I keep wanting to form some kind of housing cooperative for people seeking refuge from abusive situations, seeing as how there’s currently fuck-all meaningful resources for adult survivors of childhood abuse. I know that despite this being completely nonviolent, legal, voluntary, and well-intentioned operation, that most people won’t care or will actively support when some extremists decide to infiltrate and sabotage that effort. Manufactured consent and all. Why does nobody else do things like this? What has prevented the vast majority of other American leftists from simply crowdfunding their own communes, leaving the larger economy, and building their own means of production so that they aren’t dependent on the rest of the world for permission to build systems of mutual aid?
But if you agree that such activity isn’t building for the revolution and still decide that’s what you should really be spending your time on, then you are a liberal.
I don’t think so? If revolution turns out to be unfeasible due to the speed of modern technological advancement fueling pre-existing power structures, and betterment by reform is off the table due to the mounting power of propaganda, leftists need to be more creative about their praxis. Creating a lifeline for migrants and refugees to get back up on their feet and live within an economically democratic community seems like the only praxis that can help anyone, based on what I’ve seen.
I think arguing that revolution is impossible so we should just focus on helping right some of the most egregious wrongs, also counts as liberalism…
We can work towards revolutionary change, but the fact is your entire life will go by and you will never see a real revolution. Waiting for revolution is the leftist equivalent of waiting for the day Jesus returns to earth.
Well not all of us can be as pure a leftist as you are. I look forward to seeing your progress in building communism.
Bro I’m just asking you to join us figuring out the right approach. You don’t have to be defensive about the fact we don’t have a vanguard party yet, but pretending that we can just keep doing what hasn’t worked before is just not the way to go.
Neither is calling someone a liberal because they want to create a democratically run commune for people in need. That’s way too much direct action for a liberal and requires a ton of work and any knowledge gained on living sustainably with a group of like minded people would be useful to any revolutionary group, especially when things are in flux post revolution when things will probably be very precarious. While it may not be building the revolution, there are things that can be done to support it: if everyone is busy building the revolution you’ll starve to death after it happens