this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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Pragmatic Leftist Theory
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The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.
Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.
This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.
If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.
Rules:
-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.
-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.
-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.
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because harris supports genocide, which outranks all theory about how outcomes happen with other solutions for voting. why were you ok voting for genocide?
Because the alternative was more genocide.
I don't pretend that my vote in 2020 for Biden was anything less than a vote for an admin which unambiguously was going to (and did) support Israel in-line with the policy of previous administrations (and, unfortunately, the vast majority of the American population) - which is repugnant and in support of a genocidal ethnostate. But that vote was also against the immensely more Israel-positive Trump administration which proposed MORE support for genocide than the Biden administration did.
We bear the sin of supporting the lesser evil, because not supporting the lesser evil, when there is only a choice between evils, is in support of the greater evil.
The price of citizenship is responsibility. The price of citizenship is the demand to make imperfect decisions in concert with an imperfect population which will always result in some form of atrocious outcome. The price of citizenship is guilt. If you want to be innocent of political responsibility, well, that's why oligarchies and autocracies are so intermittently popular.
i enjoyed your replies. thank you.
Glad to be of interest. Ultimately, I'm of the opinion that no one should beat themselves up too much about their prior action or lack of action - we can't change the past, and most of us are little specks in nations of millions, and a world of billions. All we can do is try to work for a better future.
So, you don’t get it.