Hiding your power level

I was expecting a political discussion tbh

I feel like these pics are relevant to this discussion

It's actually frustrating and depressive.
People actually believe I'm fucking insane, when I say that Capitalism and Private property are Theft, that the workers should own the means of production.
My Step father threw a punch to my face (I dodged it).
My brothers think that I'm Insane and too radical, that there should be a middle ground, they say that if I continue like this, I will either end up in a guerrilla movement or that I will kill myself( this is most likely to happen.)
I have been heckled and ridiculed.
I'm actually fearful of expressing my political opinions.
I sometimes wish I ignored everything and didn’t gave a shit about political Ideologies.

What the fuck. This reads like a meme.

Damn this is really fucked up if true. I know it's easier said than done, but you should consider moving somewhere else. Not immediately since moving is a lot of anxiety and trouble, but like slowly, every day do something to plan for it. Look for job postings, save a bit of money each month.

made me chuckle

I don't. Fascists hide their power level because they understand that it's shameful to be a reactionary. If you don't outright call yourself a communist people will generally agree with you because most people are decent.

Yeah, naw tbh

Its hard being a leftist

My Step father, is retired from the Mexican Navy and he loves Pinochet, I previously posted it a long time ago.
He actually hates me for refusing to join the navy and becoming a leftist.
Aside from that we tolerate each other.

No. Stop.

I think that day to day interactions and political conversations are one of the best ways to develop a sense of how we ought to frame theory. I don't use words like "socialism" or "capitalism" or "private property" or "class" unless I am talking to other socialists. Most of the time, I try to use terms like "workplace democracy" and "liberty for the working people". This goes over much better, and are actually more apt to communicate how our theory relates to peoples lived experience.

My dad is basically a lolbert semi fascist. He's constantly bragging about breaking in the "new 20 something faggots" by openly ranting about niggers in front of them.

It's a pretty old meme, my dear sir.

Very good idea. I've heard anons before saying that so many people agree with marxist points of view when you use a different terminology.

No, France. But my profession is… particular.

I never hide my power-level except when I'm at work. You'd be surprised how many normies kinda agree when I try to snake in talk of summary executions for usurers.

CLASS TRAITOR SPOTTED

I defended North Korea in front of my frends, was awkward as fuck…

all you guys not hiding your power level here are fucking retarded. NEVER REVEAL YOUR POWER LEVEL, Blanqui was right, stay crypto as long as possible, ESPECIALLY when you can get fired from your job for being leftist. Read theory, get in shape, have normie friends and go out and do normie shit…

Well not exactly. I am a proletarian; labour aristocracy, but proletarian nevertheless.

engineer?

nothing wrong with labour aristocracy, I'm one too, sorry for earlier, was just memeing

What did Blanqui broadly say about staying crypto?

I can't tell. Let's just say it's a job full of class traitors (as guessed) and fascists.

You're a banker?

...

CIA?

Stop being a tanklet

NEVER act like because you're a marxist you're therefore "not a normie" because the point is for marxism to become a normal thing. Bring up communism if you think it's appropriate. Give out your views on Clinton, the Banks, the rapists that make up our ruling class. Say what YOU know you can back up in front of other people and talk about without just fighting for yourself, but what you can disseminate into the minds of others.

This is, of course, not an authorization to go full aspie. TL;DR you're not a fascist scumfuck, you're a man of the people with a people's ideology. Don't hide it.

This. Y'all don't know what you are talking about if you haven't defended North Korea in front of normies yet. Liberals go so fucking batshit about North Korea, it's the equivalent of trying to convince them that the earth is flat or that Hitler is still alive. They'll think you are joking first, then they will think you are an insane person.

I guess this is why many leftists take on an opportunist stance like since the DPRK in indefensible in front of liberals due to incredible amounts of propaganda, it gets you socially ostracized even. You will see smart people who usually have an informed and nuanced opinion regurgitate the most insane shit about North Korea, there is no help against the propaganda machine.

Do you live in America? Saying that you are a Marxist is totally fine in most countries. Saying that you are a Leninist might raise some eyebrows, but come on. I agree that "communist" has some connotations to it.

Sharing does feel nice.

I've told people I was a communist before, but that was on request or because it would be necessary in the point I was trying to get across. The best option is to fight the bullshit, but always to pick how you do it without compromising yourself or your integrity - you may after all, be the first ACTUAL communist someone has talked to. It all plays into rhetoric.

