Do you have any right wing, or non-leftist friends?

[Skyhilist]

Pretty simple question. Discuss.

For the purposes of the thread lets define "non-leftist" as anything right wing of a liberal, because I think most of us have liberal friends partially because there are so few socialists out there in the places where many of us live.

EDIT: Exclude apolitical friends because you can't really place them within the right vs left spectrum.

[d3crypt]

Friends with a fascist

[Remus Bleys]

I have one leftist friend. Hell, I only know one other leftist really, and that was after hours of persuasion.
Everyone else is social-democrat at best, most are either conservative or liberal.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Friends with a few somewhat conservative people. It is the south after all. Politics isn't something I generally talk about outside of RevLeft unless someone else brings it up, and even it's rare.

[Sentinel]

When I was younger, I did have plenty. Childhood friends aren't chosen, nor were my own views developed, despite influenced by leftism, at that point. Some more apolitical than right wing ones are still with me today, though.

But as a gradual, and I'd say natural, process most 'OI' people have went separate ways with me and been replaced by more left wing ones. These days many of the people I 'hang with' on my rare free time are also comrades, members of the same organisation.

There are some people at my work, who I would consider friends on some level that are economically right wing/neo-liberal, but I would hardly spend time off with them. I do however draw the line at social reactionaries - racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes etc.

I feel there is simply no rational reason for me to deal with such peoples bullshit on what little free time I have, combating their ideas in my role as an activist is enough.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm friends with a host of right-wing populists and libertarians. I live in Alaska, right-wing populism/libertarianism is pretty big up here. Not friends with any real, heavy-weight right-wing ideologues, though. Those people turn me off in a big way. (Not that that sort of individual would even want to hang out with me, anyway...)

[Sentinel]

I should add, perhaps, that if I too lived in an area with less leftists then probably that would be reflected in my circle of friends. I'm not ready to become a hermit at this age, after all.

But likely I'd still aim at keeping to socially progressive people with 'merely' differing economical views.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I was friends with someone who supported racial segregation. Friendship didn't last long after I found that out.

[Dagoth Ur]

I'm friends with anyone who is fun to be friends with. It's more frequent that reactionary friends abandon me than I abandon them. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

[BIXX]

I have two real friends that I consider friends (it takes a lot for me to consider someone a friend).

However, I am very close to them. One of them is slowly (but surely) becoming an anarchist (as I am beginning to believe I exude some kind of "anarchist hormone" or something that turns people into anarchists). The other is a liberal, but she is more concerned with living her life than politics, so she is almost apolitical.

[Quail]

Some of my friends are people who I met through politics, who are of course leftists. Other people I hang out with I met through sport so I guess they have a range of political views. Sometimes they make dodgy comments and there's a kind of macho atmosphere and I call them out on it, but I don't think they actually mean to be sexist/homophobic, more they just don't realise they're doing it, if that makes sense. Most of my old school friends are liberals, although one is an anarchist. One guy used to come out with some real racist shit but he seems to have done a u-turn about all that which is really nice to see.

[Comrade Jacob]

Being friends with a Thatcherite is very awkward, just don't talk about politics around him, he can get really annoying.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

most of my friends are either on the left, 'liberal' types (socially, generally not fussed about economics, dislike tories etc) or very apolitical. i never tend to get on with right wing people, they're normally so square.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There really is no such thing as apolitical, that's a term used by people who think themselves 'in-the-know' to disparage other who aren't as interested in career politics and to encourage apathy.

Everyone has a view.

[Igor]

basically all of my friends are

mostly either very apathetic or social democrat types. some have relatively conservative and right-liberal views but i generally just don't discuss politics with them

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

There really is no such thing as apolitical, that's a term used by people who think themselves 'in-the-know' to disparage other who aren't as interested in career politics and to encourage apathy.

Everyone has a view.
well their view is that they 'don't care' about politics, because they are disillusioned with it, understandably. this may be a 'view', but the people i know who would call themselves apolitical genuinely don't want anything to do with politics, nor do they care about the outcome of political situations in a formal sense. these are quite privileged people, perhaps it would be different if they were more immediately affected by the social, political and economic environments that exist around them.

'ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and forever' as trotsky said - the people i know who class themselves as apolitical haven't been under fire, so they see no reason to 'care' about politics or spout views other than that they couldn't give a shit either way (until it goes tits up for them, i'd imagine).

as it stands, these people are apolitical and this isn't just in relation to careerists. this also relates to leftist groups like the swp who many see as a laughing stock- they are the main group at my university, perhaps many of them are careerists but they certainly don't want to encourage apathy. however, they do encourage it due to their ineptitude and the fact that most of their target demographic at the university aren't in situations where political activism seems an immediate necessity. some people are genuinely apolitical.

