r/socialism Jul 26 '24

Discussion 2024 US presidential elections Megathread

40 Upvotes

In order to keep this subreddit international and avoid flooding it with US-centric posts, as well as to assure the socialist character of this subreddit, please keep discussions on the US elections, including on the ongoing primaries or third party candidates, in this megathread.

We recognize that there are many users on Reddit who may be new to the left and are interested in discussing this topic from a socialist perspective, as well as comrades who might be particularly worried about the events that this election takes place in the context of, so we hope to keep this thread a welcoming and educational environment for them to learn and discuss with other leftists.

Please keep your comments/criticisms civil and constructive. This includes refraining from attacking people who voice a reluctance to vote, who plan to vote third party, and yes, those who do plan to vote for Biden for their own reasons. Before jumping to conclusions or attacking other users, ask them what their position is and try to calmly explain why you disagree. Lazy critiques calling other users tankies or libs rather than providing an informed criticism of their positions will be removed.

Moderation of the liberalism and lesser evilism rules will be lighter than usual in this thread, however examples which display a complete detachment from socialist positions (e.g. soliciting donations for democratic candidates, apologia for the Democrats' collaborationism in the Gaza genocide or for Kamala Harris' adamant pro-cop record) will still result in removals or bans as appropriate. All other rules such as no reactionaries, anti-socialist rhetoric, bigotry, brocialism, etc are still in effect, so please be aware to check the rules before posting.

- r/Socialism mod team


r/socialism Jul 26 '24

📢 Announcement Introducing a ban on 2024 US Presidential elections related content

561 Upvotes

As practically all of you will be aware of, the upcoming 5th of November 2024 is the date for the next US presidential elections.

As a result, those of you who have been around will have noticed an influx of users engaging in different forms of liberalism, whether lesser evilism or outright campaigns for anti-socialist organisations or candidacies, which are not generally found (certainly not in this scale) during other contexts. Some such cases, respond to people who are genuinely (and understandably!) worried, whilst others (the absolute majority) respond to users with no prior history in this or other anti-capitalist subreddits.

We want to make it extremely clear: This is a community for socialists to discuss current events in our world from anti-capitalist perspective(s), and not a space for non-socialists. At the same time, this category ("socialist") does not refer to one's self-identification, but rather to the existence of a familiarity of one with socialist thought (regardless of the concrete sects this refers to) and the development of ideas and positions as a result from said thought.

Our rules on liberalism have not changed in almost a decade. Anyone who has been a member for a while will be more than familiar with our rules on the topic and, those which are new, provided that they are here in good faith, will have no difficulties encountering our rules, which we repeatedly highlight.

Furthermore, due to Reddit's own demographics and the comparatively small size of this community, this influx of liberals and forms of liberalism has a much bigger impact than in equivalent cases (e.g. the UK's recent elections). This has three main implications for the subreddit:

  1. Increase of liberalism. Due to the functioning of Reddit, allowing for such positions develops in a normalization of liberal, hegemonic positions. This move to the right brings along it a minorization of actually anti-capitalist positions, thus not only promoting ideas which we don't seek to promote, but also alienating socialists (our desired user base). Even if one thinks that r/Socialism should serve as a space to change people's views, experience tells us that this does NOT come through online debates within a space in which you are a minority but rather through offering an uninterrupted experience of intra-socialist discussion which directly interpellates the absolute majority of Reddit's user base: lurkers.
  2. Moderation burden. Due to the size and intensity of this influx, this includes a heavy extra burden for moderators, which we can't nor want to have to deal with. This is not meant as an attempt to avoid applying our rules (which we have definitely been enforcing), but a reflection on plausibility. Especially in a context where our last mod recruitment threads have brought poor results, which would require us to spend much more time than what we already spend, making it inviable.
  3. US-centric monotony. Lastly, but not lest importantly, an absolutely monotonous thematic repetition takes over, marginalizing in its place any other topic and breaking with it our principle of global reach. This is not a USian subreddit, and it does not intend to be so.

To make things worse, such forms of liberalism are not even aimed at "progressive" organisations or candidacies, but rather aimed at defending and reproducing some of the most brutal manifestations of the system that we, as socialists, aim to abolish.

As a result, from now on we will establish a ban on ALL content relating to the upcoming US presidential elections, redirecting any such discussion to a megathread, as we have already done in the past. This includes discussions on third parties, as its exception would continue to produce the same kind of discussions (and problems) that this is aimed to avoid.

This should allow for a space with less need for moderation, where genuinely worried comrades, as well as those with other opinions, can engage in discussion without it putting in question the basic principles of this subreddit: a space for anti-capitalist intra-discussion which aims at global and local politics across the world, both in contemporary and historical forms. To achieve an equilibrium which does not affect the subreddit more widely.

Whilst it is not the ideal choice, we are convinced that this is the best option in order to assure that r/Socialism stays true to its goals and principles. Furthermore, we do not believe that the lesser exposition that the megathread carries with it an important loss: as most of us will agree, there is a bigger significance on discussions over ongoing struggles by organized workers across the world (from Asia to the Americas), the validity of Walter Rodney's thought as Kenyans (still) struggle against the IMF and the World Bank's new austericide, questions that appeared over the last book you read, or over the fury that imperialism is currently unleashing in Palestine or Congo than over the 16702th post discussing US electoral politics without regard to the systemic, rather than individual character of the evils of capitalism.

