Events that have made you change your opinions?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

So I'm interested now in what things have influenced people to become the way they are today. Think of it as similar to 'what made you become a leftist', but a tad more broad than that.


One event happened when I was a child. As I grew up in a very strongly multicultural family, the very concept of racism to me was pretty much alien before I became a teenager - however, I did due to this hold the notion that racism was not anymore harmful than casual namecalling for a long time. One time, when I was young, a couple of friends and I were discussing what we were going to do on the weekend. One of them was a migrant from the US, and he was African-American. While we were talking, a rather tubby looking child in the year below us went up with a group of kids to my friend and spat "Go back to Africa, nigger".

Now, though I had heard of racism before, I had never seen this form of hatred before in my life, so it was quite a shock when I heard the kid say this. The idea that someone would hate and despise a person simply for existing - simply because of the colour of their skin - was a completely terrifying and alien concept for me. I imagine it was for the rest of my friends as well, as we proceeded to skip class and travel to every part of the school looking for that racist little shit. When we found the child's classroom, we notified them exactly of what he had said and that we wanted him persecuted for it (which I suppose he was), and after that we threatened the kid that if he abused my friend again, then we'd knock his teeth out. This experience shaped my views on racist abuse tremendously, probably because I'd witnessed it firsthand.

Other things that always annoyed me as a child - and still annoy me today - were referring to entire ethnic groups when talking about the achievements of an individual from that ethnic group (e.g. 'the Russians are good at Physics!' when referring to Nikola Tesla), referring to people with the adjective 'black' (e.g. 'Oh he's a black salesman. The black telemarketer. etc.), anything to do with nationalism in general.

[motion denied]

Last year I traveled abroad. You know, we always hear the old "workers have no countries etc", but to witness it is completely different. People starved there as much as they starve here.

It went like "holy shit, workers really have no country".

Couple of months back, I had the opportunity to meet nationalists, pretty good experience; had to run for my life.

[Sinister Intents]

One that immediately comes to mind is bullying a kid because of my reactionary and irrational beliefs. I targeted his morbid fear of clowns and I kept attacking him with it. I made him cry violently and not come back to school for several days. This is what killed my homophobia and killed several other reactionary beliefs I held.

Another that comes to mind is the local Nazi introducing me to communism because he was horribly confused politically. It led me to research based on the websites he gave me (CPUSA and CommunistLeague.) I figured for myself with these websites that communism is good and not what you've been taught in school. I later in ninth grade did a report on Lenin and the October Revolution and that increased my interests further. I read Lenin on Marxists, but then I slowly drifted towards anarchism.

Another thing that changed my opinions was continually being bullied in school from first to tenth grade, but I still got bullied by "friends" of mine. In the beginning being bullied just justified my reactionary views at the time, but eventually I bullied people myself in reaction to being bullied. Which bullying people quickly shifted my opinions. And by those "friends" I let them control and oppress me and use me like a punching bag because I was convinced they were my friends. I grew heavily to hate these two and I started hitting them back and avoiding them and other people because the people in that town all seem to act relatively the same. I was the school "retard", and apparently the N word as well because of how they would twist my last name, for long enough. I hate this small town.

[Schumpeter]

Studying economics and accepting Utilitarianism.

[#FF0000]

It's not really one event, but growing up broke in a particularly rough city (especially at the time) with my dad telling me stories about the founding fathers and American history really shaped my outlook on things. I remember being maybe six years old or so (seriously young) sitting huddled in a fort made of ratty, dirty couch cushions and wrapped in blankets to keep the cold away, looking at some book with pictures of battles and people from the American Revolution, and asking myself "how can people who are poor be free?"