[Arlekino]

I don't have friends and I am not joking.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Fuck no. I'm currently purging my liberal friends as well. The less idiotic "friends" you have, the less stressful life will be...

[ВАЛТЕР]

I have some acquaintances that I have to tolerate (say hi when I see them and shit), but no right wing friends. They are bad people and they should feel bad.

[sixdollarchampagne]

When I was in the Navy, there was a guy in our unit who was an Objectivist; I think that's the right term – he thought that Ayn Rand was cool. He was funny, awfully smart and good-natured; I remember he used to talk about "diabetical materialism," which cracked me up. I liked him a lot. It's been more than three and a half decades since I knew Johnny, and I still remember him. So, yeah, from where I sit, there's nothing wrong with being friends with a reactionary, and writing about Johnny reminds me of a student at the university where I used to work, who was also an Objectivist; on a face to face level, she was a lovely person. Who knows, maybe one can have some influence on a friend like that, over time. I would much rather be friends with an honest right-winger, than with a syrupy trust-fund liberal Democrat: in my view, it's the Democrats who are the big brake on social progress in this country, not the relatively few Objectivists. At least the Objectivists, and right-wingers in general, sail under their own true colors.

[Red Commissar]

I have a handful of friends who're conservative in the Texas sense. Most of them are friends I've kept since I was a teenager. Another larger chunk are mostly liberal types. I talk politics more with the latter because I like poking holes in their thoughts of Dems being a force for change, I avoid them with the former. Not so much that I don't like debate, but most of them tend to fall into weird lines of logic.

I've only broken off contacts with two. One because he moved away to college and didn't have interest in staying in contact, and the other because he got too racist and burned bridges with all of his friends anyways. Otherwise I don't worry about racism from them because I'm a "minority" as far as we're concerned here, and the fact they've associated with me this long usually tells me they don't have a racist bone, at least not deeply held.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Most of my friends are conservative actually, only a few liberal friends and even fewer commie/anarchist friends. I live in a conservative part of Cali I guess, I used to be conservative myself. My friends and I have arguments all the time and the funny thing is I've pretty much influenced some of my friends to sound just like Marxists but they still register and vote Republican. It doesn't make much sense. There are times I've had to stop hanging out with people because of their reactionary stances though. One friend and I actually created an anti-racist group at our school it was fun. Like a year ago he found out he was Jewish though and he got weird and started believing in Jewish Supremacy over all people, "we're the chosen people" type crap that just couldn't be taken by me anymore.

[Igor]

generally i feel like if politics would make me not want to be friends with someone it means they're way too preachy about their politics and generally just not fun to be around with. and this also means i probably wouldn't be particularly good friends with them anyways even if they agreed with them politically, i'd just tolerate them a lot more

exception to this ofc being like if you're seriously homophobic/racist/sexist or otherwise a complete piece of shit

[DasFapital]

I don't hang out with any leftists in real life. I know a few liberals but I am mostly around people I would describe as either moderate conservatives or libertarians.

[Chris]

I got mates of pretty much any ideology. Including a fascist, some right-libertarians, more nationalists than I can shake a stick at... And of course, liberals, agrarians, conservatives, environmentalists, right-wing populists and politically religious folk. Most are fairly relaxed about politics, though, and I rarely discuss it... Well, not true, but most of the time I discuss it on issue-by-issue basis rather than an ideological basis. Wether or not I'm friends with someone has more to do with their personality and hobbies, rather than political views.

[Sentinel]

I can't find a notification about who moved this from Politics to Chit Chat, but it's in my opinion more of a non poli thread, being more serious in character. So whoever it was, I hope it's fine that I'm moving it there, otherwise PM me.

Moved.

[zoot_allures]

No, but that's mainly because I have maybe five friends (and that's being generous: three of those five I often go months without seeing).

I've had non-leftist friends in the past, and I'd be happy to in the future. I've even had a good friend who was an outright fascist, or at least claimed to be (I often wondered if he was just saying it to shock people... he probably the same about me, though...)

[Ace High]

I have hardly any leftist friends. One or two maybe. And one of them isn't even a leftist, he just thinks he is. Although, he;s certainly on the right track. Most of my friends don't care about politics at all. If you asked them they would say "well I'm socially liberal, fiscally conservative." Yeah, you know the drill.

