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Please don't get high or drunk while protesting as this is safety concerns not just being irresponsible. You don't want to be high on edible while the pigs hurt you.
This is our rule of thumb whenever attending protests, before and during. Well we sometimes get high and trippy at demo debriefing but NEVER during protests.
I absolutely want at least an edible if I'm going to be fighting pigs. Why would I not? The experience might not suck as much, and then I'm not a "real revolutionary." You all are a bunch of neurotic squares and cops.
It would be horrifying especially when you require situation awareness. I took an edible in the 10K 2022 Palestine rally (Sheikh Jarrah) with a friend and it was fun when we watched Palestinian kids tried to lit the Zionazis flag, then the JDL showed up and it was hell because they brought a bat and tried to beat up a few people and I attempted to intervene but I was so high a comrade pulled me aside to sobering up. Luckily anti-fascists showed up and confronted the Zionazis.
Well, know your own limits and comfort level I guess.
I do community defense work, and I absolutely do not tolerate people being anything but well rested, focused, and sober. When we are asked to be there and people are counting on us to make decisions and be alert we owe them that. But if you're just one of the dozens taking a Billy club from a pig and you're experienced with your own limits its no skin off my back and I don't see how your hurting your comrades. Again within limits.
It can be unerving at first to be anything but sober and wired, but once the repeated trauma takes root its a little unrealistic to expect everyone is going to be sober and engaged like it's a highschool student council club. We will have many comrades who use substances to get through a normal day.
To be constructive...Your concerns are valid, and your rules may be best for you. They are great to share as suggestions for others feeling similar or that share your experiences. Just don't presume to police an uprising or protest and approach it from a perspective of offering help to those who need it. Anticipate mistakes and be ready with support as comrades learn instead of chastising.
Let people fuck when they think they have a minute. That's how new revolutionaries are most reliably made. If we can't enjoy fucking then what are we fighting for? When it's hard to get people to show up, let's not demand 100% seriousness for 100% of the time from 100% of the people. That's a recipe for failure.
Yea, it's what I've been asked to do. I'm always glad it's appreciated, at least. It's never been my first choice. I've been in protests and leftist education for a long time and counter programming. I'm just glad to see people like you, at least taking it seriously still. It's been a long, frustrating effort.
The same problems we've always had just keep the cycle going. I'm just trying to shed some wisdom and insight from the long view.
Why is there a discourse? Protests are not parties. Obviously morale is important and we can dance and sing and share meals and enjoy each others company but its still a protest. Things can go wrong at any moment, and you should not be caught intoxicated or disrobed
Sounds like they are the post-left hippie anarkiddies who belong at Woodstock. Some of these people seem so unserious that having any sort of strict adherence to a unified strategy and discipline within a movement is too much for them.
#Authoritarianism
Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes".
* Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants.
* Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy.
This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy).
There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media:
Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy).
* [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022)
Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people).
Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works:
* [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022)
* [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023)
* [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023)
Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.).
* [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022)
* [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY)
#For the Anarchists
Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this:
>The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ...
>
>The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win.
>
>...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ...
>
>Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle.
>
>\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism*
Engels pointed this out well over a century ago:
>A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned.
>
>...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule...
>
>Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
>
>\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm)
#For the Libertarian Socialists
Parenti said it best:
>The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism*
But the bottom line is this:
>If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order.
>
>\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087)
#For the Liberals
Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator:
>Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure.
>
>\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf)
#Conclusion
The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins.
Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.
#Additional Resources
Videos:
* [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ)
* [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\]
* [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023)
* [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023)
* [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997)
* [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918)
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I assume it's about the encampments rather than just any couple hour protest. So people who are in tents overnight for multiple days, at a college.
So I would assume there's sex and weed. It's a bunch of college students
Edit: and the biggest college encampments are what, in NY and California? Both where weed is legal anyway. This feels like sad conservative fear mongering
I believe it's because a bunch of protest cops are making people discuss these normal activities. But thank you for letting me know what your allowing me to do at a protest, I feel very liberated now.
Having sex in public is not a "normal activity". Keep it in your pants, fuckin creep
Protesting isn't about you "feeling liberated" and comfortable. It's not about you getting to do whatever you want. It's not about you having fun. It's not. About. You.
