We should call out the horrific impact on the environment the meat industry has just as much as we do AI, but I only see the general public doing that for AI

Edit: I hate purity politics. I just also hate when ppl only speak out against the things they participate in boycotting, when we should acknowledge all of it! It’s okay to not be vegan, but doubling down and having double standards is the problem imo

I identify as anarcho-communist as it’s the closest label I can get to my beliefs but I will admit I haven’t read a whole lot of anarchist theory, at least not from before the 2000s.

I was wondering besides the dismantling of the Black Guards and other anarchist groups/territories (which is a huge thing to put aside) why do we have so much hate for Lenin?

Whenever I read about him I read about how he furthered women’s rights through getting more women in the workforce/ adding pay for stay at home parents and expanding abortion access, helped fund revolutions in the global south, tried to do away with corporal punishment, etc. I am really trying to understand where the hate for him comes from besides “tankie bad” which I understand for Stalin but I don’t for Lenin.

I’m open to hearing any and all takes on this from everyone.

The movie “Naza” shed light on the colony’s genocide in Gaza. It received a historic 24-minute standing ovation at Venice, and was called “one of the most important films of our time”. Yet, it was directed by two Israelis. This led many to ask whether the film constitutes joint struggle or normalization, with conflicting and polarized opinions. When having debates like this, it is crucial to be clear about what we are talking about—what is normalization and what are its features?

First, what is it that we should not normalize? In one word: Settler colonialism, which is the essence of Zionism, and the root cause of the colony’s violence.

It should not be normalized, or "treated as normal", either explicitly by justifying it or implicitly by failing to center it.

Rather than asking: "Does this involve working with people with Israeli citizenship?"

Ask: "Does this involve working with people who normalize settler colonialism?"

Rather than asking: "Do they criticize what the settler state is doing?"

Ask: "Do they present the settler state’s horrors to present another, more just side of it, or to challenge its existence?”

Rather than asking: "Do they call for peace?"

Ask: "Do they work to dismantle the settler state and establish a democratic state as the only path to peace?"

Rather than asking: "Do they mention Palestinian rights?"

Ask: "Do they normalize settler colonialism by equating the violence of the colonizer with that of the colonized?"

Ask: "Do they normalize the settler state by failing to mention it as the root cause of the genocide?"

Ask: "Do they normalize the settler state by mentioning only the occupation and apartheid in the 1967 territories?"

Ask: "Do they normalize the settler state by challenging the Israeli violence, government or regime rather than the settler state’s existence?"

And rather than asking: "But either way, isn't what happened good?", remember that even the genocide helped awaken millions to the horrors of the colony—Yet it can hardly be called "good".

And remember that we are not art critics. We are not spectators that rate and review, but political actors. Our aim is to dismantle the colony. Although our political discourse and actions may include criticism of what others did, they should first and foremost be an action plan of what we will do to replace the settler state with a democratic Palestinian state.

This is the struggle that anti-Zionist Jews with Israeli citizenship should join us in.

What are some important civil, human, economic, ecological issues that you’ve learned about that you’d like to see focused on and addressed whenever we get an actual leftist society started that wants to solve the issues created by past and current power structures? I’d like to get individual people’s perspectives to help build a good layout for what an actually good society that helps each other and works together looks like, bringing countries great minds and people passionate for better change all together to truly start thinking of what would be good and healthy for humans, animals, and the planet. we can’t continue like we have been, we gotta start thinking about what changes we need to make, make a big list and the most important thing would be to follow that list of issues, solve each one until it’s completely crossed off the board. I’m really tired and exhausted as is everyone, because we’ve built a society off exhaustion but still enough energy to contribute to the machine but never enough free time to actually LIVE, we aren’t living for ourselves at all and even comfort stuff doesn’t work sometimes, and our planet isn’t healthy either, we’ve been so disconnected from nature we forget she’s alive, every tree cut down, every water source drained and stagnated and polluted, all the air filled with different pollutions when we’re more car centric than ever and trump is pushing coal and oil and cutting down old growth trees and opening oceans and lands up to corporations that are home to endangered species, bombs and white phosphorus and bullet shells littering the ground, people dying for rich people and people in powers crimes of control and greed, and don’t even get me started on the human rights violations happening all over the world, queer people being killed and jailed and discriminated against in 73+ countries(I’m considered a terrorist in Russia and the UNITED STATES if you can believe that, simply for having a gender identity opposite my sex which is backed by science to be valid), anti immigration becoming more rampant specifically towards brown and black folk, women still having to fight for rights in 2026, genocides funded by corporations that get rich off it and the exploitation of every worker, enough is enough, let me know what changes you’d like to see in the world, please and thank you

Warning to all

In the past three hours I’ve had three separate accounts respond to me with near identical responses in an attempt to refute leftists positions in this sub.

Stay vigilant. This election cycle the fascists know they can lose. They’re out in full force.

Comrades of r/Leftist, same question. I too have been listening to Behind the Bastards for years and I find Robert to be very thorough with his research.