[Comrade Chernov]

I've got a number of friends who are moderate-right Liberal, and a few associates who are religious-right Reactionary all the way.

[ed miliband]

most of my friends are either on the left, 'liberal' types (socially, generally not fussed about economics, dislike tories etc) or very apolitical. i never tend to get on with right wing people, they're normally so square.

from university i've deduced there are two types of right-wing people: the squares, who genuinely believe it, more than likely into mra, etc. then you get the posh lads who'll end up working in the city, and support the conservatives 'cos they think it will help 'em make loadsa money.

goes without saying that the first group are utter bastards, but as much as it pains me to say it, i've met some alright people in the second group. hard to take seriously, fundamentally class enemies, but not bad as it goes.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

A few of my friends are genuinely right wing but none I'd count as close friends. The guy I know best worked on a few presentations at uni with me and he's ok, we actually had a lot of fun working on a presentation about the effects the colonial period had on civic architecture and planning - I think it's good sometimes to have someone you get on with but also disagree with.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

from university i've deduced there are two types of right-wing people: the squares, who genuinely believe it, more than likely into mra, etc. then you get the posh lads who'll end up working in the city, and support the conservatives 'cos they think it will help 'em make loadsa money.

goes without saying that the first group are utter bastards, but as much as it pains me to say it, i've met some alright people in the second group. hard to take seriously, fundamentally class enemies, but not bad as it goes.
we go to very diff unis.

where in the uk are you if u don't mind answering?

[tachosomoza]

No, I spare myself headaches.

[RedBen]

i got "liberal" or "democrat" friends, i also have a ron paul fanboy libertarian friend. most of my friends are anti commuinist or at least think they are. i had a communist friend who turned red years before i did, but i stopped talking to him after he decided black and latin people can't be friends, or as he put it "i never had no delusions of black and brown allegiance, mexicans don't give a fuck about us" when malcom x grand son was killed in mexico. he always was kind of an isolationist. tended to go into phases of every white person is a sneaky racist to rants about jews. i'm not willing to stomach that shit. i reject self-segregation.

[Skyhilist]

I myself am friends with a Zionist conservative. Well, a few conservatives. Occasionally arguments arise. Luckily this isn't very problematic most of the time because I completely own them and am pretty good at debating irl compared to most people, although probably not compared to most people on this forum.

[human strike]

I voted yes, but actually having now read the OP, no, not really. Tragically I have few friends who aren't revolutionary types.

[cyu]

Whether you can call them friends or not, I've definitely got people I know that are to the right of liberals - though I can't say I'd trust them with much of anything. If Christians have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_dating you might say I've got "revolutionary friending"... the slow, creeping leftist brainwashing alternating with the entertaining stuff (kind of like how Fox mixes miscellaneous entertainment with rightwing preaching).

I actually end up discussing politics with the right-wingers more, since the non-rightwingers I know just tend to agree with each other, and the discussion stops there :lol:

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

There's an old bit of Southern etiquette that goes like this.

"When eating at the table with family and friends, under no circumstances should you ever discuss (1)politics or (2)religion."

Where I'm from, that's as good a bit of advice as any. I live in Macon. I'm come from a close knit, church-going family of loyal conservative republicans. Almost everyone in this town is a conservative republican (exception being if you're black* or under the age of 21, and most of the black friends I have became friends because they run in the same nerd circles that I do).

But I've always believed that a person is more than their politics, however, so its always been touch and go for me.


*Because of the extreme racial stratification politics-wise, a black southerner is almost always votes a straight democratic ticket.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Ooof, Macon, I'm sorry.

ATLiens reprazent.

[NewLeft]

sort of, i never can get close to them.

[Dagoth Ur]

Y'know no one ever helped any confused worker by being friends with only other leftists. And dehumanizing non-leftists is a lot easier if you refuse to even associate with them.

[NewLeft]

it depends on what you mean by friend, if you mean just someone you could have a drink with/shoot hoops etc, then sure. but someone you'd open up to and get more personal, nah. i don't know alot of people but never really met a right winger who i connected with (?)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Y'know no one ever helped any confused worker by being friends with only other leftists.

Party work is one thing, and one's personal life is another.


And dehumanizing non-leftists is a lot easier if you refuse to even associate with them.

