How and why did you become a leftist?

How and why did you become a leftist?

I'd always been dissatisfied with Democrats but didn't know why. Didn't have a grounding in theory to understand the problem.

Bernie came along, I stopped fearing the S-word. Listened to DSA and liked what I heard. Listened to some old Fred Hampton speeches and liked that too.

Learned about BPP and how the FBI infiltrated them with agents provocateurs and murdered their leaders because they were Maoist and successful.

Read Marx. Liked it.
Learned about Yugoslavia. Liked what I saw even more.
Voila! Market socialist!

Here I am.

I got a job, saw the fraud of muh small business, and read a book.

I've kind of *always* liked the radical left, ever since I heard about it. I think I was 9 or so when my father explained communism to me, and I was just like, "well, that sounds like a good idea." It just made innate sense even though I didn't have much political or economic background.

I actually ironically put a lot of that into me being rather religious when I was younger. A lot of the deflection of communism from liberals when they first hear about it is the whole "human nature" shtick, but that criticism kind of makes 0 sense if you are religious and think we should overcome our nature of make heaven on Earth.

That and Star Trek, I wanted to live in a bizzaro Catholic version of Star Trek (don't try to make sense of it, I was 10).

Eventually I like… grew up and actually got a better handle on this notions, researched shit and so on, or at least I am a lot better than I use to be, lol.

I was raised in the United States and I speak Guarani. I always realized that there was huge linguistic inequalities and soon I realized that class was the main factory why some languages were more prestigious than other.
Now I am your typical Esperanto speaking Union Organizer in Texas.

Bernie

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Always been left-leaning because poor, usually made the very common mistake of assuming that if my demands were mild and moderate the chances that they'd be implemented were higher, someone explained me that socialist organizations and the threat of revolution is the only reason a ruling class has to allow reforms, started reading and here I am.

Choose one.

kys liberal

BPP sort of started as idpol, but adopted a leftist political platform later on. Black nationalists actually hated them and saw them as race traitors.

Memes

Wew lad

It ain't easy.

I was despondent by the current state of affairs, and I had already looked to nazism as an option, but I gave up because I realized that it would not help with anything except for replacing the ruling class. I then got depressed and stumbled upon this board. I was heavily resistant at first since I was a staunch anti-communist to begin with, but leftism grew on me as I came to understand theory more and more. I feel very secure in this position now and will probably never change from leftism.

Used to be a social democrat.
An anarchist on 420chan's pol introduced me to stim and street politics 101. I fell in love with the activists not standing on the sideline and at least expressing their views through action and not stagnant, masturbatory conversations. Learned a little bit about capitalism and it's contradictions, aswell as leftist ideologies. Then I read more about the revolution in Rojava and now I am a communalist.
Workers of the world unite, etc.

I think it's ironic how I feel comfortable thinking of myself as a red when as a teenager I thought culture war liberalism was the cool edgy shit.

Cute

He must be a liberal and masturbating about new scenarios of killing Rosa Luxemburg.

I never understood this logic. What exactly you think will happen, that they will come at you begging for your vote?

There are several advanced democracies where most people don't vote. In countries where voting is compulsory, people often vote blank or vote for a protest candidate. The ruling classes and the politicians of those countries are not frustrated about it, on the other hand, they're very happy, because this keep the amount of campaign promises to a minimum and makes politics exclusively the affair of those whose interests cannot be separated from electoral politics (e.g. bourgeois scum). So your approach is wrong. You don't boycott something that is happy to get rid of you.

What you should, instead, is be lucid about the aims, goals and logic of partisan politics. If two candidates with exactly the same worldview and political philosophy compete against each other, but they're told people of your class and interests are 30% of the electorate, electoral logic impels them to give you a tax cut, implement that labour regulation that makes life easier for you, or create a program that will assist you somehow, so you vote for them. This is democracy: not a mechanism for social transformation but a tool for safeguarding some benefits and interests.

nice meme

I learned that capitalism is stealing, and that God hates stealing

And then they don't do it because they were lying.

Welcome to representative """""democracy""""", aka choose your temporary autocrat.

I am too deep to let go…

Jeez, where do I start.