Or when I knew they wouldn't just immediately argue in bad faith or something dumb.

Well, that's why saying that you are a Marxist is always better than saying you are a communist. "Marxism" has a somewhat academic sounding connotation to it, I mean Žižek is a Marxist and gets on talkshows. However, he is far more hesitant to call himself a communist. When people are outraged about you being a communist, there are two ways to go about it (depending on your tendency of course):

1.) You completely denounce the USSR and other socialist states and say they have nothing to do with Marx
2.) You try to defend former socialist states by saying that a lot of the bad stuff was inflicted upon them and that their conditions were bad

In my experience, both is bad. If you use 1) they won't take you seriously because they'll think you are an utopian kid, they will ridicule you as being naive and that you will "grow up" eventually. If you resort to 2) you will be called a Holocaust denier. So yeah, I don't know what is worse and I really don't know how to go about this.

I mean, I can see defending the existence of the state itself, why it would arm itself. But to just go and say it's the best and all of the criticism of it is propaganda is a bit of a stretch. They have terribly managed resources all going to infrastructure to their capital, while the rest of the nation has been slowly upgraded from early 20th century technology. On top of that the famine that hit in the 90's and early 2000's really was the fault of the beuracracy, who have not seen to the health of North Koreans well.

In fact one of the biggest problems in North Korea are the fact they often times refuse to take in Western surgeons and expertise, and their medical technology is antiquated in most of the nation. We don't exactly know what North Korea's health looks like in its more rural areas besides what few surgeons that have been/are let in can tell us, but

outlook: grim.

This state their in originated in the West but terrible mismanagement shouldn't be beyond criticism. I'm not going to just excuse it all, I'll tell you what you're saying is true. But that does not excuse the Government for being so strict it won't even let modern medical equipment in, it just slowly gets in, antiquated.

It's not the ideas that trigger people (because people know you're right deep down) - it's the terms you use. With liberal elite uni types I use complex non-Marx-sounding jargon, with standard proles I use simple terms. I mean I got a lot of economics and business school students as frends and only once have I seen one of them get that uncomfortable look on their face.

I always defend socialist states and make people realize the other side. People, when in arguing in good faith or in a position where you're controlling the conversation, can have their minds changed about Cuba's perceived authoritarianism when you tell them about the U.S. embargo, the bay of pigs invasion, and the literal hundreds of assassination attempts on Fidel Castro and his family/friends. Another good thing is to link it to commonly held beliefs I.E. the media being corporate-owned, corrupt, etc.

OP here, there is some good discussion rolling, very comfy.

Why contain it? Let is spill over in church and school, let the evidence pile up. In the end, they'll beg us to teach them.

IT guy for the Front National?

I'm not saying that there wasn't mismanagement, but you can't deny that there was also drought and the stop of import of fertilizers and pesticides from the USSR. I'm supposed to believe that a country that only has 30% of arable land yet never had a famine even after the Korean War coincidently has one once the USSR dissolved? I mean, Cuba had food shortages as well. North Korea was under unbelievable pressure in the 90s, they were not only sanctioned but also had a very real threat of military invasion, way more real than Trump's banter on Twitter. Songun policy was partly a retreat from central planning, during the 90s the state acted more as an extractor of a more and more civil economy, to keep the military and the nuclear program running. You can see them going back to the old model the last recent years, there is more public development and an ever increasing living standard. What most Westerners don't understand is that the North Koreans are quite happy now because the 90s are still in their heads. I don't even believe Kim Jong-il is very popular amongst North Koreans, when they are in private at least.
They are catching up, they have computer tomography in every hospital now. I'm still unsure what standards you apply to them, considering their GDP.
While there have been some representative projects in Pyongyang, this is untrue. You can find plenty of infrastructure in many cities or even peripheral areas.

I do the same but the problem is that you need a somewhat ideological openness to get your foot in the door. I've come across people so ideologically indoctrinated where all these arguments don't work. In these cases, it's better not to debate at all. However, I think it's a grave mistake to not defend socialist states or at least explain their condition. Leftcoms and anarchists often completely dissociate themselves from it, and while this makes a little more sense with anarchists, as they hang on the idea of statelessness, I don't fucking understand why many Marxists who aren't Leninists completely ignore history or think that this is a good strategy in convincing people. Even if you reject the Marxist-Leninist states, you got to have some sort of explanation as to what went wrong, and why it wouldn't go wrong the next time. In my experience, people who know their history and somewhat defend socialist states fare way better in that regard.

