Objection

Great! I knew this wasn't going to go anywhere from the start, as I said. You haven't said a single thing worth reading in this whole conversation, or in any other comment I've ever seen you make. So this seems like a good a time as any to simply block you.

Blows my mind

Not as much as it blows their minds.

Just here to watch the libs label Anarchists as Tankies 🍿

"Oh, well this gun costs less than your watch, and yet: hand it over."

I suppose that virtually every academic or scientific paper in history is guilty of "deification" because they cite other works. I guess I'm "deifying" you too, because I've quoted things you've said.

Nothing I believe is on the basis of, "because Lenin said so." Nor do I believe in blindly applying his strategies regardless of material conditions. These are entirely baseless accusations, and there is nothing I've said that you can point to as evidence of them. I agree with Lenin's perspective to an extent, from a reasoned, critical position. But it seems that anything short of blind rejection of everything he said counts as "blindly following" by your standards.

We haven't even really begun to examine the questions of whether his ideas were correct or whether they are applicable to today. All I've done is present what they are and refuted your nonsensical attempts to twist his words around.

I found it funny that your own snippet of theory was substantially more supportive of my position

Which, to be clear, was not even remotely true, as I demonstrated. No that I have spent time demonstrating that you are objectively wrong about Lenin's historical positions, you are now accusing me of blinding following them, when all I've done is clarify what they are, against you absurd attempts to misconstrue and twist around his words.

They are based on reason, informed by history and theory, but not blindly.

My rock solid point is not “Demonstrate ideological purity and ability to cite theory” as yours seems to be.

Your foundation is demonstrating ideological purity, so if Lenin says something detrimental to that purity, you are compelled to selectively choose only that which supports purity.

An argument isn’t “valid” because a famous theorist wrote it down 100 years ago. I never claimed otherwise, there is no flip, you just don’t understand the concept of favoring reason to theory.

And that’s why the whole ML movement I see here is doomed. Everyone who questions your favored theorist is a “liberal” and must be shamed. You’ve elevated ancient theory to sacred scripture, and perverted the rational pursuit for political efficacy into a religious devotion.

Literally every word of this is just baseless nonsense, over and over again.

I cited Lenin for a couple specific purposes, first, to establish that my positions are part of a broader leftist intellectual tradition, second, because I personally find his arguments compelling and relevant.

For the third time, I will point out that you claimed that you could support your positions with theory, which you have not done, and have now flipped to saying that theory is irrelevant, accusing me of "blindly following it" merely for citing and referencing it - after you asked me to, by the way! When I said that I had read theory and could defend my positions in the context of it, you called me out for not having done so, when I then did so, you called me out for doing so. It's absolutely absurd.

It's obvious that you are no operating on any kind of rational basis, but rather blind loyalty to the Democratic party.

That's quite the pivot! You were just arguing that I should listen to him because he supported your position, the second that it's established that he did not, I should throw out everything he said.

It's like, at the center of your universe is the concept, "You should vote for Harris" and all other propositions rotate around that immovable point. Lenin can be worth listening to, as long as that point doesn't move, the moment he tries to move that point, he's out. This is entirely backwards from how it's supposed to work, voting for Harris is a conclusion that is predicated on a particular set of premises, the premises are supposed to be the rock solid foundation, and the conclusion (whatever it may be) the least stable and most flexible point.

I do not blindly follow whatever Lenin says. I think it's important, however, to understand what he did and did not argue for, factually speaking, as is true of any other theorist. In this case, it's just that I find his arguments compelling and think his strategy makes sense, even in present conditions - I do not necessarily envision an open revolution in the same vein of conventional warfare, but I would argue the same principles apply if "revolutionary action" looks less like that and more like mass strikes.

Earlier, you claimed to be able to support your position theoretically. You still haven't provided any, and, having failed to piggyback off my own source, you now seem to be arguing against the relevance of theory altogether. Again, premises flipping from on to the other, revolving around a central conclusion.

And not sure how I could’ve taken anything out of context, I literally copied and pasted direct quotes.

You've never heard of proof-texting?

The American people do not have the class consciousness or preparedness to support a revolutionary communist party. A sober evaluation of the actual state demonstrates that quite clearly.

This is literally the exact opposite of his position. You're saying that you shouldn't run as a communist until the proletariat is sufficiently radicalized, when Lenin is saying that you should run as a communist specifically in order to radicalize the proletariat when they are not radicalized. His whole argument is that it is because the proletariat is not radicalized that participation in bourgeois politics is worthwhile.

Winning elections is not the point, the point is promoting the message, and if you happen to win a couple elections along the way and get a few representatives in, cool, that can be useful, but that always takes a backseat to other priorities:

action by the masses, a big strike, for instance, is more important than parliamentary activity at all times, and not only during a revolution or in a revolutionary situation.

