How do you work out what kind of leftist you are?

So, I guess a little bit of background. I live in a country with a universal healthcare system, which I'm massively glad about, and always feel bad for my US friends who have to deal with paying ridiculous amounts of money just to be healthy, and feel angry at all the fucking weird people in the US who don't like the idea of it, I don't know why the fuck people want to vote against their own self interests (stuff like taxing millionaries, too - why the fuck wouldn't the 99% of people not want to? You can be fucking sure the millionaires are voting in their own interests)

Over the past year or two I've been reading more and more into shit that the US, UK etc. have done and are currently doing, all the hypocrisy, fucking around in the middle east, fucking around in the colonies, how politicians pay lip service to human rights whilst at the same time selling weapons and warfare technology to countries commiting human rights abuses.

One of the peak breaking points for me recently was John McCain dying, seeing all of these people talk about how great he was, "I don't agree with his politics but I respect him", all that kind of shit - voices on the left seemed to be the only ones calling him out for being a war criminal, and even then getting criticized for not being "civil", it's like everyone else cared more about whitewashing and being nice about this guy than calling him out for what he was, making out like you're the asshole for saying he sucks.

TL;DR I guess I'd describe myself as a leftist but how do I work out where exactly I fit in? I don't know if I'm a communist, anarchist, socialist etc. all I know is that capitalism is kind of shitty especially when people decide that profits matter more than humanity, whether it's not implementing universal healthcare to shit like the impeding climate catastrophy because somehow it's more important to create value for shareholders than to ensure the ocean doesn't turn into a fucking boiling sea full of plastic. Also people who whitewash history and war criminals are shitheads.

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Read until you know how to classify yourself, then read some more until you realize that politics isn't as easy as picking a class in an rpg

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Don’t worry too much about where you fit in. My advice would just be to research different strains of leftism and see what makes sense to you. For me, there’s no specific ideology that I completely agree with but I’m the most closely aligned with Marxism-Leninism. To normies I’d never call myself anything more than a socialist or Marxist though. You have that instinctual anti-capitalist feeling, now the thing to do is back it up with theory to understand the system and help you articulate the problems and pose solutions

I agree with them. I also have just started reading Marx and Engels' later works, and have read summaries of what Lenin, Stalin, and Mao practiced and theorized.

I think, at least in the beginning, it is the matter of what you think is the best way to reach the end goal of communism. With anarchists, it is immediate abolishing of state, while Marxists hold true the analysis that state exists as long as classes exist as it is a tool of oppression of the ruling class so proletariat class will establish their own state (socialist), after smashing the bourgeoisie's, to oppress the bourgeoisie.

I began with 'undoing' all the bourgeois propaganda that I had fallen for. This includes how Marxism and anarchism are distorted and robbed of their revolutionary content, the history of previous proletarian revolutions (Paris commune, USSR, PRC, etc.), propaganda against NK (check out: youtu.be/7f22QGIWXGw, youtu.be/ktE_3PrJZO0), Venezuela, Cuba, China, USSR, etc. Check out: reddit.com/r/communism/wiki/debunk

You have noticed, like the rest of us, the exploitation by capitalists. If you want to know the basic 'how' and 'why' the system leads to this you might want to start with Marx's 'Wage Labor and Capital' or 'Value, Price and Profit'. Afaik the latter one was a speech by Marx to workers so it an easy read.

If you want to instead go by the way of videos, checkout Comrade Hakim, Mexie, BadMouseProductions, etc. on YT.

TL;DR: read as much as you can, discuss, etc.

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Thanks for the advice, anons. I'm bad at reading (shit brain) so I'll probably end up either listening to audiobooks or checking out videos about stuff.

I guess for me, it's just so difficult to imagine a world without a central state sometimes. Like, how would we administer healthcare to everyone without a big centralized state to keep track of stuff? That's why reading stuff about anarchism etc. fucks me up, since the capitalist way is all I've ever lived in and known.

With regards to the Venezuela situation, it's so fucking sketchy that this Elliott Abrams guy, same guy from the Contra scandal, is now the special representative for Venezuela? How does this not set off alarm bells for people? Whilst Maduro might not be the greatest leader, we still don't have any right to fuck around with another country's democratically elected leader, and it's astonishing how forceful the US is being about aid - they weren't even close to this enthusiastic when it came to Puerto Rico after the hurricane, surely people would notice how weird that is?

It makes me feel like some conspiracy theorist sometimes, honestly. I feel like telling someone that the US funded the mujahideen and a big part of why the middle east is so fucked now is because of the red scare, would just make me look crazy. Man, this world is fucked up.

Check out the marx anime, it is a good introduction into marxism.
youtube.com/channel/UCJDHpjhmJlbNFPBEheFhypQ/featured

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I'll tell you how it'll go. First you'll probably become a libsoc or anarchist, say how you're all for liberty and democracy, call the USSR evil, etc. Then as you read more history and theory you'll realize the liberatarian/authoritarian spectrum is liberal nonsense and you'll gradually turn into a ML.

this too. Watched the 6th ep. today. You usually have to wait 2-3 days for a comrade named F Sun there to upload English subtitles (after episode-release on Mondays). Anyone notice how the animation and story presentation has gotten better after each episode?

It is really surprising how disillusioned liberals are.
On this the least we can agree on no meddling in foreign affairs.

I agree. I have read many people saying they went through the same transition, sometimes often through a fascist phase.

Socialist anime is the future. I can’t wait for crypto-fash weebs to get driven out of the fanbase

I think getting to know the truth about the world affairs and history actually accelerated my fall into depression

We lefties are better than these weebs at art afaik – both in quality and 'soul'. And with China getting into socialist anime, we have a good start.

Do you comrades have socialist animes to recommend?