It really isn't that difficult to begin with, in fact rightists make it extremely easy for you to do so.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

the majority of people I know are non-leftists as far as I know/am concerned. Lots of left-liberalism, true, and lots of misplaced nostalgia for the "spirit of 45" and so on but I know plenty of people who are fundamentally small-c conservative

[3OPNCA]

Yes. Most of my friends are leftists, but some definitely aren't. I respect that others have differing opinions to my own, and, so long as they don't impose their beliefs and opinions on me, were all good. Although, it does make our daily debates and discussions very lively and interesting. Plus, it's nice to have an opposing viewpoint and opinion.

[Dagoth Ur]

Party work is one thing, and one's personal life is another.
There is no personal life for a communist. Agitation isn't an event you sign up for.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There is no personal life for a communist.

OOOH - Star Wars: The Cult Strikes Back! Out now!

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I think there's a major difference between trying to win someone over politically and being friends with someone who talks about deporting immigrants and cutting wages.

I mean how could you even sustain that relationship? Even if you'd avoid politics, I'd find it excruciatingly hard to stay on good terms with someone who wants members of my family to starve for living on welfare support.

[Orange Juche]

I always felt this statement covered this issue:

"The Senator charged that Professor Harold Laski, a British scholar and politician, dedicated the book to me. That's true. He is dead. He was a socialist -- I am not. He was one of those civilized individuals who did not insist upon agreement with his political principles as a precondition for conversation or friendship." - Edward R. Murrow

[Tolstoy]

My best friend is fairly conservative, essentially an "Obama Republican". I recall our arguing once in a post office and we were in a line and he said "See Tolstoy, bureacracy at its finest!" Right after he said that, the woman said "Next!" and we got called up to deliver our package.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I always felt this statement covered this issue:

"The Senator charged that Professor Harold Laski, a British scholar and politician, dedicated the book to me. That's true. He is dead. He was a socialist -- I am not. He was one of those civilized individuals who did not insist upon agreement with his political principles as a precondition for conversation or friendship." - Edward R. Murrow

Sure, it's civilised to be polite to people that want you to starve or be imprisoned. But civilisation and politeness can take turns sucking my crass queer dick. I don't think so little of myself that I'm going to debase myself in front of reactionaries.


There is no personal life for a communist. Agitation isn't an event you sign up for.

Parties and organisations that act or have acted in this manner - RCP, WRP and so on - are all dead or dying because they burn through and grind up cadres.

Edit: To belabour the point a bit, here is what Robertson, the chief of the "cultish" SL if you haven't been keeping up with the slander, thought of this sort of "the Revolution doesn't rest and neither should you" mentality. I find it quite instructive:

"I’ll give you a nice example. We just spent about 18 months preparing and running an election campaign in New York. We got a good party organizer in, a campaign manager and two candidates. And we ran hard for many months, the best campaign we could, pound, pound, pound. OK, in a Healyite organization, the day after the election, you walk in and you say, “Well, comrades, the crisis intensifies and you’ve been semi-traitors for the way you’ve dogged it. Now you’ve really got to go to work.” That’s an absolutely normal Healyite technique. Instead of, “Well, comrades, take some vacations now. Go and skin dive, or go to Portugal, or do something. Pay as much of your own way as you can, and perhaps the party treasury can assist you. We have worked you relentlessly, now take a break.” That’s a very good example of an anti-Healyite technique. And so maybe we’ll have some of the same candidates around in a few years.
In a Healyite organization it would be: “Turn over your vacation money and work twice as hard.”
What does this reflect? If you’re going to try to build a revolutionary workers party, you’ve got to have cadres. If you’re running a perpetual sideshow, you don’t want cadres. You need a few supervisors or foremen, and you just run through the human material and milk it. These administrative techniques reflect qualitative differences in purpose." (from an interview on the 1966 ICFI conference)

[Orange Juche]

Sure, it's civilised to be polite to people that want you to starve or be imprisoned. But civilisation and politeness can take turns sucking my crass queer dick. I don't think so little of myself that I'm going to debase myself in front of reactionaries.

You clearly think in extremely absolutist terms. You can feel however you want, in my opinion though, that mentality is really not useful or proactive in any way. The type of conservatives that are surprisingly good or even passionately on the right side of the gay rights issue usually are because they've met or personally know someone who is, and realize "oh, this person is human". When you bring it to a 1 to 1 level, it exposes to people reality over hyperbolic falsehoods.

