The purpose of this community is sort of a "work out your frustrations by letting it all out" where different leftist tendencies can vent their frustrations with one another and more assertively and directly challenge one another. Hostility is allowed, but any racist, fascist, or reactionary crap wont be tolerated, nor will explicit threats.
holy fuckin' hell, Anarchists really will monetise their ideology.
It seems like every time I see a shop that sells leftist clothing it's an Anarchist.
Also, most of their clothing looks hella bad and it makes me wonder if they made the designs themselves or if the designs are stolen. Also, if they hate AES and capitalism, where do they source their shirts from? Seems pretty damn hypocritical to shit on AES, and then utilize AES labour for your own profit.
When your ideology is primarily individualist and largely aesthetic, you end up with a ton of people who treat their political orientation as a fashion statement.
Speaking as an ex-anarchist, there's a massive trend in anarchism to not be focused on the ideological distinctions between the plethora of anarchist subtypes but instead to align oneself to a flavour of anarchism which is most appealing.
In communist thought you have very clear distinctions which are based on theoretical and practical disagreements (practical in the sense of socialism being put into practice); you have leftcoms and Trotskyists and council communists and MLs and MLMs etc. All of whom you can trace out their positions and their ideological stances from.
In anarchism it's much more about what the individual is most attracted to as a cause than this. Sure there are platformists, DeLeonists, and egoists, for example, which fit what I've mentioned above about disagreements on theory and practice but you're more likely to find an anarcha-feminist or an eco-anarchist than you will a DeLeonist or a platformist imo.
With that in mind it should come as no surprise that so much of anarchism is focused on fashion.
I met too many folk just like this in college. I considered myself an ancom. I knew an anarcho-syndicalist, ecosocialist, democratic socialist, guild socialist, libertarian socialist, Christian anarchist...
I can't fault them or myself too much, we are taught to identify with ANYTHING but Marxism-Leninism. I was the edgiest one of the lot for daring to even identify with "communism" (albeit in its softer, less threatening anarchoform.) We agreed on pretty much everything, yet we all identified our politics as meaningfully different based on what we named them.
Continued study of imperialism and self-criticism turned most of us into genuine communists. Some got tired of radical politics and became Hilary stans. One's a pastor and a patsoc who believes in literal demons and performs exorcisms and shit.
The U.S. left is in an absolute state.
When your ideology is primarily individualist and largely aesthetic, you end up with a ton of people who treat their political orientation as a fashion statement.
Speaking as an ex-anarchist, there's a massive trend in anarchism to not be focused on the ideological distinctions between the plethora of anarchist subtypes but instead to align oneself to a flavour of anarchism which is most appealing.
There's a lot of "no veggies at dinner, no bedtimes" empty hedonistic self-described "anarchists" out there. They're barely even leftist except in a passive way and just want people to NOT TELL THEM WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 
Add "no bosses" to that list too.
Y'all think that any sort of construction or manufacturing is going to run in a self-organised fashion without foremen? Lol, good luck.
If you've never worked in a factory before, that's cool but there are much better ways of announcing this fact and I think that it's important to remember the old "No investigation, no right to speak" or, in their terms "In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker".
I try not to focus too much on these types because I'm convinced that a couple of years of touching grass, working for a living, and spending time doing on the ground organising will bring these infantile urges in people to a conclusion in all but the most stubborn-minded. Although you can cut through these naive ideological positions by tracing out how there was (vulgar) vanguardism in their favourite historical socialist projects and how leadership was crucial to their functioning. That being said I have more important things to do with my time than engaging people with discussions on that stuff tbh.
There’s a liberal lurker here who I can see on my alt account on another instance but not from here (weird).
They said they hope we know Russia isn’t even nominally socialist anymore, here’s my reply.
We know. News to no one but dementia addled US politicians.
But we support Russia obviously. Because it’s fighting the evil empire. Because it’s on our side. We didn’t choose that, we have no power to make it so. Russia didn’t even want to choose that. They tried to buddy up with the capitalist west but were rejected multiple times, they’re too big and can’t be subjugated and exploited so they’re a threat that must be fragmented into manageable pieces or isolated. The west chose that. They beat them and backed them into our corner and chained them to us and after the west stabbed them in the back a few times with lies about peace (Minsk agreements, Merkel and Sarkozy admitted they were lies all along) they’ve gotten the message.
Not that Russia ever really left friendship with the oppressed peoples of the global south. Bucking the US empire and trading goods, cooperation, weapons when the west refused. Call it opportunism or realpolitik, the result not intent is what matters.
But Russia will just become an evil imperialist empire and replace the US you scream. And that’s why you’re a liberal. They can’t. Idealism, wants, dreams, propaganda do not manifest into reality. The US didn’t will itself into its place by magic. It ascended to it as the result of material and historical forces going back centuries, specifically occupying and subjugating Western European colonial empires after WW2, it took on their power, assumed the reins over them and agreed to share the spoils. Various forces and reasons assure us the US will not hand over its crown to Russia peacefully as Europe did to the US. In fact even now Russia’s resistance, heroic, is inspiring Africans to push the French out. When all is done there will be nothing the west is left holding onto to barter with or hand to Russia, no colonial holdings. Russia cannot simply re-subjugate Africa or Asia or Latin America in a decade once they stand up. The original conditions which led to it don’t exist.