I agree with you about people being indoctrinated. Some people aren't worth fighting in the first place. Pick your battles and make sure a discussion can be on your terms.

/rant
I wouldn't even consider myself an M-L (I just call myself a straight up communist) but really, you would have to be absolutely pedantic and childish just to brush off a majority of working socialist states who were M-L. There were absolutely amazing things achieved under these governments and economies, even a 3-4 hour work day in the USSR was realistically considered at one point much to the fright of the CIA. A communist cannot present themselves as objective and fighting for the truth if they give into the same old religious dogma about the plethora of these socialist states. Not only is it antithetical to the strategies we should be using to argue for socialism, at times it's sacrificial of something I talked about before: integrity. Praise what was done right, denounce what was done wrong. This goes for other socialist projects. Dogma is a cancer.
/rant

leninology.co.uk/2017/02/the-case-against-exposing-fascists.html - This article has a very good idea of what sort of attitude people need to get into despite the topic being mainly on fascists.

Eh it is pretty easy to blend into the modern labour party nowadays: most of them are working people who don;t want shit education or an NHS, however I have slowly been feeding theory into my CLP, even got my cooperativist cllr to google Bookchin. Tbh I just hide my ideals behind "personal opinion" rather than actually going around saying I am a Margist; it gets far more accepted that way.

To my mates, I get progressively more jokey, call everything a spook, say shit like "Casto did nothing wrong, the people deserved good healthcare" and shit like that. Tbh at uni you get a lot of red liberals being like "yeah I am a marxist", I almost throw up in my mouth everytime I hear someone say it because 9 times out of 8 they haven't read a word of marx.

Honestly thank fuck for Corbyn and McDonnell's tireless organizing. Corbyn may not be a communist but I'll call him a comrade any day, no matter what The Roo says.

btw im pretty sure mcdonnell is a margist anyway

there's no way for me to know what the state of nk is so I cannot defend it.

This.

ginger, he doesn't even hid his fucking powerlevel.

I don't. I'm right, so why should I fear scrutiny?

Im shit at discussing this since im woefully ignorant.

people call me a communist if I propose the most lukewarm socdem shit

...

The Roo?

easy for you college kids to say

This. Normalise normalise normalise. If you mostly avoid buzzwords (all the isms, private property etc.), and use them strategically so that if people are curious they can look up what youre talking about, you're doing Gods work. What's the fucking point of keeping your class consciousness to yourself, and never building solidarity with your fellow workers. That being said, there are lots of politically interested people have already been consumed by spooks. Just keep your analysis robust, and your theoritical basis solid and you'll have no trouble.

...

Nihilistic hedonism to cope with no communist gf and I go full crypto when talking to people. Here in burgerland most are susceptible to socialist ideas particularly anarchist but are too spooked to accept them if you call it communist. If you're able to talk to them using language they understand you can ease them in and slowly radicalize them. No sects of the left are able to do this on a wide scale and that's a tradgedy.

I just don't talk about it. If people ask me I say I'm 'very left-wing'. I only let in people I know a little who know for sure I'm not a nutcase.

Army Officer

Tbh it makes perfect sense, considering the lower ranks of the US army is stuffed with neo nazi shitheads.

I talk to people about the issues I am concerned about, have them tell me that I worry too much and that things are better than ever, provide them with evidence to the contrary, and then have them tell me feels > reals because they are not currently in a terrible situation themselves. Then I feel tremendously alienated from everyone around me, including my family and friends, and just end up bottling up all my despair and powerlessness inside with no one to even understand why I feel this way whilst billions starve and the world draws closer and closer to a variety of disasters without anyone apearing to give a fuck.
at this point I'm wondering if I'll even make 30 before I kill myself

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

So do not go gentle into that good night, comrade.

The same way I've dealt with inequality before I ever picked up a leftist book: simmering rage. Now it's been refined by years of theory.

I'm pretty open with my political beliefs but I keep that shit down while at work. Although, I do drop the "we need to unionize, fuck corporate" pill every now and again

Just sandwich the ideology between jokes, people will eat it up.

...

Contra pls go

I've whiteknighted really existing socialism a few times, in totally reasonable terms, and they all just compared me to holocaust-denying nazis.

Yeah, don't bother. "Stalin did not kill 100 million people" is the same thing as "I approve of everything Stalin did and would like to murder 100 million people" to most normies.

