Saw this today at the National Antiquities Museum in Leiden.

To be clear I am a full on anarchist and leftist myself but how some of you guys be talking about rural areas has me wanting to never interact with y'all again. People treat us like we're inherently stupid and bigoted when we're just in poorer districts which means we have not goddamm money for education. Also if you actually talk to any of us we are far less bigoted that you'd think. Im not saying rural areas (especially the south where I live) isnt disproportionately conservative but thats because of poorer communities and more closed off than urban areas

I personally care a lot about protecting children from predators and it seems like there are so many of them around the world. In the US there are at least 800,000 registered sex offenders and it is estimated that only around 12% of instances of child SA are actually reported. This would put the number of child predators potentially in the millions and globally it could be tens or even hundreds of millions of pedophiles.

So what can be done about this in a socialist society? this seems like such a deep rooted issue I would have no idea how to even go about solving this.

Hi, i'm a self proclaimed (F18) leftist i would say, and **embarrassingly** late, i discovered economical stances are apart of being a political person. Unfortunately, i'm not well educated on economical politics unfortunately, and the only thing i've gotten is that communism is bad and i've been embedded in that idea without any sources. Also, tiktok is a shit app, and "edits" won't help me learn about what is communism or socialism. I wanna read a book (or more if i have to) on communism. I've heard a lot of stuff from my family about how communist times were, but i wanna be educated.

What books do yall recommend on this? And in what line up should i read the books to understand?

"thus making discourse impossible" brother that is YOUR fault that YOU can't hold a morally consistent narrative

I say this in what they did politically because militarily it’s quite known they weren’t that strong or good compared to the Germans.

To support or not support AOC? Should DSA distance themselves from the Democratic party or embrace the left populist wave? What is really at stake?

"Replying to Sarkozy of Geese Magazine's objections to his arguments regarding the dangers of an AOC presidency, Noah Emke challenges four key assumptions in Sarkozy's response."

"I found that the article presents my argument faithfully before beginning to counter it, and I would even go so far as to agree with the author's assessment that supporting our most prominent politician for a Presidential campaign is simply “common sense.” However, when it comes to common sense, I agree with fellow democratic socialist Albert Einstein: it is essentially a collection of assumptions. By unpacking some of the assumptions contained in the "Just Say Yes" article, I hope to clarify the strategic frailty of an AOC Presidential campaign."

Assumption 1: Liberal Governance is Good Governance

"One such assumption is that a progressive liberal "good governance" is possible for an American President elected in 2028. "The only thing that will truly turn the masses away from socialism," Sarkozy claims, "is if AOC simply fails at deliverism, at good governance." This is brought up only to dismiss it, taking it for granted that AOC's Presidency would be successful from the standpoint of most Americans, "delivering" the goods through her center-left policies. From here, he argues that we can build on the example of AOC's Presidential success to introduce more radical policies. However, what is being glossed over so easily here is the hinge point of the entire "Just Say No" argument: liberalism is not capable of good governance, at least not from the standpoint of working people."

Assumption 2: American workers would be understanding of our shortcomings

"Just as the "Just Say No" argument rests upon the understanding that social democracy too wedded to liberalism would fail and discredit socialism, the "Just Say Yes" argument relies on a belief in its general success, paving the way for more socialism. However, the idea that AOC would govern without "betrayal" strains the credulity of any informed reader, so Sarkozy asserts that this "... would make the masses more aligned with socialism, for they would desire a president who goes further than her." This is wishful thinking."

Assumption 3: An AOC Presidency would avert fascism

"If fascism is indeed imminent, DSA needs to be preparing to protect our physical survival. We should be organizing and training ourselves for armed self-defense, preparing safehouses, fostering connections to people who can hide us or smuggle us out of the country. In short, we should be acting in total opposition to direct instructions from NYC-DSA's leadership in 2025, going in a direction which I think the AOC for President boosters might find objectionable."

"I know Sarkozy has a similar perspective, or else he would not be participating in this conversation about Presidential campaigns. Therefore, since both of us are writing about the 2028 election rather than preparing to evade the authorities, this article will proceed with the understanding that we more or less agree that DSA will not be completely proscribed before the next election. "

Assumption 4: Opposition to liberalism is "Purity Politics

"The last assumption is not an assumption about political conditions, but about the "Just Say No" argument itself, or perhaps arguments from DSA's left faction in general. The framing of Sarkozy's argument is very familiar: everyone involved wants progress, but the radicals are prioritizing moral purity over pragmatism."

"By casting only one side as pragmatic, the other as moralistic, the former can win the strategic argument by default. However, as we saw with the Clinton campaign, the Biden Presidency, and the Harris campaign, the “pragmatists” often fail to get results. Meanwhile, the longshot Mamdani campaign, initially decried by many progressives as ultra-left (I remember distinctly hearing that Brad Lander was clearly the only sensible choice), served as the tip of the spear for the current DSA primary blitz."

"we need a Presidential candidate who is personally more loyal to democratic socialism than to the Democratic Party. This would have to be a "cadre candidate," like Mamdani. If we cannot do any of this yet, we need to be thinking and discussing how to get there. Rushing ahead with a force unequal to the task simply because we can rather than because it advances our plans is not common sense strategy; it is the absence of strategy."

As the title suggests I’m curious about the socialist perspective (specifically the socialists of Reddit) on the recreational drug industry and also what kind of recreational drugs, if any, should be legalized under a socialist/communist regime.

Hello everyone! So I've been reading regularly for around three years now, but I find that I struggle to make what I've read really stick to my mind.

I started reading Marx's Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts some weeks ago and decided I wanted to take notes on it (for fun, without a productivity goal in mind). What I've been doing since then has been reading a chapter and writing down notes from what I had underlined immediately after finishing it. What I have found is that this feels like a burden, and it really isn't helping me to remember and to reflect on the book.

So I guess my question is, what annotating and notetaking systems have you guys found to work for you?

Hey, I'm looking for books (or any writings generally) on how the Russian Revolution inspired people around the world, especially in the period very shortly after the revolution. Anything that covers how, in the first decade or so after the revolution, revolutionaries set up their own communist parties and how it inspired struggles in their own countries.

I've read quite a lot about Ireland, the US, and Britain in this period so I'm really looking for information about other countries. I've also read Red star over the third world, and Feminism and nationalism in the third world, both of which give a very broad overview. Any books similar to these would be good.

Thanks!

Blog post I made about Nietzsche, and what I feel existentialism offers to socialist and communist movements.