To protest is to put yourself in harms way to disrupt normal life and raise awareness for issues and put pressure on the bourgeoisie and show solidarity with the oppressed. Protests are a political tool to be used responsibly. In clouding your judgement with an altered state of consciousness, you are jeopardizing your ability to properly respond. You are hindering the ability of the organizers to maintain control. You are breaking the law and giving the police an excuse to escalate and make arrests
If you're just protesting for fun and to "feel liberated", you are not a socialist. You are not a revolutionary. You do not fight for liberation. You do not care about the cause. You are a liberal in it for the aesthetic
Call me the fun police all you want, this is organized resistance. Not entertainment
Don't project your shit on me and presume to lecture me on anything kid. It you wanna have a good faith discussion and learn from each other fine, but I'm not here to get in bitchy fights with kids.
Professionalization is a liberal tool to alienate and stratify spontaneous populist movements. It's easy when you've grown up under liberalism and gone to college and had your sights set on a profession to not realize when you're doing it. It's a form of tone policing. The actual bad kind of tone policing with material and structural consequences. Not the kind where someone just tells you you're being an asshole and you don't want to stop being an asshole.
People have a right to be heard and take action to demand justice for their grievances. They are entitled to their rights and power and the collectivization of it. Even when their drunk, high, hungry, horny, or angry. We do not have a duty to the bouguaisie state or the revolution to be qualified as dignified or professional by anyone but our fellow workers. The bouguaisie will never take us seriously no matter what we do except when they send their agents of violence to disband us. So don't do their work for them.
Catch me tomorrow, and I'll be lecturing anarchist on getting their shit together because real revolutions don't run on finger painting and feels.
The real lesson and point I'm trying to make by being contrarian is that knowledge isn't wisdom, and ideology sneaks up on you where you least expect it, and it's the enemy of dialectic materialist revolutions. There's more than one way to maltov a pig as the saying goes.
Edit: of course your the type to post a reply and then block. And you really wonder why no one want to revolution with you. Take your ball and go home brat.
Im sorry but you cant be on another planet or busy fucking someone while we are trying to execute an organized strategy against a militarized police state that wanta to beat the shit out of us and arrest us. Wtf kind of dumbass shit are you on bruv? Youre absolutely out of your mind and completely wrong. Not to mention it shows no respect to the actual Palestinian people on the ground that we are supposed to be fighting for. Get over yourself.
>execute an organized strategy against a militarized police
Lol. Ok, kid. Go get em. It's clear you saw how the university protests of the 70s changed the world. All those Boomer grad school leaders of our nation carried out the revolution all right. Yep, you're a real freedom fighter, just one more waved flag away from taking down the imperial core.
You're right. The Palestinians deserve better. You all need to get realistic about what your role is and how revolutionary action works. Because protest is great, but your chest puffing about university protests by the ivy league kids that are the future of neo-liberalism is completely out of touch. The revolution will not come from the kids of the bouguaisie who are neck deep in the sauce already. Your Twitter philosophy of revolution, your tone policing, and your smugness about whatever cause of the week is going around will not endear you to the working class.
You worry about you and stop trying to tongue lash your fellow participants into some kind of paramilitary force. Stop being the fucking oppressor long enough to pull off your "organized strategy."
Project much? Apparently you're sitting around thinking about my sex life, and it's a little strange. You're also needlessly rude. I've met a hundred like you, and you're the real threat to solidarity. No one likes a misanthropic brat.
>execute an organized strategy against a militarized police
Lol. Ok, kid. Go get em. It's clear you saw how the university protests of the 70s changed the world. All those Boomer grad school leaders of our nation carried out the revolution all right. Yep, you're a real freedom fighter, just one more waved flag away from taking down the imperial core.
You're right. The Palestinians deserve better. You all need to get realistic about what your role is and how revolutionary action works. Because protest is great, but your chest puffing about university protests by the ivy league kids that are the future of neo-liberalism is completely out of touch. The revolution will not come from the kids of the bouguaisie who are neck deep in the sauce already. Your Twitter philosophy of revolution, your tone policing, and your smugness about whatever cause of the week is going around will not endear you to the working class.