[Ele'ill]

watching the american dream and nuclear family implode and disintegrate, abuse, addiction, mental health, institutionalization, patriarchal violence, social control, financial ruination, abandonment. It got all interesting half way through my kid life and was like waking up into a nightmare. I remember cs coming into school and guidance and everything and not wanting to leave to go home despite hating school wanting someone else to take me home to their house. I think the worst part was beginning to think about the times that were allegedly 'good', before everything started happening, and realizing or remembering abuses and stuff. It's like you're told your whole life has actually been a terrible thing and you're all fucked up now and it's because it has been and you are. The saving grace never came from government services or societal structures it came from the antagonism of them or those involved in such.

[Yuppie Grinder]

My attitude towards drugs is more conservative than it once was seeing opiates ruin, kill, and send to prison people in my life. Not a fan of the war on drugs, I'm just less of an idiot when it comes to what I'm willing to experiment with.
My friend whose family are Mexican immigrants was asking me about Karl Marx and I started off by telling him about internationalism. He was unimpressed but respected my view. He said the poor of Mexico have nothing in common with the poor of America and thought that I took what I have for granted. Didn't change my mind, but made me wonder.

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Oddly, the one event in my life that turned me towards the left was watching the film "Les Miserables" (the Hugh Jackman version). Although it wasn't single-handedly the one thing that turned me to the left (among other personal factors), it did open my eyes and I eventually connected the dots between what was portrayed and what was the current global reality. Earlier this year, I was a self-declared Democratic Socialist after reading a bit more about the story behind Salvador Allende and thinking about how democracy could be used to achieve socialism. Then, after discovering Revleft as a non-member I became more exposed to the hypocrisy of Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy as demonstrated by the actions of the British Labor Party, the German SPD, the Spanish PSOE, the French Socialist Party, and numerous others in recent years as well as throughout history. I eventually settled on Luxemburgism because it advocates for democratic principles (while avoiding defeatist social democracy) and a purer form of Leninism, specifically the concept of a vanguard party, that avoids authoritarian tendencies.

P.S.: The worst part about social democracy is that the far-right is exploiting their failures in Western Europe to push for their extremely reactionary agenda while portraying "the left" as a stooge of the EU club (amongst other typical far-right conspiracy babble). My previous confrontations on Youtube with the far-right have told me much about this.

[Bala Perdida]

I guess all my life I've suffered between prosperous and low economic conditions. Regardless I've still always had more than I need. What's really had an effect on me, was the treatment of me and others based on physical features and ethnic backgrounds. I've seen racism on a large extent and suffered it on a lesser extent. I've seen family members and others suffer and be deported for lack of papers. I've grown up around friends with family in prison, only to see some of them on the same path. I've seen ethnic minorities turn on each other daily. I've even been infected with racism and nationalism after having it be common place. Then at the age of 12 some Immortal Technique albums introduced me to communism and the hate, which was at it's strongest, started to fade away. Although up until last year I had strong counter-American Mexican nationalist feelings, I soon came to think of myself as an anarchist/communist. Ironically this came after my liberal history teacher tried to defend Obama by explaining to us how Obamacare isn't socialism. This made me think, "wait how's that bad?", and thus my long interest in socialism became a dedication. Now I'm a full on left-anarchist, if that's what you wanna call me, and seek justice and equality at a level far to radical to be elected into this corrupt structure.

[Sabot Cat]

People debating with me on the internet helped change my mind on: religion and the lack thereof, my perspective on my sexuality and gender identity, the meaning of life and the lack thereof and why that lack thereof doesn't matter, an afterlife and the lack thereof, etc.

Well, more specifically it was a crowd of people on a Pokemon forum who mostly hailed from northern Europe and often skewed towards being atheist as well as queer.

So yeah, don't lose hope people arguing on forums, you might change somebody's mind.

[Schumpeter]

People debating with me on the internet helped change my mind on: religion and the lack thereof, my perspective on my sexuality and gender identity, the meaning of life and the lack thereof and why that lack thereof doesn't matter, an afterlife and the lack thereof, etc.

Well, more specifically it was a crowd of people on a Pokemon forum who mostly hailed from northern Europe and often skewed towards being atheist as well as queer.

