🛠️
Aesthetics were the first thing that won me over to socialism. When I was a kid, I chanced to hear the Soviet national anthem used ironically in youtube video (likely a youtube-poop of which I was and still am fond.) I had never heard anything so beautiful, so powerful. I could not imagine a feeling more triumphant than that expressed in the chorus of a million voices singing out in red square.
I didn’t know anything about the Russian revolution, nor of socialism - all context, I learned in retrospect. But that first encounter stuck with me and served as a bulwark against the barrage of anti-communist propaganda the Florida Education System tried assailing me with.
Now, a decade and a half past that point, I’m a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. And whenever I get whipped up into my feelings about that moment, I feverishly take to photoshop and try to make some propaganda of my own, hoping that it may stir up similar feelings in another.
Nov 19, 2024
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🌹
I have faith that the working class can unite, and feel hopeful at the galvanization of my friends who have found a set of politics that excites them.
Nov 17, 2020
🫧
1. Meeting my now husband, who self-identified as communist. The first one that I knew in said bubble.
2. 2016 when trump won and I realized how different other people felt to me, causing me to start wanting to fundraise and advocate, but also feeling a great divide between me and people in my life.
3. The ongoing COVID debacle and the response from the US government, continuing today where there has been so much misinformation and lack of regard for people.
4. Having children and realizing just how alone we are in the US. I had no idea how nonexistent any safety net was in our society until I had them.
5. Trump winning again and realizing that fearing others and making lines in the sand with them has partially caused this mess. I am now folding in resources and help for people who are not politically aligned with me. I am working to build community with the people so that they eventually realize that we’re actually against the powerful instead of each other. I am done with infighting.
Jan 26, 2025
⚙️
I’ve been watching this new political faction take shape online over the last year or so. In 2022, they held several IRL conferences around the US to launch a new organization called “The Center for Political Innovation”. A friend of the pod called in for a Field Report episode on this very topic. MagaCom is something like a far right flavor of Marxism-Leninism: advocating for a single party socialist state in the age of multi-polarity. (Yes, these guys are literally Russian funded Duginists and the whole thing reeks of clumsy psyop.) I’m most interested in this project because their promotional strategy is “discursive terrorism” which basically means using cumbersome political labels that drive normal people insane like: Libertarian-Stalinism, Red-Yellow Ron Paul Maoists, Mecha-tankies and Exo-proletariat. After making big waves on social media, the CPI rapidly dissolved once allegations arose about the party leader’s misuse of funds and insatiable spanking fetish.
Feb 20, 2023
Top Recs from @kingofthedregs
I joined the internet at the advent of formal social media so chatrooms and forums were never really a thing I participated in. Still, I would watch my older sister in AIM chatrooms and try to wrap my head around the appeal, the way she would sit around for hours watching texts appear from, to me, indecipherable usernames.
The experience of Webfishing, I have to imagine, is akin to what my sister felt bullshitting away hours of the night as her soulja-boy-ing stick figure gif looped ad infinitum.
In webfishing, you inhabit a little cat or dog avatar (even more with expanded species mods which are dumb easy to install - I play as a little bunny boy) and sit around, cast your line in hopes of catching rare and valuable aquatic life. All underscored by the incessant chatter of 11 other players textually shooting the shit, cracking jokes, role playing, etc.
It’s a portal into the world of queer and trans youth, furries, weebs, and folks who just like digital fishing mini-games. You can start a convo, get real with strangers, catch some fish, drink a digital beer, unlock swag for your avatar, and enjoy the vibe. Highly Recommend.
Nov 16, 2024
You gotta love to be loved. You gotta make a risk for real human connection - it’ll never come easy. You gotta be dumb, vulnerable, apologetic, angry - you gotta live.
You gotta love to be loved and sometimes you need to see big robots duking it out with aliens to remember that.
Dec 2, 2024
Let me preface that I am not religious and I am not trying to promote the catholic church - respect to the oppressed peoples in Ireland and the Philippines etc. who do rock with catholicism, but I’m not here to defend it.
That said, it is neat to recite a cool prayer you learned in catholic school - it hearkens to a time when people would just memorize poetry for fun.
Here’s one that I used to recite whenever I was afraid:
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May god rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Bars.
Nov 14, 2024