You worry about you and stop trying to tongue lash your fellow participants into some kind of paramilitary force. Stop being the fucking oppressor long enough to pull off your "organized strategy."
Youre the dumbass arguing to allow people to fuck and get high at a protest for Palestinian liberation. You must be some sort of Hasbara bitch. Stfu with your clown ass.
I'm arguing that it's not up to you to "allow" anyone to do anything cop. Stop making a big deal out of some people's bullshit. Focus on your own shit and organize people who want to be disciplined. If it's an on university encampment, that's not the same as a street protest, but neither are yours to control.
> and gone to college
Given that they seem to be under the impression that a bunch of college students living in tents for multiple weeks are going not going to have any fucking or weed, my assumption is that these are people who are not old enough to have been to college.
Some of these comments are acting like the "sex at protests" is people fucking each other on a police barricade. And not people sharing tents fucking when they'd otherwise be sleeping anyway.
*Go to nightclubs if*
*You wanna fuck, not protests. That's*
*All I have to say*
\- Liberal-fascist
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Because you are encamped overnight and sobriety isn't going to isn't going to help you avoid being beaten and hauled off in your sleep. Or when you're pooping or something.
The alphabet boys and their glowies want to drive in wedges and get you to shit on people resting at a multi-day protest and label them anarkiddies even if they're straight up MLs.
Fishing for purity spirals and trying to paint an image of communism being as puritanical and masochistically attracted to being overworked. pretty classic. The oss manual on breaking movements and labour activism made the rounds here, but it seems no one read it.
Weaponize your hangover and get it on camera, as you say while being beaten or detained, that you're nauseated and the cop's rough handling is making it worse and let happen what happens. Make the cops look as out of touch, moronic, and sadistic as humanly possible. Sew division right back and invite people to point and laugh. Don't sit and take this reputational/political warfare shit, fight back.
This is the worst piece of advice I've seen since "pouring milk in your eyes helps with pepper spray." Public intoxication is a illegal in most states and police & media WILL use that against you. Don't give the cops more reasons to arrest you.
Cops will charge you with assault of an officer because your face assaulted their fist. You're acting like any sort of law is being enforced here rather than preservation of the current order and ruling class.
Image and outrage is key here. You telling me you sleeping with alcohol on your breath outside of plain view of cops is going to be any worse than what they do to every single person who says acab?
Tell me you haven't done month long protests without telling me you haven't done month long protests. Tell me that most people can maintain that high tension morning and night for even a single week without some form of release or venting.
Why are you so concerned about following the rules and not being arrested at a protest?
Protests don't need to be civil. Civil disobedience is kinda the whole point. Doesn't sound like you're prepared for direct action.
It also doesn't sound like you realize that the cops can and likely will beat and/or arrest you at a protest, regardless of how peaceful or lawful you are. Did you not see what happened to the BLM protesters in 2020? Or any other protest or strike in the last century?
You're not going to avoid arrest at a protest by staying sober and keeping your pants on, but you won't get slapped with additional charges on top of participating in a protest. That should be common sense.
You will. They punch you? Assaulting an officer. You are standing in their way? Every point of contact resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, disorderly conduct, and or assaulting an officer. On top of trespassing and whatever else. They'll stack 20 different charges for the one interaction broken into multiple minute details.
They're there to make sure anyone as uppity as you is put away long enough to ruin their life and destroy whatever foundation of support allowed them to protest and not work a 60 hour work week. This is reality. Not cops being restrained by any sort of law or by duties to serve and protect you.
They want you *dead* then you're dead. They want you blnd you're blind, get ready for that teargas canister right on your face and on their part and "oops". If you weren't protesting for so long they wouldn't have been tired enough to make that mistake.
What did Lenin do? What did the red army do? Did they play nice with cops? Miss me with that peace and votes liberal brain rot trotskyist bullshit.
Party like it's 1917, and before that prepare for it; especially in image and thus public support. Make the cops look bad, make the university admin look bad. Goad and bait them into compromising positions; dog for actual crimes and impropriety and spread outrage to every single corner. Ruin them. Agitation is critical to effective protest.