Earliest I can remember was around 2013-ish, back when politics were starting to actually grow on me. Used to be a mainstream Left-Liberal Democrat up until around early 2015, where I became a staunch anti-Communist and Socialist with Bernie. This along with Neo-Austrian economic ideas shaped my ideology a lot until the primaries and conventions earlier last year, when I sadly went full idpol Fascist, turd positionist crap. Luckily that only lasted a few weeks but the whole "civic nationalist socialism" bs still stuck. Around the election I went considerably more left, mostly to be contrarian to my environment but also because I saw both candidates as just regurgitations of the Status Quo. Saw myself as an anti-Fascist Soc Dem (inb4 Rosa Killer) until I actually got invested in Socialist theory last month. Now I consider myself a Communalist/Libertarian Socialist and I think it's here to stay. Any other struggle but the class struggle is just a spook at this point.

It depends on your expectations. Anyone who still thinks a politician has the will, let alone the power, to drastically change things is a moron, but there are labour, welfare and social-related issues that are subject to change and can affect your life.

If you get to choose it's not an autocrat m8

Born in below the poverty line, raised by single mother, smoke weed.

I would denounce most of you as armchair revolutionaries in Ivory Towers but you don't even have towers.

Being class conscious is great, but it's useless if you're just shitposting on the internet. There is so much subversive anti-capitalist groups and projects in your area that you could join or even spearhead.

We have enogg isolated internet marxists. Unless you're disabled, get your ass up.

the timeline is a bit fuzzy but that's how i remember it

I was always pretty left wing, skeptical of corporations and the like. I was a liberal initially due to a contrarian side of me, which emerged from growing up in the good ol' Mormon red state of Utah. That said, I never left like "left wing" liberalism was enough. I spent a lot of time trying to reimagine a new society that worked better for everyone which in hindsight resembled something like a primitive form of market socialism.

After learning about Bernie and feeling like he was a politician whose ideas most closely resembled mine, I became politically minded and began to look into politics more seriously. At the same time I was a redditor who happened to find his way in r/FULLCOMMUNISM. I found the memes hilarious, and after finding out that it was run by actual socialists I started asking them questions and was given some good answers, but was mostly redirected to other sources to further my understanding.

Interestingly, at that time I was also becoming pretty frustrated with all the idpol that was cropping up, and was initially on the way to becoming a reactionary. I began to go to Holla Forums (not realizing that there were right wing per se, just that they were anti-idpol) which of led to me finding Holla Forums. As I continued to learn more about Marxism I found I was surprised just how rational this theories were; it was like when I realized that the Mormon church wasn't true despite my upbringing in Utah. Everything made sense. The faults of capitalism I had been struggling with for ages were expressed clearly, and better yet so was a concrete solution.

Once I attained a more firm understanding of leftism I began to see the reactionary side of Holla Forums more clearly. And once the 2016 election started up I found myself disagreeing with Holla Forumsyps more and more often, eventually leading to me picking Holla Forums as my preferred place of discussion and calling myself a bona fide socialist. (Particularly since leftypol seemed much more welcoming and circlejerk-y, where the debates generally met their challengers head on.)

I've still got a lot to learn but honestly Holla Forums has in a lot of ways helped me become much more informed than reddit for Holla Forums ever could.

The state will always be an apparatus of the ruling class. Amenities for the working class are earned not by believing whatever someone tells you, but by making whoever is in charge where you live more afraid of disobeying you than disobeying whoever is greasing their palm, and in some countries like the US, party politics have made this pretty unfeasible.
You should always take an active interest in politics, but real, meaningful change takes more than a ballot. Leftist theory is not just some sterile abstract toolset, it is meant to guide real world politics and provide solutions to the problems of real people. Changing minds and wrecking sophists is how this starts.

If you have no control whatsoever over what they do while in office, it definitely is.

Apparently I'm a leftist simply because I don't only get sad when white people die according to right Holla Forums

They Unions have sold out.
The Party is shit and only cares about itself.
Anarkids are all fapping and getting stoned.

How do you expect us to get organized?

Changing capitalism is terribly hard, fool. Your complaining is exactly what's wrong with the Left in the United States. You won't even win piecemeal reforms if you can't leave your dark smelly room.