So yeah, don't lose hope people arguing on forums, you might change somebody's mind.

Are you a communist?

[Sabot Cat]

Are you a communist?

Small-c communist, yes. My political philosophy derives from my Utilitarian ethics.

[Ritzy Cat]

It hasn't really been a single event for me, but a shaping of my viewpoint as a result of a sort of "regime" of things I failed to notice until I looked at everything form a leftist perspective starting in around 9th grade.

I was introduced to communism in 9th grade by my history teacher, from which I had a talk with one of my friends on the internet - who was an Anarcho-Communist turned Marxist-Leninist, where he corrected the horribly wrong interpretation my history had shown me about communism. From there, and with the knowledge I found out about the Red Scare, McCarthy, etc. It sort of bugged me the entire country, or most of them at least, was being infected with these blatantly wrong ideas on what is, a fairly simple political philosophy (at least in its raw definition).

So it gave me distrust in the education system, then after watching politicians debate constantly on the media, and how it has devolved to this permanent argument about "Obamacare", gave me distrust in the state in general, not to mention the countless imperialist acts being done in the Middle East and whatnot...

I sort of made the change from a Libertarian Socialist to a Marxist after something around that.

I don't want a state.

[ola.]

For me, it had to be my joining the military and serving in Iraq in 2006 that changed everything I thought I understood about the world.

I don't like to remember or think about the person I was at that period. Before 9/11, I never thought of myself as a racist person. I never even considered myself patriotic. Living in America was just all I knew. I was definitely not interested in politics and I thought I could just ignore all that stuff because I didn't think it affected me. Come 9/11 however, when every media outlet launched its campaign against Muslims.... well, lets just say I ate all that up. Even then, when I never thought twice about hating Muslims, it never came across to me as racism, because the media had convinced me, and many of the people around me who also talked about hating Muslims, that we were fully justified in our hatred; that we were the victims here.

I signed up for the military later, not solely out of a sense of duty to defend my country from the scary brown people overseas, but yes, I thought it was a good place to start and a good, easy way to make money. Most of our military training relied on the hatred of Muslims and fostering that hate. The term Hajji, for instance, in Arabic, translates to "someone who made Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage)" and it just gradually grew to become a term of respect or endearment in Arab societies. Arabs usually referred to the elderly or teachers as Hajjis because they were respected in their societies, and other non-Muslim Arabs were normally referred to as Hajjis by Arabs out of respect too. Throughout our training, however, we took this positive term and turned it into something subhuman and barbaric.

Can you imagine already having been fed the fear of Muslims into you by the media, to the point of driving you to the military, only to have that feeding continue, except you have a gun in your hands now, and you were literally told that your only mission was to kill?

When I was deployed to Iraq and began my interactions with the Iraqi people though, that's when all the conflicting feelings and confusion came in; that's when I struggled to remember my training. Every time an Iraqi old man offered me tea or water, or anytime an Iraqi woman would say "Salam Alaik" (meaning, "Peace to you") when I passed by, or anytime an Iraqi young boy kicked a football to me and asked if I could play with him, or anytime an Iraqi girl asked me if I had candy or sweets to offer her... I'd look into their faces and in those moments, they weren't the evil brown terrorists, they weren't the boogeymen. I didn't know what to do at those points, because we weren't supposed to be connecting with the population. Many soldiers, myself included, used to just block out all that kindness or whatever and force ourselves not to respond to it and remember our jobs. It was a survival tactic. Emotions are dangerous on a battlefield. But that just meant we had to be even crueler to the Iraqi people.

