I always recommend Blowback, and I’ve recently been getting into Rev Left Radio. The former is an excellent anti-imperialist podcast going over the crimes of the US Empire, the latter is a solid podcast discussing Marxist-Leninist history, theory, and practice.

These are all good points, but I do think it’s important for those with the capacity to join an org and get organized. Capitalism is the problem, and we cannot just wait for it to fall. It gets easier to topple over time, but if we never kill it, it will stay on life support.

The reason it’s a false dichotomy is because the implicit point of the OP is that revolution is necessary. The original commenter either didn’t pick that up or ignored it, centering voting as the primary means of political engagement without addressing the point raised by the OP.

Voting is a very small part of what the average person can do to use their political power.

Deeply unserious behavior. Again, see my comment here.

You’re extremely confused, I’m not blaming “low information voters” of any sort. Electoralism is not a valid path for leftism. I’m not using a money excuse, either, though your erasure of money’s influence on media is also oversimplified. You haven’t taken any steps back, you’ve invented a caricature of “the left” in your head and are acting like you’re the only one to see things as they really are. It’s very silly.

See my comment here.

There have never been left presidents in the US. Mamdani is not the leader of the revolution. You’re very confused about what’s going on, and you’re out of touch with why Trump won. It wasn’t “memes,” it isn’t some masterful play, nor are liberals left wing.

You need to take a step back and familiarize yourself more with what’s going on. Try to take a materialist outlook, not an idealist outlook.

No, lol. The Left is fine on the internet. You can touch grass and organize, and do online agitprop. Mamdani won because people are being radicalized. Even then, Mamdani doesn’t eliminate the need for revolution, not even close.

China’s working conditions are steadily improving, so that’s not really a big problem, plus a huge amount of commodities are either produced in the global south by imperialist companies from the global north outsourcing labor, or from imperialist countries using resources carved out of the global south. You can boycott the worst companies, but you are forced to interact with most under capitalism. Better to be made in a socialist country like China than directly support imperialism.

The best you can do is to boycott what you can, and join an org, so you can hopefully be a part of the solution. PSL is a good option if you live in the US, but do research on what orgs have local chapters for you.

I see the Kid Starver regime is continuing it’s far-right agenda.

The Left is fighting an uphill battle. Capitalism is the status quo, and the US relies on imperialism using its vast financial capital and massive number of millitary bases to keep goods relatively cheap, but this is crumbling. Change works as quantitative buildup until significant, qualitative change. Orgs like PSL are growing rapidly. They are still small, but the rate of growth is large. Time is on the Left’s side.

Just look at Palestine, as an example. 5 years ago, the vast majority of the US was Zionist. Now, the majority oppose the genocide. Mamdani winning the primary in NYC shows that more overtly left-leaning individuals are valued over right-wingers like Cuomo. Change works on trends. History doesn’t reset every day, eventually water droplets bore through stone. The left has never been in the White House, it has always been a toss between the right amd the far-right, this isn’t a new struggle, but it’s one that is changing every day thanks to historical work.

The Left does both. The purpose of real life stikes and protests is because its proof that Leftist organizations have the logistical capacity to plan, demonstrate, and act in a cohesive and unified manner. Organizing is more important than meme sharing. Memes, agitprop, etc are very useful recruitment tools, so they should not be ignored, but it’s more important to actually put in the work of organizing effectively once recruited.

Sharing memes without actually organizing is just an outlet for people to express frustration, but organizing is an actual necessary and important step in toppling the existing system and replacing it with a better one, as the hard work on organizing has already been laid out.

I already explained elsewhere that it isn’t a binary, what’s important is which is the principle aspect, public or private ownership. There are elements of private property in socialism, and elements of public in capitalism.

Cooperatives do not eliminate the need for eventual full public ownership. Cooperatives are still based on competition and profit, not fulfilling needs. As cooperatives grow and develop, they will form monopolies, long past when coherent planning and public ownership becomes more efficient at fuflilling needs and growth.

Further, we as the workers cannot restructure capitalism. Capitalism is dominated by capital. In order for workers to have genuine power over the system, we need control of the state, large firms, and key industries, without ownership we cannot pivot to a cooperative society to begin with. Political economic systems are not thoughts in your head, recipes to be picked out, but real, material things, and as such what comes next will be what our current system is economically compelled towards. As centralization is a key side-effect of capitalism, common, collective ownership and planning is what will come next, after revolution sped up by capitalism’s own drive for disparity.

Ultimately, you have a very idealist, utopian view, and not a materialist, scientific view. That’s why you’re running into opposition so heavily.

It isn’t a binary. Elements of private property exist in socialism, and elements of public property exist in capitalism. What matters most is which is the principle aspect of the economy. Liberalism stands for the current, capitalist system, but usually argues for minor modifications. That lands it squarely in the right-wing side.

Cooperatives are neither left nor right. They do not fundamentally change property relations, in that they are based on private property and petite bourgeois class relations. Cooperatives can be part of early socialism, like Huawei in the PRC or the agricultural sectors in the USSR and PRC, or they can be a part of capitalist systems like Mondragon in Spain. At best, they could be considered quasi-socialist.

The reason why “fixing laws about investing” isn’t really “left” is because it doesn’t alter the base mode of production of society. It keeps capitalism intact, it just tweaks how you interact with it. This makes it less right wing than, say, Nazi Germany, but it doesn’t make it left, either.

I have a Marxist PoV, as I am a Marxist-Leninist, but that isn’t why liberalism is right-wing. Liberalism is right-wing because it is based on private property rights as the centerpoint, and that is the status quo. Maintaining the current status quo is a right-wing, conservative point of view, while the revolutionary, progressive point of view is in socialized ownership.

The definitions you keep linking are from liberal organizations that are benefited by constraining the window of political economic discussion to the confines of capitalist viewpoints. Often, they rely on the Overton Window, which is about what is considered more progressive or reactionary in a given window by the median opinion, ie if you have 100 people in a room, 3 are communists, 67 are bog-standard liberals, and 30 are conservative liberals, then by the Overton Window, you’d have 50 on the left and 50 on the right, with most liberals on the left. However, this erases the actually increasing momentum for socialism, and hides the fact that 97 people in the room are for the current system plus tweaks, and only 3 are for radical change.

The origin of the terms “left” began in France, when capitalism and liberalism were revolutionary, and monarchism was the status quo. We are far beyond the time when liberalism is capable of being seen as revolutionary, however, most of the world is dominated by private property. It is now socialism that is revolutionary, and it has been so for centuries.

I’ve provided a more nuanced, thorough, and complete analysis than you have, which is why other users are suggesting you listen to me. I can recommend some good works on political economic theory, if you’d like. There’s a difference between nuance, and vibes, and you’ve relied heavily on vibes over nuance.

Deeply unserious managers of empire continue to self-cannibalize their own productivity in an effort to go even more all-in on financial capital, all while the global south is doing its best to pivot towards more favorable relations with countries like China. When the US Empire runs out of countries to exploit, and financial capital ceases to be profitable, it will have no developed industrial base nor a strong scientifically trained worker base to pull itself back up. The US is cooked, this is just speedrunning the demise of the empire in a faster and harder fashion.

The good news is that the worse this gets, the more favorable the conditions for organizing become, and the more vulnerable to revolution the state becomes. We can legitimately take advantage of this, and gain mastery over capital, rather than the inverse. We can re-industrialize, become socialist, and begin the long and difficult but necessary path towards legitimate progress. It won’t be easy, but it will be doable.

I personally love reading articles on Red Sails and ProleWiki. There’s always more to learn about Marxism-Leninism, and these sites are treasure troves.

I also like meditation to clear my head.