Fear of revealing your powerlevel is likely a result of you getting demolished in a debate because you forgot to read a book.

At work I just don't bring up politics, don't talk to my coworkers, just put on headphones and listen to leftist podcasts. Stealth marxist. All well and good if you can pull off normalizing it, but I'm weird enough already and socially awkward without them knowing I also have radical political views.

Yes, I hide my power level

lel

man people will disown you if they think you're a coon, shit is the worst

Ww

No amount of theory is gonna save you if you want to defend the some aspect of the USSR when you're met with the common one trillion gorillion screeching.

If you're a communist at all, defending the good achievements of previous experiments is mandatory.

And only useful if you can get brainlets to think of the USSR as an experiment.

And if you can't what do you suggest? hiding your power level maybe? :^)

My least favorite part about this shitlord attitude is the supreme satisfaction they have. They are 101% sure Stalin killed at least 400 quadrillion and of you say he didn't you are automatically shit out. They have no proof yet are proved. Bullshit.

I dont, i already converted some fools in my office

i thought coon is a racial slur for black people, why would they call you coon if their SJW?

A coon is a self-hating black person, at least the way black Americans use it

I say a lot of anti-capitalist stuff but never really say my ideology but you could probably figure something out. Just easier that way I think.

but they do

what, you think anarchists are the one stuck for a peaceful revolution?

I used to say that im a moderate but i dont give a fuck anymore, i defended Stalin in my history class a few years ago and my classmates started to ask me about soviet history, its easier for me since i already look like im insane

I fully defended DPRK a month or so ago at work, there was a news program at lunch and I cheered on the Hwasong 14 launch. Clapping and yelling 'My boy Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiim, bloody legend!'

The cafeteria was pretty loud so the group I was sitting with were laughing thinking it was a joke. Surrounding tables were doing side-eyes, old dudes were triggered.

Oh in a serious note, saying your a Marxist and discussing simple topics from a different perspective usually gets no negative reactions from the younger or non political population.

Talk about alienation from work, how people used to only work for one hour a day and spend all their time with their kids and family.
Talk about the origin of profit, talk about the benefits technology could bring if we reduced the work day.

Talk about the origin of the family, gender roles, and how marriage is a financial arrangement.Talk about historical materialism (without calling it that) and how in every society there were those that worked and those that benefited from others. Also the 'truth' institutions like the shaman/priest/media that exist to justify the system.

damn you revealed your power level 1000% savage full tank

Don't really have to hide shit to much. Only properly came around to socialism the past few months. Only really heavily talk about this shit with my dad, since he's kinda became sympathetic to socialist shit, since Ireland a shit.

My best friend kinda got hooked onto libertarian/wierd nihilistic an-cap (like he knows it's dog-shit, but constanty jokes about it low-key thinks people are always selfish kinda thing) shit there for a bit. The political climate in America has made him pretty reactionary tho, so I'm mainly hoping there's major fuck ups in the next few years to spook him out of it. He's still in a "Gommunism do not work cause I heard it somewhere","muh one hundo gorillian" area, but he is complaining about problems caused by capitalism a good bit.

I'm a massive fucking brainlet still, but I'd say I should be able to help him out in a year or two.

As a unironic Nazbol I can relate, it's rather hard to get accepted by people when you aprove, but at the same time also deny, both the holocaust and holodomor.
Sometimes I simply can't hide my powerlevel, like yesterday when an israeli sat next to me at lecture, like we were cool and shit.
Just when he took out his laptop I snatched it away and threw it against the wall and screamed at him; DEATH TO THE JEW, DEATH TO ISRAEL, DEATH TO ALL YOU SIONISTA CAPITALISTS.
For a while everything went silent, but then I heard applause, people all around me yelling and applauding my actions against the globalist Jew.
That's when I woke up, it seems like someone hit me on the head when I started yelling and I got suspended from Uni for 2 weeks.

...

Say that communists are always ahead of the curve, and the people only recently realized that a lot of news is fake.

Something to do with law enforcement is my guess

I'm ok with re-education

One thing I has learned is that hiding your power level doesn't necessarily involve pretending to be someone you are not, but rather to omit exposing opinions that could be controversial. You don't have to react to everything anyone says. Sometimes, you can just be silent.
Personally, I also like being a devi('s advocate and coming up with counterpoints to my own arguments, which can be an useful device for debates. It's a double-edged sword, but used well, it can be a good tactic to show that you have considered the arguments of the other side, which make you seem more sympathetic, but also that you haven't been satisfied with them (provided you have a counterargument at hand).