Of course, I'm not going to go into all the ways we mistreated and abused the Iraqi population. Skipping forward to the time I got back to the states and completed my tour, it was only then that I would reflect back on my actions and service. I'd watch the news or read the newspaper with new eyes now, and I'd wonder why I never noticed the racism that was always present in this country - I don't just mean about the way Middle Easterners are spoken of, but the racist discussions about black or Latino people which has existed even longer. It annoys the shit out of me when people say things like "stop watching FOX and other right-wing channels you racist", as if liberals on the so-called left are any different. If anything, the liberal influence is far more detrimental in the long run with its more "subtle" racism/discrimination. I mean, not many people are going to question Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert when they make transphobic jokes, are they? But we concern ourselves with the likes of Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter as if they are taken all that seriously and have the masses agreeing with them and rallying behind them.

I did start to do my research, and I started learning about our country's policies and our actions across the world. You'd think that learning all the lies and crimes our country had committed across the globe would enrage me, and well, yes, it did. I did feel like I was lied to on every level, lies which convinced me to fight an unnecessary war and destroy innocent lives that didn't need to be destroyed. I felt betrayed, yes, and any trust I had for the media and for our politicians died. But mostly, I felt hopeless. I know there are veterans who take up anti-war activism and I respect that, but there are many more veterans like myself who just give up and can't fight anymore. I really did just plan on growing old and cynical while our government continued to destroy and impoverish third world countries.

I developed severe PTSD, which I still struggle with today, and for a long time made me alienate me all my family and friends. I got into a lot of trouble with police and authorities. I needed medical help which I had little to no access to. I dreamt of the Iraqis I knew almost every night. I was a mess.

Later on, I met a Kuwaiti Muslim woman who turned my life around and slowly brought me back from the dead. Although she was a therapist, I still didn't know how to talk to her about my experiences in Iraq along with my past prejudices towards people of her religion, but she encouraged me to do so anyway and insisted that I would get no judgment. I have never told anyone about those things, but I did trust her and received only understanding and sympathy. She stuck by me whenever my PTSD acted out when many people understandably didn't and although I still require treatment, it helps knowing I have her support and I've felt more hopeful about it all and I've been improving. She encourages me to drop the cynicism, indulge in my passion for politics all over again, to reconnect with my family and friends (and I have thanks to her). We grew closer and she came to be my best friend and my rock, and we're married today. (Yes, to anyone wondering, Arab Muslim women don't traditionally marry white atheist Americans, and no, her family has not cut us off nor do they hate me. Her father was opposed to the marriage because I served in Iraq as an American soldier more than because I am non-Muslim. But he's very, very begrudgingly accepted it and treats me like family).

So, thats my really long ass story.

[Sinister Intents]

Another thing that has changed my perception and opinion is this forum itself. RevLeft has done so much to help assist my knowledge of the world, et cetera.

[Skyhilist]

This is hard for me to talk about usually but... when I was 12 years old, my cat, who was my best friend, died in my arms of a stroke. It was only 3 days until his 9th birthday. That was the worst night of my life. But it made me realize how much I love and care for animals and made it a certainty that I would dedicate my life to helping them.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Old post, still relevant though I guess:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2299599&postcount=28

[Os Cangaceiros]

words

My grandfather was a veteran, of WW2. He didn't talk about it that much at all, but one anecdote he did share was one time he had the opportunity to kill someone, a German who was running away from the area of combat, but he had a moment of hesitation right before he was going to pull the trigger, because he thought that guy probably wasn't much different from himself ultimately, with a family and hopes and dreams and all that stuff. He decided not to shoot and let that guy get away.

At that time I found the story strange, maybe even some kind of weakness on his part or something, but looking back on it from my current political mindset it takes on a new kind of significance.

[cyu]

* Gay people are wrong.

I used to consider gay people to be "doing it wrong" and simply for "being wrong" I thought they were "less worthy" as human beings. (Nevermind that spending your time not reproducing is little different from spending your time playing video games.) What turned me around was watching http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_%28film%29 ...I think the only reason I went may have been because it was a school activity. Needless to say, the movie hit home and I came out of there with a new perspective.

* People should not have guns.