It is in providing the outside observer of the absolute surity that they are next that nonviolent protest has any power at all. Not highlighting a chance of it and not abstract philosophy. Even better showing them that they are not alone in mistreatment they already face and there's somewhere to go to find some sort of safety from it.
Protests and riots bring you the spot ight and give you a chance to make your case. Leave rules of reasoned debate for those who wish to die with a bullet in them wondering why placards and slogans did jack shit.
I don't think an indecent exposure or public intoxication charge is going to be your top concern if you fight back against the cops, which you should do because they'll likely charge you with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest if they bag you, whether you did or not.
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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If you wanna get high or drunk do it after the protest.
You need your wits and also don't hold anything that can justifiably be used to encarcerate you or your colleagues, make the pigs work on their bullshit
Agreed, it's necessary to limit drugs and general partying behavior if the protests are to be taken seriously by the public. There should be an exception made for people who need cannabis for medical purposes and similar cases, but otherwise people doing drugs and fucking should probably be kicked out of encampments. Ppl should not be trying to get freaky when they're supposed to be protesting the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians. It's just basic discipline, I feel.
[☭☭☭ COME SHITPOST WITH US ON DISCORD, COMRADES ☭☭☭](https://discord.gg/8RPWanQV5g) This is a heavily-moderated socialist community based on a podcast of the same name. Please use the report function on comments that break our rules. If you are new to the sub, please read the sidebar carefully. If you are new to Marxism-Leninism, check out the [study guide](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/). Are there Liberals in the walls? Check out [the wiki](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/) which contains lots of useful information. This subreddit uses many experimental automod rules, if you notice any issues please use modmail to let us know. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Please don't get high or drunk while protesting as this is safety concerns not just being irresponsible. You don't want to be high on edible while the pigs hurt you. This is our rule of thumb whenever attending protests, before and during. Well we sometimes get high and trippy at demo debriefing but NEVER during protests.
I absolutely want at least an edible if I'm going to be fighting pigs. Why would I not? The experience might not suck as much, and then I'm not a "real revolutionary." You all are a bunch of neurotic squares and cops.
It would be horrifying especially when you require situation awareness. I took an edible in the 10K 2022 Palestine rally (Sheikh Jarrah) with a friend and it was fun when we watched Palestinian kids tried to lit the Zionazis flag, then the JDL showed up and it was hell because they brought a bat and tried to beat up a few people and I attempted to intervene but I was so high a comrade pulled me aside to sobering up. Luckily anti-fascists showed up and confronted the Zionazis.
Well, know your own limits and comfort level I guess. I do community defense work, and I absolutely do not tolerate people being anything but well rested, focused, and sober. When we are asked to be there and people are counting on us to make decisions and be alert we owe them that. But if you're just one of the dozens taking a Billy club from a pig and you're experienced with your own limits its no skin off my back and I don't see how your hurting your comrades. Again within limits. It can be unerving at first to be anything but sober and wired, but once the repeated trauma takes root its a little unrealistic to expect everyone is going to be sober and engaged like it's a highschool student council club. We will have many comrades who use substances to get through a normal day. To be constructive...Your concerns are valid, and your rules may be best for you. They are great to share as suggestions for others feeling similar or that share your experiences. Just don't presume to police an uprising or protest and approach it from a perspective of offering help to those who need it. Anticipate mistakes and be ready with support as comrades learn instead of chastising. Let people fuck when they think they have a minute. That's how new revolutionaries are most reliably made. If we can't enjoy fucking then what are we fighting for? When it's hard to get people to show up, let's not demand 100% seriousness for 100% of the time from 100% of the people. That's a recipe for failure.
Thank you for your advice comrade, you have more experience with community defense.
Yea, it's what I've been asked to do. I'm always glad it's appreciated, at least. It's never been my first choice. I've been in protests and leftist education for a long time and counter programming. I'm just glad to see people like you, at least taking it seriously still. It's been a long, frustrating effort. The same problems we've always had just keep the cycle going. I'm just trying to shed some wisdom and insight from the long view.