Well, luck favours the prepared. Just because liberals roll over for fascists, doesn't mean they will roll over for us. It's very nasty business to watch someone suddenly grow a spine at the worst possible moment.

The lower ranks? What about the officers?

This guy can speak about Marx and alienation freely in the middle of burgerland because he presents it in an understandable and scientific way that relates to everyday life.

youtu.be/W_ALpvLadQI

I'm open with being a leftist, I just don't talk about it all the time when under normies. Bit by bit

infanteria marina o armada?

You have to be nuanced in your approach. Be indirect and somewhat jocular when talking on issues and not be an awkward nerd about it.
Also if you are talking about politics for the first time don't reveal your power level; just imply it. If people are unconformable with you being far-left then they can never know for certain but they they are relaxed by implied far-left talk them they will warm up to you.

I sometimes jokingly correct people and tell them how they can best counter my argument, because usually they are a bit less invested in such a discussion.

I've never mentioned anything political in front of my freinds, family, etc. I put a fake cover on capital when I was reading it.

most of my friends are punks, other philosophy students, or non political so i can be open about my views with them
and i simply don´t fuck with normies so there isn´t a problem either

I hide my power levels around people I know such as at work. Like for instance I work with a Venezuelan who “fled” Maduro.
My family knows I’m a communist even tho they’re really right wing. Surprisingly my step dad who is a trump supporter has said thing to me that sounded like it came from Marx’s mouth himself. Talks about overthrowing the rich, about people getting fed up and eventually gunning down congress, lambasts the greed of capitalists, yet doesn’t identify with any political ideology.

Top kek
So around family I don’t have much to hide, but around friends and aquaintences I will only say I’m farrrrr left or socialist, depending on the situation

Some people are a true mystery to me.

I've abandoned hiding my power level. Just today I informed some people waiting in line at a food bank about what Posadism is.

It's not even hard to do. North Korea is under huge sanctions for testing and development of ICBMs, when they haven't hurt fucking anyone in doing so. Meanwhile huge amounts of people were given cancer and other ailments by America testing Nuclear Weapons in their own country and around various island nations. North Korea is sanctioned for this, if you even send them fucking food America will ream your ass, but America sent weapons to Indonesia when they were committing genocide in East Timor. No one can do anything about this because America is powerful and controls the media.

On top of this North Korea's standard of living isn't even particularly terrible, especially so considering they're under constant sanctions. There a plethora of people who've visited, some with pictures and videos showing how it is there, it generally seems like a modest but tolerable standard of life albeit lacking civil liberties. If the bitch about that faggot who stole the sign it's laughable considering America's prison system.

The only thing North Korea has done that America hasn't done on a greater scale is be an enemy of America.

People are legitimately retarded.

I live in a liberal milieu in a rich western social democratic European capital.

So I just don't hide my power level lmao. Family has frowned a bit when I defend Stalin from unfair accussations (holahoax etc). I might be an anarchist but that doesn't mean I accept hearing untrue propaganda about Stalin's legacy, which although mixed, is in some ways impressive

succ-dems being fascists, exhibit #1938

we should absolutely irony poison people into supporting the DPRK

kys
it all gets better after that

To my coworkers I pretend to be Corbynite Succdem if the topic comes up (generally speaking I don't bring it up myself), that's relatively acceptable, the company can hardly blackball all Labour voters, but just in case I would try to deescalate a talk about politics with my bosses if it ever came up, why get on their bad side.

You can still say some pretty class concioussness raising things while pretending to be a hard social democrat so it's not like you can't still breadpill people.

What is the original of this comic?

2nd one I believe

America killed John Wayne with Nuclear tests lmao

If the DPRK comes up among normies I just point out that they aren't producing infinite amounts of non-biodegradable consumer goods, don't waste human potential on shit like advertising and stock trading, and actually value education. I'm not about to move there mainly because of the language and cultural barriers but they aren't pressing the gas pedal on ecological collapse, the capitalist west is.

Don't talk about politics with people wtf, that's so rude

also don't lie to people, that's a bad thing to do.

If they ask you what you are just say "idk"
If they ask you about a specific issue, just say your REAL opinion, but try to make it sound as not communist as possible

So would you niggers share your chocolate or not? What is the Holla Forums thing to do?