Volunteer at a homeless shelter, interact with liberals, radicalize people around you. And you will definitely find like-minded individuals if you try hard enough. Even if you live in Bumblefuck, USA.

I used to be totally liberal, seeing all the problems in individual areas of capitalism, but not realizing that capitalism was the problem. I saw communism as some big ebil russian thing edgy teenagers were into. Then I actually picked up a book and learnt theory. Now I'm here I guess.

Honestly I wish I could do more practically, does anyone know of any actually decent groups in NZ?

i got introduced to some general leftist concepts from some zizek articles we used in high school debate, and from there i watched some of his more meme-y content for a while which i liked.

i didn't get into any ""real"" leftist theory until i read this fucking awesome anthropological piece about commodity fetishism and christianity in proletarianized columbia. after that i was hooked. HIGHLY recommend this pdf for anyone sturggling with the idea of commodity fetishism

Mind = blown, I thought this was a great idea because my family was poor AF

Later start torrenting games like Red Alert 2, watching videos on the Soviet Union, Cuba, Sandanistas etc. Got bored and became apolitical.

Then last year I started working and questioning why some people are born owning the MOP and others having to work for nothing. I always disliked capitalism but I couldn't put it into words.

I remember my physics prof ranting about how everyone hates communist but she got free education, free housing, free travel in Yugoslavia. Googled Marx (Communist Manifesto), realised Stalin was a good Christian etc.

Recently I've been googling Bookchin. I read Ocalan's Democratic Confederalism and really like it. Also Rojava/YPG is pretty badass. I still like Leninism but I think Communalism is the future.


US intelligence agencies were shady as the KGB, yet nobody likes to talk about them.


(Accelerationism intensifies)


Small businesses are a libertarian utopian meme. Fuck them, they abuse their employees just like big businesses.


Now that's a pretty rare comfy Lenin.


I thought we were all middle class rich teenagers?


Same here. Reddit socialism is fucking trash, they try to add intersectionality to every issue. I cringe reading half the posts on /r/FC now.

these trips hold truth.

Also the "selfish Party" meme spouted by is not always true, there certainly are parties that are preoccupied about doing actual mass work rather than circlejerking about whatever. I don't know what parties are good in the USA, but coming from a Latin American country I've found that the good leftist parties often aren't as great in number, largely because being actually revolutionary is obviously not natural in any capitalist society, and involves a huge going in a tough ideological struggle that often makes you question lots of things you take for granted, such as how you spend your free time, how you treat your friends and family, etc… The fact most people (including most anons in this thread) see the left as some lifestylistic thing where you choose an ideology and then read some shit within it, rather than an active stance that leads you to organize and agitate with the people you know, is perhaps why we complain about the left being dead in the USA.

So, find a small organization you like and ORGANIZE! You're far from being an actual leftist if you're not doing this.

@OP, I was born in a leftist family so always held communistic views on things, but didn't start doing shit until the 2011 protests in Chile. Then in 2013 I joined a group and started organizing and reading some theory.

interest in socdem out of self-serving desire, like 95% of all socialists everywhere who aren't larping idiots.

I started reading.
Throughout history you can see class struggle at every turn. The porkies and proto porkies fucking over the plebeans and extracting their surplus goes back to the moment when humans started generating surplus.
The ancient romans and greeks had struggles for land reform. Peasant revolts and agrarian communes happened in the middle ages. Workers combine to form trade unions and force their demands on capital.

I'm skeptical of marxist-leninists because I also think the liberal ideas of freedom and rule of law are important, and I don't like the idea of living in a police state. But its impossible to disguise the nature of capitalism.

I guess i'm a demsoc or socdem.

As a child, lived in pretty bad poverty with my mother. I vaguely remember getting kicked out of apartments and living in shelters until we were able to get subsidised housing. As I got older shit happened and i was put into the system along with my sister and it was complete hell. Eventually my father gained custody of me when i got older. Hes an immigrant and has worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs to support us (to the point where he has health complications and is sick because of it); and currently works 18 hour days. I respect him alot but he has zero class conscious, and still believes if he works hard enough he'll pull us into the middle class. As a result Ive always hated the rich, wealthy, and those in power. I started to go hard left around late high school, and met a kind college professor who introduced me to more radical leftist theory 2-3 years ago.