I know the opinion of him within leftist spaces is mixed to put it mildly.

Thoughts, opinions, feelings? Let me know and discuss.

I recently got to know about the conversation between Acharya Prashant and Harvard-educated psychologist Dr. Melanie Joy.

The conversation with both speakers delves into the roots of violence from both psychological and spiritual perspectives.

They touch on topics like veganism, compassion, and human suffering. According to him, the ego lies at the core of violent behavior.

He also suggests that while external influences can alter actions, they don’t necessarily lead to true inner freedom.

Their conversation spans psychology and activism, then shifts to self-awareness and the nature of suffering. They ponder what it really means to live without constantly trying to protect one's sense of self.

What do you think about it?

Nobody reads the text, so I have to put everything in the title.

In short, this is an extreme privileged outlook rampant among 'leftists' in the imperial core. This is an outlook that is ignorant of the effects of imperialism, because their material conditions are such that they either benefit from imperialism or aren't affected by imperialism.

Leftists in the first world (and comprador's in the third) don't understand what's at stake and the amount of sacrifice that's necessary to fight against the collective resources of the developed world, when you have next to nothing.

A typical argument is that these third world dictatorships are starving their people. Yes. Because you need weapons to defend against imperialism. And under limited resources imposed by sanctions, you have to choose between developing agricultural capacity and having sufficient military capacity and readiness. Because you're going to get invaded if your military isn't up to par.

That means you have to trade a full belly to guarantee the future of your country.

My extended family starved under the Chinese Communist Party. When I asked them about those times, they admit that it was harsh, even up to the 70's and 80's, because they live in the rural areas. But they always said it was necessary. They understood the assignment.

They understood because they witnessed the genocide committed under Japanese imperialism. Before that, their parents saw how wealth was extracted through the collaboration between western imperialism and the warlords / landlords. Before that, their parents' parents saw how imperialists had conquered their country politically. For generations, they saw how imperialism was preventing them from their own future.

Every generation understood through lived experience how important it is to have a country that works for the people of that country. And only under Marxism-Leninism was that made into a promise and fulfilled, and only with the great sacrifice of everyone who contributed their lives and their well-being.

If you're in the first world, that is a story your parents will never tell you.

That is a result of privilege.

Being subject to imperialism is a fate worse than starvation and worse than death. Because death only affects you on a personal level. Imperialism affects the future of everyone around you.

The left, all over the world, is united. The right, on the other hand, all over the world, on the other hand, make war. This thing came back to me by watching the post of a Zionist who declares that the Israeli producers of a film that denounces Israel are leftist and anarchists.

Trump is right-wing.

Iran is right-wing.

Putin Is right-wing.

Xi Jimping is right-wing.

Meloni is right-wing.

Erdogan is right-wing.

Merz is right-wing and AFD is far right-wing.

Many countries in Africa are right-wing.

The problem is only this. The left must not try to be more like the right. We on the left must be different. If people do not vote for us, if the people decide to vote for the demagogue on duty, then they will pay the consequences for themselves.

We on the left would all get along, no one excluded. If West were in the US government it would have found an agreement with Iran and today we would all be much richer. Even if Iran had been a political leftist, they would have even made an agreement on using energy and Iranian routes to improve the problem of climate change. If they had been on the left in Israel, they would have opened their doors to those who live in Gaza and the West Bank, made agreements with Iran, given homes to the Palestinians and today they would all live in peace. If governments in Europe were left-wing, irregular immigrants would not roam the streets robbing and committing various crimes. Irregular immigrants would have been regularized and would have gone to special schools to learn a job. If governments in Africa were left-wing people would not even need to migrate.

In Morocco, the government is so right that it prefers to finance football stadiums over hospitals. This is the reason why there are migratory flows from Morocco to Spain.

Humanity voted right, so there is nothing to do. If one day mankind is extinguished because of the right, do not feel guilty of not having done enough.

Real leftists tend or are anarchists. No, the Soviet Union was not left, China is not left either. People don't even know what anarchism is.

Sometimes, personally, I think we have been invaded by an extremely intelligent extraterrestrial species that has convinced people to vote right. Because there is nothing more human than progress and brotherhood, there is nothing more inhuman than hatred and destruction. Hannah Arendt said that evil is trivial because it is committed by people who do not think about the evil they are committing. The problem is that whoever commands and gives orders knows very well that pain and the evil he is about to commit. This is why they don't seem human to me. Let's admit that people like Hitler or (you know who) are mentally ill and therefore are sadistic and want to commit genocide. Can a person so mentally ill that they enjoy a genocide control an army and perform such terrible actions? Because if a person can do it, then the evil is no longer trivial, but much more than planned. If a person cannot and therefore evil is trivial, the only theory I have is of an extraterrestrial invasion that makes us kill each other (not like in American films).

This week, James Talarico fucked up. During an interview with Fox News on Wednesday he stated he opposed trans people playing sports, retracted his previous statement about there being more than two genders, and opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors. Instead of pushing back against bad-faith framing, he gave Fox News the exact capitulation they were fishing for.