Going "us vs them" might be gratifying or self-justifying in a self-righteous kind of way, but it doesn't get you anywhere. The world is definitely not as black and white as you make it out to be.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You clearly think in extremely absolutist terms. You can feel however you want, in my opinion though, that mentality is really not useful or proactive in any way. The type of conservatives that are surprisingly good or even passionately on the right side of the gay rights issue usually are because they've met or personally know someone who is, and realize "oh, this person is human". When you bring it to a 1 to 1 level, it exposes to people reality over hyperbolic falsehoods.

Going "us vs them" might be gratifying or self-justifying in a self-righteous kind of way, but it doesn't get you anywhere. The world is definitely not as black and white as you make it out to be.

I don't want to make assumptions about your age or your experience, but I think that as you accumulate both, your mentality will start to resemble mine - or perhaps that is just what we bitter old people who still haven't reached thirty tell ourselves. Quite frankly, I'm tired, and have no desire to do pro bono outreach work, that won't even accomplish anything when you're surrounded by boneheads. Perhaps my attitude isn't useful, but I'm a bit fed up with having to justify my activities to society instead of the other way around.

And perhaps I do see the world as "black and white" - or rather as "friend or foe". But when it comes to revolutionary classes and oppressed groups, everyone who is moderate, apolitical, inconsistent, is objectively on the side of oppression. As the former leader of the Italian maximalists used to say, chi non è con noi, è contro di noi.

[G4b3n]

I will be friends with nearly anyone.
As long as they are not a fascist (golden rule).

[Crux]

Most of my friends are left in a sort of general sense. None of my doing really, talking here of course of people I met outside of political activity, but I guess it just has to do with compatibility. I suppose it also depends on how broadly you use the term friend, widen the net a bit and you'll probably find a few liberals/libertarian-light here and there. None of my old mates from school, and people like that, have become Sweden Democrats though. But that's more luck I guess.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

There's an old bit of Southern etiquette that goes like this.

"When eating at the table with family and friends, under no circumstances should you ever discuss (1)politics or (2)religion."



This is practically the opposite to how I was raised.

[Devrim]

Yes, I have friends with all sorts of political ideas ranging from far left to fascist.

Devrim

[Landsharks eat metal]

I don't really have any friends outside the internet but it would be nice to so I have to be open to the possibility. As long as they're not an asshole.

[Orange Juche]

I don't want to make assumptions about your age or your experience, but I think that as you accumulate both, your mentality will start to resemble mine - or perhaps that is just what we bitter old people who still haven't reached thirty tell ourselves. Quite frankly, I'm tired, and have no desire to do pro bono outreach work, that won't even accomplish anything when you're surrounded by boneheads. Perhaps my attitude isn't useful, but I'm a bit fed up with having to justify my activities to society instead of the other way around.

And perhaps I do see the world as "black and white" - or rather as "friend or foe". But when it comes to revolutionary classes and oppressed groups, everyone who is moderate, apolitical, inconsistent, is objectively on the side of oppression. As the former leader of the Italian maximalists used to say, chi non è con noi, è contro di noi.

Well, I'm nearly 30.

Interestingly enough, with the experience I've had with my own issues with how right wing people would treat/perceive people such as myself, I've basically worked from the opposite direction.

I did see the world as starkly black and white. In the end it was only destructive to my own mental health in trying to deal with the world that exists, and with relationships with others. It took time, but I've come to my own realizations about that, and I find the world to be much more nuanced now.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Well, I'm nearly 30.

Interestingly enough, with the experience I've had with my own issues with how right wing people would treat/perceive people such as myself, I've basically worked from the opposite direction.

I did see the world as starkly black and white. In the end it was only destructive to my own mental health in trying to deal with the world that exists, and with relationships with others. It took time, but I've come to my own realizations about that, and I find the world to be much more nuanced now.

I understand completely what you describe. Consider this: it would be so much more healthy and meaningful if, contrary to the existing typical reality of youths learning about communism from articles/books/internet, workers' had their own educative institutions in society, where the scientific theory of class struggle can be properly put into the complex context of daily human interactive life.


Party work is one thing, and one's personal life is another.


I disagree. Have you ever seen Novecento?
Gerard Depardieu and Robert DeNiro were childhood friends, from Peasant and Landowning backgrounds respectively, who end up, because of their class positions, as Fascist and Communist village leaders and enemies. But yet they are best friends, as the backward rural life of early 19th century Italy does not provide such opportunities as modern urban life. Once the war against Fascism in Italy is won, I presume because of Stalin's traitorous Popular Front strategy, Olmo (Gerard Depardieu, who is the village's communist peasant leader) follows the PCI's order to disarm the workers and tells the Peasants to follow the orders of the Italian governing transitional committee to hand over their guns to the bourgeois cops. The peasants comply with the Communist leader (Depardieu) who reminded them that, after the land reform etc., "the Patrone is dead, and Alfredo Belingieri is living proof that the Patrone is dead". In the end, after the bourgeois cop cars, loaded with the peasant's guns, drives off, Alfredo Belingieri (DeNiro) tells his best friend "The Patrone is Alive".