Bakunin wasn't an idealist, you idiot

I was a liberal but then I read some stuff about Fidel Castro and became a tankie and read Stalin and some Marx. Then I read more Marx and more Lenin and became a non-stalinist leninist. I'm going to start reading left communism an infantile disorder soon.

kys liberal

Idealist opportunist revisionist social-chauvist who practices a vulgarization of marxism detected.

I have "always" fucking despised illegitimate hierarchy.

I was a technocrat/trans-humanist until i turned 15 and started working and realized we keep things artificially inefficient because if people had free time to become truly educated there would be a world revolution in one generation.

Not even a Marxist. I understand his analysis, which is more than you can say for a tankie, but I don't agree with it enough to be a Marxist.

also this

I just had a discussion with my roommate tonight about how pointless a lot of activism is and how much it demands of its participants. You work, work, work, and for what… not much… most 'activism' is just asking for reforms from your local government anyway… i don't really want to be a part of any of that.

Tell me, what's an effective use of time as a leftist? Seems to me like its worth it to get a group of folks you can trust for when shit hits the fan, maybe go to the gun range and shoot the shit about politics… but i have strong doubts anything else is doing much. the moment these people really start taking themselves seriously is when it always seems to devolve into the whole pseudo-militancy we see now with the antifa shit in berkeley…

Same. I've always hated hierarchies and how some people are labeled better than others. The valedictorian at my high school literally gave a speech on how not everyone should be considered special because that takes away from the excitement of being considered special.

She was a cunt. I hope she dies. Literally hated unions.

preppy kids are about as classcucked as they get

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I took out a loan, and they expected me to pay it back???

Fuck that

LESS circlejerk-y*

Whoops

The bank got bailed out with my tax dollars that I'm responsible for and then made up more money out of thin air to loan to me and expects me to pay them back?!

Fuck that!

I was a child and my mother had been reduced to panhandling(and quite likely sex work). The sooner porky dies in agony, THE BETTER.

I bought into the freedom propaganda but then realized we're doing freedom wrong.

When my so-called "dad" refused to buy me my new iphone for christmas. FUCK THE BOURGEOISIE

1/10 apply yourself Holla Forums

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I was pretty left leaning for a long time, mostly because I read a lot, I'm also poor and I don't want to work to make someone rich, I would like to do stuff that will help others, to work for others and myself, and not just waste my time making someone rich. But the moment that got me more into it was when I saw an poster from local anarchists, so I started thinking about it and later on started reading theory, and browsing leftypol

You got any better ideas for me to get back at my stupid parentals? I really want to start a glorious revolution and seize the means of production. Then everything will be okay and my family won't hate me anymore

Started out as a liberal, never really did any deep thinking on politics beyond what was presented to me by TV and friends.
Became passively interested in leftism.
Got swept up for about a week into American libertarianism due to the anti-war rhetoric buzzing around Ron Paul.
Read Ayn Rand's Anthem that I found in a free book pile. At the time I thought it was dry, boring, self-obsessed crap.
Fell out of political thought for a while.

Randomly came across a Zizek talk on youtube (maybe we need a different chicken)
Got me into critical theory, and leftism in general.
Moving on to expanding my knowledge of Marxism-Leninism as well as Anarchist strains of Communism.
Reading through some of Lenin's selected writings at the moment. (Zizek's Revolution at the Gates)

I believe by now I've purged most of my reactionary tendencies.

This is what reddit actually believes.

I was primarily convinced by Marx's method of social analysis. I imagine I would probably be some kind of SocDem without Marx, like I used to be, but there is simply no consistent materialist analysis of society that I am aware of which doesn't derive from Marx in one way or another .

Today it's very easy to be a naturalist, and we pat ourselves on the back for our scientific understanding of the world, but in terms of our understanding of social relations we are very far from materialism, and most people think in terms of ideological progress of humanity.

t. liberal
After you

Retard

I was born one tbh

I used to be a nationalist and believe in "class collaboration" until i had first hand experiences with porky being porky. class consciousness once acquired has never left me and i dont think it ever will

Live free or die.

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How is this remotely liberal?