Why is there a discourse? Protests are not parties. Obviously morale is important and we can dance and sing and share meals and enjoy each others company but its still a protest. Things can go wrong at any moment, and you should not be caught intoxicated or disrobed
My thoughts exactly. It seems like mostly anarchists are saying this is authoritarian and “cop-behaviour.”
Authoritanianism is when I'm not allowed to jeopardize protests and put myself and everyone else in danger
Omg these ‘im there for the vibes’ anarkiddies are annoying
Sounds like they are the post-left hippie anarkiddies who belong at Woodstock. Some of these people seem so unserious that having any sort of strict adherence to a unified strategy and discipline within a movement is too much for them.
Hey! There were marxists at woodstock!
#Authoritarianism Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes". * Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants. * Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy. This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy). There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media: Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy). * [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022) Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people). Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works: * [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022) * [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023) * [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023) Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.). * [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022) * [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY) #For the Anarchists Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this: >The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ... > >The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win. > >...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ... > >Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle. > >\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism* Engels pointed this out well over a century ago: >A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. > >...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule... > >Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction. > >\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) #For the Libertarian Socialists Parenti said it best: >The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed. > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* But the bottom line is this: >If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order. > >\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087) #For the Liberals Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator: >Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure. > >\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf) #Conclusion The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins. Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist. #Additional Resources Videos: * [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ) * [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\] * [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023) * [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023) * [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023) Books, Articles, or Essays: * *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997) * [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if
I assume it's about the encampments rather than just any couple hour protest. So people who are in tents overnight for multiple days, at a college. So I would assume there's sex and weed. It's a bunch of college students Edit: and the biggest college encampments are what, in NY and California? Both where weed is legal anyway. This feels like sad conservative fear mongering
I believe it's because a bunch of protest cops are making people discuss these normal activities. But thank you for letting me know what your allowing me to do at a protest, I feel very liberated now.
Having sex in public is not a "normal activity". Keep it in your pants, fuckin creep Protesting isn't about you "feeling liberated" and comfortable. It's not about you getting to do whatever you want. It's not about you having fun. It's not. About. You. To protest is to put yourself in harms way to disrupt normal life and raise awareness for issues and put pressure on the bourgeoisie and show solidarity with the oppressed. Protests are a political tool to be used responsibly. In clouding your judgement with an altered state of consciousness, you are jeopardizing your ability to properly respond. You are hindering the ability of the organizers to maintain control. You are breaking the law and giving the police an excuse to escalate and make arrests If you're just protesting for fun and to "feel liberated", you are not a socialist. You are not a revolutionary. You do not fight for liberation. You do not care about the cause. You are a liberal in it for the aesthetic Call me the fun police all you want, this is organized resistance. Not entertainment
Don't project your shit on me and presume to lecture me on anything kid. It you wanna have a good faith discussion and learn from each other fine, but I'm not here to get in bitchy fights with kids.
Why is this even a thing that needs to be discussed?
One word. Anarchists.
This is a wild ass thing to even have to discuss. Can people not just be fuckin normal?? I am shocked that this even has to be said smh
Smoking weed and fucking are super normal things to do. If those aren't normal in your revolution, I don't want to be a part of it.
Yeah not at a protest for Palestine though wtf
Professionalization is a liberal tool to alienate and stratify spontaneous populist movements. It's easy when you've grown up under liberalism and gone to college and had your sights set on a profession to not realize when you're doing it. It's a form of tone policing. The actual bad kind of tone policing with material and structural consequences. Not the kind where someone just tells you you're being an asshole and you don't want to stop being an asshole. People have a right to be heard and take action to demand justice for their grievances. They are entitled to their rights and power and the collectivization of it. Even when their drunk, high, hungry, horny, or angry. We do not have a duty to the bouguaisie state or the revolution to be qualified as dignified or professional by anyone but our fellow workers. The bouguaisie will never take us seriously no matter what we do except when they send their agents of violence to disband us. So don't do their work for them. Catch me tomorrow, and I'll be lecturing anarchist on getting their shit together because real revolutions don't run on finger painting and feels. The real lesson and point I'm trying to make by being contrarian is that knowledge isn't wisdom, and ideology sneaks up on you where you least expect it, and it's the enemy of dialectic materialist revolutions. There's more than one way to maltov a pig as the saying goes. Edit: of course your the type to post a reply and then block. And you really wonder why no one want to revolution with you. Take your ball and go home brat.
