The DSA libertarian socialist caucus has reinvented itself the last year or so, they put out some good solid analysis prior to convention, and is doing a lot of work to build a libertarian socialist plurality within the org.

Right libertarians arent politically coherent, their lack of coherence means they are shot through with Nazis who exploit unprincipled movements yo plant the seeds of hate. A libertarian could be your uncle who smokes weed but listens to Dave Rubin and Joe Rogan podcast, or it could be a school shooter, a transhumanist tech accellerationist who always brings up Rokos basilisk after a couple Busch lights, or a neo-Randian objectivist.

As a left-Hegelian, I like discourse around human freedom, but people never concretize what they mean by freedom, and we always end up back to Marx:

Do not be deluded by the abstract word Freedom. Whose freedom? Not the freedom of one individual in relation to another, but freedom of Capital to crush the worker.

He’s a total ideologue.

I’m not crying you’re crying

Now people can’t describe anything concretely, so they can never check if their abstractions are even accurate.

The idea of concretizing problems is something ive been thinking about a lot recently, and its surprising how simple yet unnatural it is. When you think about it an abstraction can help aid understanding and can bring us closer to objective reality, but a false abstraction actually is alienating from reality, nature, each other, ourselves.

Also there’s a lot of really smart people who are able to name an abstraction, name the specific concrete occurrence that is contained in or broadly explained by the abstraction, but can’t conceive of or explain any of the steps in between.

We all just out here vibing “trust me bro” and dont even realize it

“First names dont indicate familial relationsh…” sees kanji in username “…oh never mind, carry on”

So how would you calculate this?

Do you believe private property is a fundamental human right? If yes, Do you believe that people who own or run businesses should be able to pay a living wage?

Do you have a theory of political change? What is it?

Are you familiar with theories of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism? Are you pro-reparations?

Do you believe economic degrowth is necessary to avoid climate change?

Are you opposed to the genocide in Palestine? Do you support a one or two state solution?

Are you a British Green or an American Green?

I worry that by asking these questions directly it might affect any answers but these are “further left” than your stances.

Based on what you shared I’d say you’re a “progressive liberal”, which is a right-leaning moderate position. But that’s where a lot of revolutionary leftists, including myself, started out.

What really matters to me when relating to progressive liberals is: If you’re willing to educate yourself, and getting involved in a political party like you’re doing could help.
if your positions are based on a real spiritual progressivism, or if someone acts fundamentally reformist/opportunist.

Something Beautiful is Going To Happen

I bought my son a cheap little computer, basically a windows version of a Chromebook. When windows needed an update there wasn’t enough memory to perform it, and the computer would no longer connect to WiFi. I thought this was very dumb so I figured out how to remove windows and install Mint. Was impressed by how well it worked.

When I needed a new computer I bought a $150 thinkpad and installed Fedora. Been a fedora main ever since

DOGE used this same model on the US government.

Capitalism is not rational

Capitalism is organized crime

My favorite bit is everyone running around like “vulcans are so logical and intelligent” and vulcans saying “we are so logical and intelligent” and then they’re just sort of weird racists

I read a couple Teleb books about 15 years ago, they’re very funny. You go in thinking they’re these books about systematic collapse, but mostly its just about how he’s so smart he gets to be friends with Benoit Mandelbrot.

The theme of Anti-Fragile is “don’t be a sucker” which is really good advice tbh, but if you’re not a sucker you wouldnt have fallen for the apocalyptic framing of a book about how he’s so smart because he read some entry-level philosophy at some point, while Paul Krugman is a fucking moron and the nobel prize for economics is a joke

Marx did actually consider human nature

Its at least partially a statistical trick. People of lower competence rate themselves closer to the middle, but people with high competence also do this.

I also find it hilarious how virtually everyone acts like an expert in diagnosing dunning-krueger. Like looking at a graph for a second and then repeating an academic mystification and 5-10 word snippet repeated ad nauseum is pretty fucking ironic given the subject

nothing being done

Yeah that’s its own sort of doomer individualism. I wish I could tell you, as someone who teams up with others to do things that the view disappears in practical work, but tbh it seems like it only increases. Idk. There are def lots of young people joining the movement. Hasn’t reached a critical point but it’s growing.

I wish we had more artists since most are like political sickos

So I’m a socialist, in that I go to meetings voluntarily and get in trouble all the time. I spend a ton of time heavily invested in this political stuff. And one thing that is like desperately missing from our movements is any kind of culture. So that’s something that I’m also thinking about a lot, and I think a lot of people are. Not sure what to do really, still trying to figure that stuff out, but I’m actively trying to figure that out.

Run the Jewels def have some overtly political stuff, a few tracks with Zach de la Rocha even, although Killer Mike is a little disappointing politically, but many artists are. They have newer stuff but I just really like this song

Another group to check out is the Coup. Been making records since before the gangsta rap come up in the 90s even. Their newer stuff is pretty popular with young people too.

Both these songs are over a decade old, fuck me

I took my daughter to a concert some years ago, when she was in middle school, and before any bands went on, “Killing in the Name Of” started up. I told her “at the end of the intro when the song starts up, everyone in the audience over 30 will start bobbing their head” and sure enough, thousands of adult chaperones all at once just start grooving

Well recession pop is back, check out the new Lady Gaga or Kesha albums. So there is that sort of dissonance and syncopated funkier rhythms in pop music which can usually be connected to economic and social downturn.

I know that shit is worlds away from what you’re referring to, I think you’re looking for something more aggressive.

I think the 2022 Every Time I Die record Renegade goes pretty fucking hard, I listen to Planet Shit about once a month and just rage.

Planet B by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard goes pretty hard.

You can always check out whatever Napalm Death is doing, much of their stuff is political and social commentary, in fact I love ND lyrics.

No one has the " popular understanding of ‘transgender’ didn’t really exist for gen x but whatever it’s going to be, these songs are mostly about needing to transition but feeling unable to" that Kurt Cobain had, but Kurt did once say that early Nirvana was an attempt at copping Gang of Four, and Go4 is very political, critical and high energy. esp their first album “Entertainment!” and “Solid Gold”. After that they become kinda disco.

Also consider diving into the incredible wealth of protest music produced before the 60s. The 60s is kind of understood as a high water mark for protest music, but IMO a lot of Dylan and stuff was promoted more because he was actually less political than like Phil Ochs. Woody Guthrie, Victor Jara, The Almanac Singers, Odetta, etc., had much sharper politics than most well known artists who came after.

Finally, last but best, not new but largely undiscovered and forgotten, the Swedish RATM: the 1998 album The Shape of Punk to Come by the Refused. By far, one of my absolute favorite left wing records

Its a circumstance that is an extension of rational dualism, it isn’t inherent to humanity. Its the way we were all taught to think, that leads to “othering”. There are other means of analysing our world, which bring people together rather than splitting and alienating each other.

What you call inherent to humanity, I call inherent to bourgeois capitalism. Humanity has other options. In a thread about worker liberation, bourgeois essentialism should not go uncriticized.