lacks a party. The dogmatism in the name of Marxist Theory (or Anarchist Theory or Liberal Theory or whatever personal staunchly held belief you’ve decided to cling to) is what ends up wrecking an organization. Theories can only inform your actions, but at the end of the day you need to tackle your problems practically and make your case materially.
People bickering over the ideological underpinnings of the Spanish Civil War, then spiraling into calling one another Tankies and Scratched Liberals and such… not terribly helpful in the long run.
I don’t understand how saying we should avoid labels and stick to ideologies is a bad thing. I just don’t see a route for people to organize working class folks under a banner when all the banners have already been tarnished for 60-70% of the people, it seems that route is a more uphill battle with no determinable advantage to just organizing under the idea that we the working class are being robbed endlessly by the elite ruling class and it has to change.
As to your point about theory only going so far, yes I 100% agree. But i was speaking about our current state, specifically because this is the first time in recent history that division among left/right working class folks has ever traveled closer to each other, if only a little bit.
Am i using the word ideology wrong maybe? Because it seems a few people are at issue with what im saying, while saying the same thing rephrased. There might be some sort of nuance to the word I’m missing. I mean ideology as purely just theory and reasoning on why a thing is or isn’t; in this circumstance as a stand-in for something loosely close to “We the people are no longer represented by government, and billionaires run the country”. Id worry if you expand it beyond that you lose a lot of support. But you obviously should go beyond that at some point, and you have to have a gameplan, but as mentioned before that feels like a conversation for down the road.
What you’re saying is exactly the discourse COINTELPRO promoted in US organizations in the 60s and 70s (when they weren’t outright murdering the party members).
How’d that one work out?
It’s easy to deflect workers off the path of real, lasting change when even the organizers only try to do sloganeering instead of education.
You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list, maga was already told they don’t like that word. Speak the ideology of unionization while avoiding the things that can be associated with Marxism, communism, socialism, while remembering they don’t understand those things, they just have a trigger words they know to hate.
As an aside when speaking to maga, don’t let the conversation ever be Dem vs GOP, always frame is as workers vs elites. In the former we are divided, in the later we have solidarity.
Historically, such a strategy doesn’t actually work. Sooner or later, you get accused of being a godless commie or a tankie anyways. You can either stand firm in your beliefs and attempt to sweep away the dirt of the Red Scare to accurately contextualize Socialism and AES states, or fail to support them at all, leading to issues like Trotskyism (poor understanding of theory and a lack of support for AES) or PatSocs (Nationalist Socialists in the Imperialist countries).
If you don’t read theory, you’re going to have a hard time with praxis.
I tend to find that labeling things is a lot of wasted effort, but shrugging and owning the label other people give you is a powerful method of reclaiming the language.
If you’re an affable, compassionate, well-organized, and appealing organizer, and someone comes around calling you a Far-Left Sicko Commie, then that’s actually pretty great for Far-Left Sicko Commies everywhere.
The struggle I see, more often than not, is with individuals who come into an organization dogmatically adhering to a party line that lacks a party. The dogmatism in the name of Marxist Theory (or Anarchist Theory or Liberal Theory or whatever personal staunchly held belief you’ve decided to cling to) is what ends up wrecking an organization. Theories can only inform your actions, but at the end of the day you need to tackle your problems practically and make your case materially.
People bickering over the ideological underpinnings of the Spanish Civil War, then spiraling into calling one another Tankies and Scratched Liberals and such… not terribly helpful in the long run.
I don’t understand how saying we should avoid labels and stick to ideologies is a bad thing. I just don’t see a route for people to organize working class folks under a banner when all the banners have already been tarnished for 60-70% of the people, it seems that route is a more uphill battle with no determinable advantage to just organizing under the idea that we the working class are being robbed endlessly by the elite ruling class and it has to change.
As to your point about theory only going so far, yes I 100% agree. But i was speaking about our current state, specifically because this is the first time in recent history that division among left/right working class folks has ever traveled closer to each other, if only a little bit.
Am i using the word ideology wrong maybe? Because it seems a few people are at issue with what im saying, while saying the same thing rephrased. There might be some sort of nuance to the word I’m missing. I mean ideology as purely just theory and reasoning on why a thing is or isn’t; in this circumstance as a stand-in for something loosely close to “We the people are no longer represented by government, and billionaires run the country”. Id worry if you expand it beyond that you lose a lot of support. But you obviously should go beyond that at some point, and you have to have a gameplan, but as mentioned before that feels like a conversation for down the road.
What you’re saying is exactly the discourse COINTELPRO promoted in US organizations in the 60s and 70s (when they weren’t outright murdering the party members).
How’d that one work out?
It’s easy to deflect workers off the path of real, lasting change when even the organizers only try to do sloganeering instead of education.