Kropotkin is a nice start, though if you want an introduction I think Errico Malatesta’s work is a lot better for that. The essay “Anarchy” is short for leftist standards and is very good. Also “At the cafe” is honestly an amazing introduction piece and it’s written in a regular language as socratic dialogues, so it’s perfect for starting. It even adresses a lot of counter arguments from many perspectives.

Otherwise Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloo is also amazing.

For the standards of leftists in the USA, they’re massive.

What would be different about this revolution that would see it go right (or what examples am I missing?)

I would say there’s no way revolutions of today will go in exactly the same path as before. Remember that China’s and Russia’s revolutions happened in extermely rural, agrarian, over exploited and basically completely ruined countries. If there’s a revolution in the global north, just the difference in conditions and systems is already going to make a huge difference. But even if it happens in the global south, most of it is at least partially industrialized and not agrarian, as far as I know.

Anyway, other than that, I can’t really give you an objective, unbiased answer. I was actually the same as you a couple of years ago, actually. I had the same concerns as you. I think you would really resonate with anarchist theory, analysis and critique of past revolutions, if you’re interested in digging into it.

Enormous by socialist standards. The fact that they can have so many members in this day and age is commendable. A few decades ago any socialist thought being given an honest platform at all among the general population was a miracle.

I think you’re seriously underestimating what most young socialists believe. It is true that they don’t believe in revolution, but many of them change when they grow older and they lose faith in the system. I’m confident that will keep happening.

No, an average person in the DSA believes in wayy more than any regular social democrat. I agree that they’re not radical enough, but they’re an enormous organization of people against the status quo and so many of them genuinely care, so it’s no surprise that a huge part of current radicals are ex-DSA members.

That’s what the media has always done. It’s just that in this age it’s the easiest it’s ever been to see past red scare propaganda.

Actually socialism is more popular now than ever. Enough that mainstream media constantly writes scare articles about how socialist the young generations are.

The correct term for nazi sympathizer is nazi. The correct term for nazi enabler is nazi.

I guess I’ll give it a try. Thanks for being patient.

Like I said I didn’t dig very deep into the site. I searched for the anarchist community, saw that it was almost completely dead except for this one post with hundreds of comments: https://hexbear.net/post/272574 And I saw that all of the comments were belittling and/or making fun of anarchists. So I left.

Are anarchists part of the moderation team, or is it all run by MLs that are just benevolent with us like most “left unity” subreddits?

I went to the Anarchism community, which was completely inactive, except for one post with 200 comments, all of which were statists making fun of us. After that I never looked at it again.

I looked at it, it seemed mostly vanilla, had good servers, didn’t have defederation drama like lemmy.world, thought it’s cool.

I’d be open to move to a “leftist” lemmy instance, but as a staunch anarchist I’m not really compatible with lemmygrad or hexbear.

I rest my case. Have a nice day!

I hope you realize my initial point now. Direct confrontation doesn’t work. The other person will get defensive, probably immediately, and try to look for any possible reason to not listen to you, even if it has nothing to do with what you’re trying to argue. I wonder what you’ll say to deny it next, given that you’ve gone through that exact process right now in this very conversation.

I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you it’s a shitty thing to do and it doesn’t work. It didn’t work in this thread, and if you’ve found instances of it “working”, I’m 90% sure people just followed along with you so you stopped nagging them. Shaming someone doesn’t convince them, at most it may convince third observers.

This is bollocks mate and just tells me you literally do not participate by highlighting that you have absolutely no clue what anyone is doing. You’re mad at me for chastising you because you feel that it applies to you.

You can ascribe any feelings you want to me, the truth is the same. Most leninists in here don’t do anything, they just whine on blogposts about stupid bullshit. As a matter of fact I do have a clue, because I keep the article as a great reminder: http://www.pmli.it/articoli/2015/20151015_scuderiletussupporttheislamicstate.html

Instead of being part of them, as I previously said, I focus on improving and sustaining my own community. In that I’ve done way more for the proletariat of my country than any smug authoritarian cuck has done in years.

The “kick up the arse” doesn’t work. You’re just going to make people get defensive. You being rude gives them an excuse to not listen to you - now they can strike you off as a madman radical and move on with their lives.

This person was just advising to not get overwhelmed with anxiety and panic for the future because it’s just going to make the present suck before that future is even here. They never said “don’t take any action at all” or “it’ll all magically be okay”. Going to that person to try and overwhelm them with anxiety and panic for the future and calling them names for not being overwhelmed with anxiety and panic for the future isn’t any kind of rhetorical “tough love” thing you’re trying for it to be - it’s just a dick move.

Trying to overload people with fear doesn’t work. It’s actually a denialist tactic, when your brain is so overloaded with fear it can’t function with it, everything turns into a blurry mess as a self defense mechanism. You stop thinking about it, that’s what most conscious people have done. Very, very few people have genuine faith and trust in today’s political authorities. But regardless, in that state it’s very easy to fall for a counter narrative just to be more calm with your life.

Also, I’m not a liberal. Not every country has an organized and effective radical left. In here the most radical leftist parties are leninists who only sit on their asses writing articles on websites that look from the 90s about how we should support ISIS in their anti-imperialist struggle. I focus on improving and sustaining my own community.

Wonderful political strategy, insulting everyone you’re trying to reach out to.

Not every ideology is equally deserving of respect.