Now figure this: would a dedicated Communist leader follow orders to disarm the workers revolution and return state power to the bourgeoisie, if he had a fulfilled social life through a Party movement of workers-only, i.e. had not relied on a bourgeois Fascist for human contact? No.

I'm not saying that we Communists should shun social relations with Fascists, or anyone for that matter. What I'm saying is that workers need an alternative culture in which the community and life for a new society can begin to flourish.

[Omsk]

Right-wing friends? No.

Non-leftists people? Yes. (Non-political is a better category.)

[synthesis]

I have a number of friends who are at least entertained by offensive right-wing ideas, because when you're young you tend to reject your parents' values as a principle and our parents were generally left-liberals to some extent or another. I call this the "South Park mentality." Secretly, you know they might be right about a lot of things, but you don't actually acknowledge this until you get older.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, I'm nearly 30.

Interestingly enough, with the experience I've had with my own issues with how right wing people would treat/perceive people such as myself, I've basically worked from the opposite direction.

I did see the world as starkly black and white. In the end it was only destructive to my own mental health in trying to deal with the world that exists, and with relationships with others. It took time, but I've come to my own realizations about that, and I find the world to be much more nuanced now.

Good for you. My experience has been pretty much the opposite. Which brings me to my point - no one is trying to prescribe how you should live your life, but, in turn, you can't demand that everyone act in the same way as you do.


I disagree. Have you ever seen Novecento?
Gerard Depardieu and Robert DeNiro were childhood friends, from Peasant and Landowning backgrounds respectively, who end up, because of their class positions, as Fascist and Communist village leaders and enemies. But yet they are best friends, as the backward rural life of early 19th century Italy does not provide such opportunities as modern urban life. Once the war against Fascism in Italy is won, I presume because of Stalin's traitorous Popular Front strategy, Olmo (Gerard Depardieu, who is the village's communist peasant leader) follows the PCI's order to disarm the workers and tells the Peasants to follow the orders of the Italian governing transitional committee to hand over their guns to the bourgeois cops. The peasants comply with the Communist leader (Depardieu) who reminded them that, after the land reform etc., "the Patrone is dead, and Alfredo Belingieri is living proof that the Patrone is dead". In the end, after the bourgeois cop cars, loaded with the peasant's guns, drives off, Alfredo Belingieri (DeNiro) tells his best friend "The Patrone is Alive".

Now figure this: would a dedicated Communist leader follow orders to disarm the workers revolution and return state power to the bourgeoisie, if he had a fulfilled social life through a Party movement of workers-only, i.e. had not relied on a bourgeois Fascist for human contact? No.

I'm not saying that we Communists should shun social relations with Fascists, or anyone for that matter. What I'm saying is that workers need an alternative culture in which the community and life for a new society can begin to flourish.

I think that even those whose social circles mainly consist of workers and communists - Butenko, for example, Kropotkin, Plekhanov - can turn renegade. But that really wasn't what I was discussing; I was talking about Dagoth Ur's implied argument that party work never ends. Sure it does, unless you want to drive cadres mad.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

One of my very good friends is a member of UKIP and ran in the council elections for them a few years back :/

[Rusty Shackleford]

No. Im anti-social and stay in my party bubble. mhm. (sarcasm)

[Philosophos]

Almost all of them are right wing. There are some fascists too and I try to avoid talking to them for politics because they are always saying things like: "You need to learn from life... Some things and some are not" and other bullshit like these.

On the other hand I enjoy when I ruin the whole world of my right winged friends with my views and they can't really answer anything :grin:

[TaylorS]

It's hard not to, here in Fargo. It's mainly our colleges that keep the Fargo metro to the left of the surrounding areas, and so many of those college students are middle class "Lifestyle Liberal" twits.

[4MyNation]

Sure I do, why not? We might have different political views but that doesn't mean we can't play video games or hit the bowling alley together.

[X5N]

I have no friends.

[motion denied]

I tend to harshly argue with my leftist friends sooner or later.

Apolitical friends are better.