Lenin even makes reference to still persuing a revolutionary communist party, not only when it is not electorally viable, but when it is actually illegal:

But in conditions in which it is often necessary to hide “leaders” underground, the evolution of good “leaders”, reliable, tested and authoritative, is a very difficult matter...

The part immediately proceeding what you quoted reads:

You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices.

The position that you are arguing for, that communists should adopt reactionary/liberal stances to appease or ingratiate ourselves to a reactionary/liberal population, is known as tailism. The person who coined that term is the same person who wrote this text, Lenin, and he coined it while harshly criticizing it, it is absolutely not his position by any stretch of the imagination. We must "follow the actual state of class-consciousness" only in the sense that we must be aware of it, and plan around it, not in the sense of following their lead. Being aware that most people are not prepared for armed revolution, he says, we should participate in bourgeois electoralism because that is the spectacle they are invested in, and the way in which we should participate is as part of a revolutionary communist party uncompromisingly "telling them the bitter truth" and ultimately trying to turn people away from such processes altogether.

Note, however, that he doesn’t say that trying to dismiss and replace them is somehow valuable in itself, and you’d really need to massage the context to endorse doing so when it results in an even more uncommunist replacement.

Naturally, if a party can not or will not replace a leader within the party who refuses to persues the supposed revolutionary communist goals of the party, then you should consider whether the party is actually committed to those goals or whether it's time to start a new party or move to another one that does. Obviously, if replacing an anti-communist leader means someone even more anti-communist will lead the party, then you are not in a communist party and it is time to leave.

He is very clearly talking about leaders within the party, who are always within the party's power to replace, with whoever they choose, relatively effortlessly. The situation you describe is a contradiction, you've already messed up if you're choosing the lesser evil anticommunist to lead your party or if you can only "try" to replace an anti-communist leader, and obviously this has nothing to do with "voting Democrat to stop the Republicans" as you're attempting to project onto it, since it's in the context of internal workings of a revolutionary communist party, not a competition between two bourgeois parties.

Until, by a sober evaluation, we can say that the American people have the class-consciousness and preparedness for a revolutionary communist party, trying to force one at the expense of greater losses is not suitable.

And you genuinely, truly believe that that is consistent with Vladimir Lenin's position in this text?

I weep for our education system.

1. Yes, I have in fact heard that term, which is exactly why I know that anecdotal evidence is not valid.

2. What does invalid evidence add to the discussion, exactly?

3. There are people in this thread who are arguing for legislation restricting ownership of pitbulls. We are in the court of public opinion, which may be less formal than the supreme court, but still has the capacity to influence public policy. So it seems reasonable to apply a very basic standard of evidence, above that of stuff that random people claim happen to their friend's roommate.

So, you don't have any theory to support your position, and have instead chosen to take bits of mine out of context to pretend they mean something completely different.

Yes, Lenin argued for participation in bourgeois parliaments... in a revolutionary communist party. Which the Democratic Party is very much not.

The German “Lefts” complain of bad “leaders” in their party, give way to despair, and even arrive at a ridiculous “negation” of “leaders”. But in conditions in which it is often necessary to hide “leaders” underground, the evolution of good “leaders”, reliable, tested and authoritative, is a very difficult matter; these difficulties cannot be successfully overcome without combining legal and illegal work, and without testing the “leaders”, among other ways, in parliaments. Criticism—the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism—should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable—and still more against those who are unwilling—to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism—combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones—will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the “leaders” to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation.

Huh! So, if we were to pretend that he's talking about something like the Democratic party, then in that case he says we should direct "the most keen, ruthless, and uncompromising criticism" at any leader in said party that is unwilling to use their position "in a revolutionary and communist manner," and that they should "of course" be dismissed and replaced. It is impossible to read these words in good faith and think that he's supporting your "blue no matter who" position.

Lenin's position was, as his positions often were, nuanced, striking a balance between competing ideas. In this case, he is fiercely critical of both complete absentation of the left communists and anarchists, and of opportunism and tailism of the social democrats. You've chosen to focus singularly on his criticism of absentation (which tbf is something he focuses on here), as if abstaining from the election was my position, which it isn't. My position is participation in bourgeois parliaments through a revolutionary communist party with the aim of prioritizing non-electoral strategies, i.e. the thing that he very clearly and explicitly argues for in place of absentation.

Okay, so smiling is bad. What the fuck is the solution to not look suspicious to cops at this point?

There's an episode from the Twilight Zone reboot (S1E3, "Replay") that plays with this idea in an interesting way. A black mother and son are at a diner with a police officer, and things happen and her son gets shot. But then she discovers that she has this magic camcorder that can rewind time, so she goes back to the diner and tries again, doing things differently. And this time he gets shot for a different reason. So she goes back, again and again, trying different approaches.

It really captures the feeling of insecurity, of being damned if you do, damned if you don't. And it's sort of a metaphor for the different scenarios playing out in one's head, of trying to think of how each action might be misinterpreted or go wrong.