hyperpoopsucks [none/use name]

Not to mention that 90% of the work before any risky action is social and logistics anyway. All the tough manly men who get things done look really weak without working speakers

Not USian so ymmv

I found that thankfully within groups, stuff has gotten a bit better. I genuinely felt alienated and miserable within each and every group, big tent or not, I was in before 2020 in the sense that cis women could be very cruel to trans women and if I hit verbally back, I was the aggressor and had cis dudes blow up at me. Now it had been at least not as bad. Just some people stumbling to use my pronouns.

I think an important point is to try and see if there is the possibility of becoming a fellow traveller before comitting more. A) you dont want a party that gives out full membership right away B) the group might suck

wrt B: Shit is scary but a revolutionary situation usually means things are already bad enough that there is not a lot to lose anymore for you. Doesnt really help, but it gives you some perspective. Paranoia shouldnt prevent you from joining eventually. Imo a good heuristic is that a badly run and a federally run group are functionally equivalent.

Yeah this fleshes out my speculation as well. It was more about rearranging the infrastructure. Uh, I better start getting really good at accessing library records before they wall that stuff off too

“Maoism” is about as real as “Dengism” is. There are people that called themselves Maoists and thought functionaries driving a minimum number of mercedes cars by year x was integral to their party’s growthy. In the 60-80ies it was the same as “Daddy Xi pls send nukes” - an edgy marker of being a cool kid in the in-group that didnt necessarily tell a lot about the person’s committment.

Identifying with people perceived to be critical of the USSR (at vastly different points… Mao liked Stalin) is sometimes a crutch for people self-conscious about communism and the objective need to do nasty shit to reactionaries which itself is kinda telling on how seriously you gotta take these people. That being said, the need for labels is kind of a sign of insecurity and need for identity labels as a shibboleth is generally a big tell on ideological insecurities as well. and inner-leftist handing out of labels, like calling everybody that disagrees with a voluntarist call to action an ultra is more name-calling and appeals to the room’s Common Sense imo. I think. Sorry for the messy train of thought - on mobile.

TL;DR: you will know a real “maoist” when you interact with them, usually it’s western leftist with hangups about needing to have show trials for every NYT editor