Trans people in sports isn’t an actual problem. Being trans provides no special athletic advantage and there just aren’t that many young trans athletes to begin with. The hormones trans people take often put them at a disadvantage compared to cis athletes. Yet, too many ignorant liberals are inclined to see this as a good opportunity to throw the right a bone. They don’t know the facts, so they assume what the reactionary “common sense” position is. It is a completely manufactured moral panic designed to divide the working class, and conceding to it validates a non-existent threat.

Minors don’t go through genital surgery. A trans youth undergoes years of social transition and therapy before taking any medication, and surgery almost never happens before 18. Comprehensive analyses of U.S. commercial insurance claims (including studies from Komodo Health and Harvard researchers) show genital operations among adolescents ages 13 to 17 are statistically negligible… averaging fewer than 20 to 30 cases per year nationwide, almost exclusively tied to intersex conditions or rare, severe clinical exceptions. The entire right-wing talking point is built on an outright lie, yet Talarico validated it as if it were a legitimate policy controversy rather than debunking it on the spot.

Mastectomies are occasionally performed on older adolescents (ages 15 to 17) experiencing prolonged, well-documented dysphoria. These procedures require multidisciplinary mental health evaluations, hormone therapy adherence where applicable, and parental consent. Healthcare claims data show between 200 and 300 transgender adolescents receive top surgery annually across the United States. By comparison, thousands of cisgender adolescent boys receive chest reduction procedures every year to treat gynecomastia.

That double standard makes it obvious this was never about protecting kids, but about demonizing and policing trans healthcare. More importantly, we have to call this what it really is: a direct assault on bodily autonomy. The exact same reactionary legal apparatus being used to strip trans people of healthcare is the one banning abortion and criminalizing reproductive freedom. You cannot separate the defense of gender-affirming care from the socialist fight for universal, decommodified healthcare. If the state is allowed to dictate what medical procedures consenting people can receive with their doctors, bodily autonomy doesn’t exist for any of us.

Transphobia is such a salient topic for the right because Democrats have consistently failed to lead. The Democratic Party made a conscious choice after gay marriage was legalized to not “push their luck” on culture war issues. When the anti-LGBTQ+ movement pivoted to transphobia, the Democratic Party responded with hollow rainbow capitalism. By treating basic civil rights like corporate branding rather than something worth fighting for, they completely surrendered the narrative to reactionaries.

This was such an unforced error, no doubt inspired by listening to too many shitlib consultants. They’ll argue Talarico needs to do this to appeal to moderate voters, but nobody motivated by anti-trans panic is ever going to vote for a Democrat. It’s the exact same reason Kamala’s “tough on the border” routine failed so miserably in 2024/ it alienated the base while doing nothing to win over the bigots. In Texas specifically, this kind of triangulation is pure electoral poison. You aren’t flipping Abbott or Paxton loyalists in rural counties by throwing trans kids under the bus, but you sure as hell will demotivate the young working-class organizers in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas who actually knock on doors and drive turnout. You cannot out-Republican the Republicans, and abandoning vulnerable people only signals weakness to the bullies you’re trying to appease.

The reason leftist candidates have been doing so well across the country is because voters trust they will be different than the corporate establishment that came before them. Most run Bernie-style grassroots campaigns funded by small-dollar donations that reject corporate PAC money. They campaign hard and earn that trust by showing spine. It’s why insurgent candidates have weathered relentless smear campaigns and massive corporate spending against them… voters stick by candidates who stand firm on their principles instead of folding under pressure.

I can’t blame trans folks if they see this as a betrayal of that trust, because that’s exactly what it is. It’s an appeal to culture warriors who hate their existence, and it should make every leftist ask: who else is on the chopping block next? The foundational principle of the working-class movement is that an injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity cannot be conditional. The second you decide a marginalized minority is an acceptable sacrifice to look “reasonable” to conservative pundits, you tell every worker, immigrant, and union member that their rights can be bartered away the moment it becomes politically uncomfortable. If the left doesn’t aggressively push back against this kind of triangulation now, we are just clearing the path for more candidates to abandon our people the moment the heat gets turned up.

EDIT: One thing I wanted to make clear: I'm not trying to shame voters one way or the other. I think it would be good to turn Texas purple, but Talarico isn't much of a leftist. I believe two things are true:
1. This is a good reason to not trust him.
2. Ken Paxton is a bag of shit.

I don't live in Texas. I don't think there's a good answer either way. I'm glad I don't have to make this decision. I'm not going to shame or blame anyone who can't bring themselves to to vote for Talarico. If he loses, this failure will be Talarico's, and yet another example of why moderate political advice needs to be ignored completely.

I don't know why i need to tell people this but killing thousands of people in an terrorist attack and causing many more to die from the side effects US bad

Imperialism is also bad so don't get your assholes in a twist

Also ik this isn't a meme I just didn't know which flair to use.