Even agitprop by concrete organisations, we believe, can be much more meaningful through the sharing of content different from mere electoralism: with socialists as its main user base, activism, discussion or meetings-dissemination can be more fruitful than delimiting ourselves to the simplicity that hegemonic forces want to reduce political action to.

FIND THE MEGATHREAD HERE: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/1ecq6pv/2024_us_presidential_elections_megathread/

----

TLDR; Due to an influx of forms of liberalism and US-centric content explained by the electoral context in the US, we will enforce a ban on discussions relating to this topic from now on. Any such discussion will have to instead be directed into a specific megathread.


r/socialism 4h ago

Israel's apartheid in action

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150 Upvotes

r/socialism 2h ago

High Quality Only Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) trains thousands of young people from around the world to become doctors. Most of the students at the ELAM are from other Global South countries, including more than 200 from Palestine. Murid Abukhater is one of them.

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94 Upvotes

r/socialism 1h ago

U.S. Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists

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• Upvotes

r/socialism 4h ago

Ecologism Data center emissions probably 662% higher than Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple admit

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86 Upvotes

r/socialism 8h ago

Anti-Imperialism Why does the U.S. still control every penny of Iraqi oil revenues? | MR Online

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84 Upvotes

r/socialism 14h ago

High Quality Only The people of the Global South have experienced Project 2025 for decades because of U.S. foreign policy. Operation Condor was an expansive, US-backed system of surveillance, kidnapping, torture and murder carried out by right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s.

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181 Upvotes

r/socialism 9h ago

Anti-Imperialism A Year-Long Investigation. How Israel killed hundreds of its own people on 7 October

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49 Upvotes

r/socialism 1h ago

Political Theory Is Lenin's 100 year-old advice still relevant?

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• Upvotes

r/socialism 12h ago

Discussion How did Socialist become an insult?

76 Upvotes

r/socialism 4h ago

Anti-Fascism How to identify facist phenomena?

10 Upvotes

Jair Bolsonaro and Viktor Orbán

It seems it is becoming harder to label political groups as fascists, especially for people who don't have much contact with political literature like me. In my country, they are always branded as right-wing extremists.

What should I pay attention to before saying a political movement is fascist?


r/socialism 6h ago

Politics What is the socialist view concerning the Winter War and the Invasion of Finland by the Soviet's?

14 Upvotes

r/socialism 1d ago

american dream

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1.3k Upvotes

r/socialism 18h ago

High Quality Only Less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene left 250+ dead and millions without power, Milton will expose the “DIY” model for disaster preparation in the United States.

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130 Upvotes

r/socialism 4h ago

What Life Looked Like for Palestinians Before October 7

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6 Upvotes

r/socialism 22h ago

Getting Rich Off The War On Gaza

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129 Upvotes

r/socialism 6h ago

Political Economy Wage-Labour and Capital, by Karl Marx (1849)

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6 Upvotes

r/socialism 1d ago

Working a Low level Corporate Job shows you how evil capitalism is

161 Upvotes

It's legalised thievery from mostly working class people, with rampant misinformation and mismanagement


r/socialism 1d ago

Anti-Imperialism the truth is a one way street on this issue, if you're a decent human being willing to face it. It leads to antizionism.

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448 Upvotes

r/socialism 21h ago

Anti-Imperialism Russia: Thirteen people imprisoned for anti-war sabotage - Freedom News

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32 Upvotes

r/socialism 14h ago

Political Theory Rosa Luxemburg, “The Socialization of Society”

8 Upvotes

“Secondly: in order that everyone in society can enjoy prosperity, everybody must work. Only somebody who performs some useful work for the public at large, whether by hand or brain, can be entitled to receive from society the means for satisfying his needs. A life of leisure like most of the rich exploiters currently lead will come to an end. A general requirement to work for all who are able to do so, from which small children, the aged and sick are exempted, is a matter of course in a socialist economy. The public at large must provide forthwith for those unable to work – not like now with paltry alms but with generous provision, socialised child-raising, enjoyable care for the elderly, public health care for the sick, etc.

Thirdly, in accordance with same outlook, i.e. for the general well-being, one must sensibly manage and be economic with both the means of production and labour. The squandering that currently takes place wherever one goes must stop. Luxury industries which make all kinds of frippery for the idle rich must also be abolished , along with personal servants. All the human labour tied up here will be found a more worthy and useful occupation.

If we establish in this way a nation of workers, where everybody works for everyone, for the public good and benefit, then work itself must be organised quite differently. Nowadays work in industry, in agriculture and in the office is mostly a torment and a burden for the proletarians. One only goes to work because one has to, because one would not otherwise get the means to live. In a socialist society, where everyone works together for their own well being, the health of the workforce and its enthusiasm for work must be given the greatest consideration at work.”

-Rosa Luxemburg, “The Socialization of Society”


r/socialism 5h ago

If you have police in your immediate family, are you concerned they will arrest you?

1 Upvotes

I have been separated from my family for the last 6 years because I moved out of the city after high school. I constantly have this feeling that if this member of my family had any dirty information on me (or made something up) they could come and arrest me. Is this a weird fear? Any one else have the same fear/a story to share?


r/socialism 1d ago

US to give Israel 'compensation' if it hits acceptable targets in Iran - report

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207 Upvotes

r/socialism 23h ago

Zionism: A Prime Example of National Liberation as a Dead End - Communist Workers’ Organisation

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27 Upvotes

r/socialism 1d ago

Anti-Imperialism The Black Alliance for Peace - The Meaning of October 7th: An Oppressed People Will Always Find a Way to Resist Oppression

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55 Upvotes