This might be controversial but i’d trust an ultra who had done work irl and done their reading than someone who is ideologically correct but most of their activism is just reading posts and arguing other people online. Like, at least those people, with the proper guidance, and their own experience will come to the right conclusion eventually or make way for a new generation of comrades more equipped to deal with the current situation after their failures become apparent.
I was an online activists too for a couple of years when i was teenager and my ideological development stuck for the longest time until I join an org and went from anarchist to marxist leninist in just a few months. And I was literally in a trot org back then!
It’s just, the material conditions im in is pretty bad and my country’s decades long history of exterminating leftist sympathizers made it hard to find other comrades yknow. I have some, but we have to work overtime just to keep up and we couldnt be that choosy of who we’re working with sometimes. We cant just pick a readymade marxist who already agreed with all of our basic tenets, we have to do the work on educating them and that means talking to them one on one or in a group setting for months just to completely clean off the red scare and internalized racism. I had to sacrifice a lot of time and energy, and being targeted by hate groups when there’s not many ppl who could help you is scary.
So sometimes I look at some posters and news online on twitter, and instagram, and see these so called indonesian communists who labeled themselves a comrade but spent almost everyday online doing leftist infighting more than praxis, posting completely irrelevant memes or even make agitprop not for our own heavily propagandized country but for the western left. Shit like that makes me want to kill with hammers! I would bet theyre not a part of any org because no one I know (irl and online) whose already a part of an org can dedicate that much time for online frivolities. No left tendency is exempt from this, even if youre an ML. The cause is a combination of slacktivism coupled with a terminal case of social media turning you to a USian and a sprinkle of sectarianism. This isn’t a team sports or a chance to own people you dork! aren’t you a communist because you want better things for humanity? to help people? Then where are you if youre not in the streets?
This isn’t a team sports or a chance to own people you dork!
I seriously wish more people thought like that. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be the norm though
The only real org near me is a white leftist gaggle about a hundred and twenty miles away. I’m medically discouraged from driving, the nearest train station is a 20 minute drive from where I live, and all my ‘neighbors’ are suburbanite white center-rights at best. I can’t lead the people I live near; can barely talk to them without fearing I’m about to have pigs called on me(because it’s happened twice before), and I can’t very well join an org that’s a hundred miles away and expect to do shit with my membership.
I’ve already been targeted by hate groups, not just cops. I’m not doing it again. Someone else can catch that asswhooping; because I’m not martyring myself for this fuckin country.
And even if you are part of an organisation, remember to actually show up. Be as active as you can
Online doesn’t have to be a wasteland, in person should be the priority, but there are many people for one reason or another who cannot participate in person. Finding methods to help the cause comes in all forms, like I said to another reply here, learn to make agitprop, write, create, research, work on things like the wiki, help local orgs build social media presence, etc.
Most of us are unwilling participants at best and outright victims at worse to this system, many are working extensive hours for low wages with minimal benefits, exasperating situations that suffocate us. Helping people find ways to get involved within their material situations is going to be more productive than scolding people for surviving in the best way they can. Teach, don’t punish, guide, don’t scold.
We need to empower each other, to find the best methods for each other’s participation in this struggle.
Is that something you’d be interested in? Maybe we can work in this small, fairly cozy community to help people find their “calling” in the socialist struggle? This shit can be daunting and scary, even to life long leftists.
Sadly I live in the rural outskirts of a dying city in a neglected, rotting part of my country, and the nearest leftist org of any type (which isn’t even the best but at least its something) is 80km away in a more vibrant college town. I am unable to commute that distance due to both the amount of time that would take and being unable to fit that in my schedule, and the monetary cost of gas and car wear that journey would entail. There is also no public transport between the city I live in and that town.
I really don’t know what I should do. It feels so isolating, and I’ve even gotten as desperate as to think about joining some SocDem org to at least get ANY semblance of anything related to leftism as compared to the vitriolically reactionary and fascist environment that surrounds me.
It just feels lonely a lot of the time :/
If you cannot join in person orgs, learn skills that help the cause online, learn to write and research, write article and content about things going on in the world, find a cause you support locally and write about, put together resources, establish connections. Maybe that leftist org 80km away could use a researcher, or someone who puts together digital materials, or write articles for their social media pages.