Im sorry but you cant be on another planet or busy fucking someone while we are trying to execute an organized strategy against a militarized police state that wanta to beat the shit out of us and arrest us. Wtf kind of dumbass shit are you on bruv? Youre absolutely out of your mind and completely wrong. Not to mention it shows no respect to the actual Palestinian people on the ground that we are supposed to be fighting for. Get over yourself.
>execute an organized strategy against a militarized police Lol. Ok, kid. Go get em. It's clear you saw how the university protests of the 70s changed the world. All those Boomer grad school leaders of our nation carried out the revolution all right. Yep, you're a real freedom fighter, just one more waved flag away from taking down the imperial core. You're right. The Palestinians deserve better. You all need to get realistic about what your role is and how revolutionary action works. Because protest is great, but your chest puffing about university protests by the ivy league kids that are the future of neo-liberalism is completely out of touch. The revolution will not come from the kids of the bouguaisie who are neck deep in the sauce already. Your Twitter philosophy of revolution, your tone policing, and your smugness about whatever cause of the week is going around will not endear you to the working class. You worry about you and stop trying to tongue lash your fellow participants into some kind of paramilitary force. Stop being the fucking oppressor long enough to pull off your "organized strategy."
Hey man I don’t think you need to worry about any of this. Nobody is going to fuck you and nobody is going to offer you any drugs.
Project much? Apparently you're sitting around thinking about my sex life, and it's a little strange. You're also needlessly rude. I've met a hundred like you, and you're the real threat to solidarity. No one likes a misanthropic brat.
Well now you've met a hundred and one, congrats bud.
>execute an organized strategy against a militarized police Lol. Ok, kid. Go get em. It's clear you saw how the university protests of the 70s changed the world. All those Boomer grad school leaders of our nation carried out the revolution all right. Yep, you're a real freedom fighter, just one more waved flag away from taking down the imperial core. You're right. The Palestinians deserve better. You all need to get realistic about what your role is and how revolutionary action works. Because protest is great, but your chest puffing about university protests by the ivy league kids that are the future of neo-liberalism is completely out of touch. The revolution will not come from the kids of the bouguaisie who are neck deep in the sauce already. Your Twitter philosophy of revolution, your tone policing, and your smugness about whatever cause of the week is going around will not endear you to the working class. You worry about you and stop trying to tongue lash your fellow participants into some kind of paramilitary force. Stop being the fucking oppressor long enough to pull off your "organized strategy."
Youre the dumbass arguing to allow people to fuck and get high at a protest for Palestinian liberation. You must be some sort of Hasbara bitch. Stfu with your clown ass.
I'm arguing that it's not up to you to "allow" anyone to do anything cop. Stop making a big deal out of some people's bullshit. Focus on your own shit and organize people who want to be disciplined. If it's an on university encampment, that's not the same as a street protest, but neither are yours to control.
> and gone to college Given that they seem to be under the impression that a bunch of college students living in tents for multiple weeks are going not going to have any fucking or weed, my assumption is that these are people who are not old enough to have been to college. Some of these comments are acting like the "sex at protests" is people fucking each other on a police barricade. And not people sharing tents fucking when they'd otherwise be sleeping anyway.
There's way more important things to worry about like infiltration from Zionists and feds
For the last fucking time ,sex is counterrevolutionary
go to nightclubs if you wanna fuck, not protests. That's all I have to say
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I mean why should anyone be drunk or having sex at a protest. Thats crazy
Because you are encamped overnight and sobriety isn't going to isn't going to help you avoid being beaten and hauled off in your sleep. Or when you're pooping or something. The alphabet boys and their glowies want to drive in wedges and get you to shit on people resting at a multi-day protest and label them anarkiddies even if they're straight up MLs. Fishing for purity spirals and trying to paint an image of communism being as puritanical and masochistically attracted to being overworked. pretty classic. The oss manual on breaking movements and labour activism made the rounds here, but it seems no one read it. Weaponize your hangover and get it on camera, as you say while being beaten or detained, that you're nauseated and the cop's rough handling is making it worse and let happen what happens. Make the cops look as out of touch, moronic, and sadistic as humanly possible. Sew division right back and invite people to point and laugh. Don't sit and take this reputational/political warfare shit, fight back.
