Like a moment that seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, but looking back was in fact a pivotal moment in pushing you towards radicalization.
For me probably being introduced to Guitar Hero at my friend’s house in like summer 2007. At the time it was just another day, but looking back I ended up falling in love with those games, I ended up being introduced to The Ramones and even more importantly the Dead Kennedys through them, which caused me to get into punk music and resulted in me adopting very critical attitudes towards larger American society, attitudes which later grew into anarchism and then Marxism
Getting a job
Specifically getting a job and the immediate dissatisfaction of my paychecks lol
I didn’t know what the hell was wrong until I ran into a leftist at a bar when I was like 23. Had no idea about these topics, the online discourse wasn’t there yet so this was like the only way I could’ve found out
Gonna have to go with losing my job and enlisting. Absolutely spiralled after basic training and AIT. The perspective from being a part of the American machine did not do a lot to make me more patriotic lol. A lot of dudes I was in with drank the Kool aid and went the other direction, though. I don’t think anyone leaves the military as a centrist.
I was always left-of-liberal but someone on r/politics mentioned r/chapotraphouse and here I am. I was like…you can hate liberals from the left? This is amazing!
I lost my faith in electoralism after watching democrats in the same room steal Bernie’s delegates right in front of me. I also ran in elections and even won some…and then thought my life was in danger (and that I needed at least a few bodyguards 24/7 for myself and my family because the sheriff screamed right in my face once when I voted to defund his ass). I quit after that and realized that nothing would change this shithole except a violent revolution.
Remarking over a coffee that there were far fewer homeless people than a couple of years previously, suddenly realizing that they had all died
someone in government near me admitted this recently
they were touting their reductions in homelessness, and someone at the meeting called them out and asked if that statistic would include people who died, and they don’t even monitor that shit or try to adjust for it so of course it does.
Yep. We tend not to see it this way because it’s just too horrible to bear, but homelessness is a death sentence.
Yep. I’ve made this connection before although I wouldn’t be surprised if people much smarter than me did it before, but America is the Sparta of the modern day. Sure, you can say Britain is as well but they’ve fully passed the torch onto us.
Although more subtle, it’s disgusting just how eugenic this society is. Prohibitively expensive rent likely in no small part to “weed out the weaklings” and have them die homeless. The low paychecks because “the american worker is too tough for decadence”, and the creeping militarization of everything, but that’s a rant for another day. Almost everything feels like it is designed to make life so insufferable for the poors under the foolish idea that they’re “toughening us up” or something.
I think for me it was just generally being raised by my parents (well-meaning socdem/lefty lib types), but one thing that I think planted the seeds of communism in my mind was my dad quoting Marx to get me to do my chores lol, specifically “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. Of course when he said it he just wanted me to mow the lawn or wash the dishes since he worked all day, but I really took it to heart
