@Lady Yeah, that's the issue, right? There are a lot of people pretty far to the right who AREN'T an entirely-lost cause and I think we owe it to them as well as ourselves to find a good way to reach out to them and get them to change their minds, both on an individual and a systemic level. And if the systemic level requires something that people would call political re-education, I think that's still better than the alternative.

@coriander yes i think it's an issue of our time because historically, the problem was simpler and easier, and things like public debate and free speech and critical press and so forth were “good enough” tools for “most” people, because the channels of information were such that everybody would more or less get exposed to things regardless, and so community consensus could generally be formed through these channels

(nevermind that these channels were largely used to promote capitalism; a socialist community hypothetically could equally have achieved socialist consensus [if it weren't for those pesky kids and their CIA plant])

however now not ONLY is there an easier time for bad information to be widely consumed, but also there is much LESS guarantee that actually good information will reach people. the mechanisms of public debate and free speech yada yada can no longer make that guarantee

so the question becomes like, what can be done? other than both restricting people's access to bad information streams AND mandating their exposure to good ones, how do you give people a path towards a different (and more accurate) perspective on the world? but on a societal scale, that is censorship and state-sponsored media, and on an individual level, that is effectively a reeducation program, however you want to label it

@coriander this is also i think not as controversial as it sounds on the level of the people actually affected; like you listen to the people who are friends of people who have bought into the alt-right turn and they're like “idk i'm tired of all this bullshit i just want my friend back”

and that i think is the immediate question; how do we get people back to a place where they are engaging with their friends and communities in a way which is like, good. and that's also the desire of those friends and those communities

historically communism has been very as you have said top-down and heavy-handed but i think there is room for a community-oriented solution (and that that is very important whenever you are dealing with like, minority communities, to ensure you are correcting the right things and not just trying to wipe out people's culture)

@coriander anyway i'm very critical of american economies and how we think about work, naturally, and the question of which people and how and why we can or should “rehabilitate” as “productive workers” is complicated (this road, in nonscientific societies, can also lead to conversion therapy, and while communism should of course be based in science america historically has had a somewhat looser relationship)

BUT i also think communists need to make use of the political apparatuses at hand, and the workplace is the primary site of power in american society currently, and one where people are generally more tolerant to change and restriction compared to other aspects of american life

@Lady Yeah I also don't love the idea of focusing just on the workplace because the goal shouldn't just be to re-educate fascists into being better workers, it should be to help them be better members of society and their communities (INCLUDING but in no ways limited to their workplace), but I do also see how making use of work in the US is probably the best way to start things right now

It's like how easy it is to get people to agree to socialist and communist thought if you explain basic tenets of the relationship between worker and employer and just Don't Say Communism