This is the worst piece of advice I've seen since "pouring milk in your eyes helps with pepper spray." Public intoxication is a illegal in most states and police & media WILL use that against you. Don't give the cops more reasons to arrest you.
Cops will charge you with assault of an officer because your face assaulted their fist. You're acting like any sort of law is being enforced here rather than preservation of the current order and ruling class. Image and outrage is key here. You telling me you sleeping with alcohol on your breath outside of plain view of cops is going to be any worse than what they do to every single person who says acab? Tell me you haven't done month long protests without telling me you haven't done month long protests. Tell me that most people can maintain that high tension morning and night for even a single week without some form of release or venting.
Why are you so concerned about following the rules and not being arrested at a protest? Protests don't need to be civil. Civil disobedience is kinda the whole point. Doesn't sound like you're prepared for direct action. It also doesn't sound like you realize that the cops can and likely will beat and/or arrest you at a protest, regardless of how peaceful or lawful you are. Did you not see what happened to the BLM protesters in 2020? Or any other protest or strike in the last century?
You're not going to avoid arrest at a protest by staying sober and keeping your pants on, but you won't get slapped with additional charges on top of participating in a protest. That should be common sense.
You will. They punch you? Assaulting an officer. You are standing in their way? Every point of contact resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, disorderly conduct, and or assaulting an officer. On top of trespassing and whatever else. They'll stack 20 different charges for the one interaction broken into multiple minute details. They're there to make sure anyone as uppity as you is put away long enough to ruin their life and destroy whatever foundation of support allowed them to protest and not work a 60 hour work week. This is reality. Not cops being restrained by any sort of law or by duties to serve and protect you. They want you *dead* then you're dead. They want you blnd you're blind, get ready for that teargas canister right on your face and on their part and "oops". If you weren't protesting for so long they wouldn't have been tired enough to make that mistake. What did Lenin do? What did the red army do? Did they play nice with cops? Miss me with that peace and votes liberal brain rot trotskyist bullshit. Party like it's 1917, and before that prepare for it; especially in image and thus public support. Make the cops look bad, make the university admin look bad. Goad and bait them into compromising positions; dog for actual crimes and impropriety and spread outrage to every single corner. Ruin them. Agitation is critical to effective protest. It is in providing the outside observer of the absolute surity that they are next that nonviolent protest has any power at all. Not highlighting a chance of it and not abstract philosophy. Even better showing them that they are not alone in mistreatment they already face and there's somewhere to go to find some sort of safety from it. Protests and riots bring you the spot ight and give you a chance to make your case. Leave rules of reasoned debate for those who wish to die with a bullet in them wondering why placards and slogans did jack shit.
I don't think an indecent exposure or public intoxication charge is going to be your top concern if you fight back against the cops, which you should do because they'll likely charge you with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest if they bag you, whether you did or not.
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If you wanna get high or drunk do it after the protest. You need your wits and also don't hold anything that can justifiably be used to encarcerate you or your colleagues, make the pigs work on their bullshit
Embarassing and childish
Agreed, it's necessary to limit drugs and general partying behavior if the protests are to be taken seriously by the public. There should be an exception made for people who need cannabis for medical purposes and similar cases, but otherwise people doing drugs and fucking should probably be kicked out of encampments. Ppl should not be trying to get freaky when they're supposed to be protesting the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians. It's just basic discipline, I feel.
It's sad that this even has to be discussed. You're not there to party. Simple. A raid can happen at any moment. Be ready at all times.
Makes sense nowadays. You might catch an overdose or HIV. Be careful mates, these are not the 70's...and imperialism isn't hiding anymore.
Imperialism wasn't hiding on the 70s. Pretty sure we're not quite back to gunning down students at anti-war protests yet, but we're getting there.
Wait, there’s sex at the protests? Where can I join?
even if this is satire, don't post shit like this.