I used to defend the American Democratic platform from attackers like a loyal follower. Part of that was defending their position on gun control. I'm almost ashamed to say that it was many rounds of debate with pro-capitalist "libertarians" that convinced me to change my position... that and the fact that I kept reading about people in Latin America being gunned down by pro-capitalist "security" forces. I changed more towards a position of self-defence, and using guns for protection, even if you're doing civil disobedience.

* We need to destroy religion.

Kind of like my old position on gay people - I considered all religious people to be wrong, and therefore, religion was useless to the world and needed to be destroyed. Then while I happened to come across what some Catholics were doing in Latin America (in terms of land occupations) and asked myself how come they've been able to do so much for the poor, and what did us leftists have to show for it. After I started to learn more about liberation theology and the religious people who have actually died for the poor (as compared to those that break a few windows during protests), I changed my mind about the role that religious people can play in anti-capitalist revolution, even if I'm not actually pushing for a religion-based revolution.

* Worry about the future.

I probably used to worry about the future a lot more than I do now. What changed it was being given a copy of War and Peace by my brother. The last chapter was questioning the concept of free will. It was something I never considered before and confused me at first. But it got me thinking. Eventually I discovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism - I'm not sure I'm completely bought in yet, but it's not something I can easily reject either... and if true, then worrying about the future isn't really useful anymore.

[There may be more stuff that I can't remember that I'll add later.]

[Flying Purple People Eater]

* Gay people are wrong.

I used to consider gay people to be "doing it wrong" and simply for "being wrong" I thought they were "less worthy" as human beings. (Nevermind that spending your time not reproducing is little different from spending your time playing video games.) What turned me around was watching http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_%28film%29 ...I think the only reason I went may have been because it was a school activity. Needless to say, the movie hit home and I came out of there with a new perspective.

Ironically, sex for pleasure alone has been a defining characteristic of some of the earth's most advanced animals - e.g. Bonobos, Dolphins and us. Contraception has been used in human society for thousands of years, so it's not like nonreproductive sex has been a relatively recent phenomenon.

[Comrade #138672]

Well, I have always leaned towards leftism, coming from a working-class background. I never thought things were "fair", but I never knew that inequality was so heavily embedded in society.

This awareness arose only recently, in response to the neoliberal austerity measures targeting mainly people like me. It made me think, talk and read about it a lot. The more I did that, the more I moved towards the left, becoming further and further radicalized and ever more determined.

So I'd say it was the crisis and the resulting austerity measures directed against the working-class, which included me, that woke me up. Also, the rise of the far-right contributed to a sense of urgency, with the mass murderer Breivik as the ultimate warning that something had to be done.

[tdoggydogg]

my personal transition to the left started when I was sent away to a juvenile prison.
At the age of 17 I was very self destructive and very reactionary. I was raised poor so I broke the law in order to make money. I was really into drugs, and ran with a gang that was extremely prejudiced against African-Americans. Untill one day I got charged with robbery and sent away for a year at a Juvenile Prison (ODYS). In prison I continued to act reactionary and racist, untill they bunked me up with a black roomate. At first we didn't get along, but in a fairly short amount of time we became best friends. I realized that race is only a color, and that no man is better then another, especially in terms of color. I then found a book on Communism in the library. it was very old and biased, but it still interested me. So I read as much I as I could obtain untill I was released. I got out and studied further into the subject by reading Marx and Bakunin. Most of my old cronies hate me now that I'm diffrent and don't associate with their stupidity, but I feel that I have made a great decision, and that transitioning to the Left has truley saved my life. :hammersickle: :grin:

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

Well as a bit of a structuralist i would first like to point out that you usually don't make important ideological decisions based on one event, it's a gradual process consisting of many seemingly unrelated events and the way society has influenced you (quantitative changes, to mix in a little marxism).

However, there are some things that have had a profound influence on me and have changed my views on things (qualitative changes:grin:)

(yeah, yeah, I know the qualitative/quantitative thing is really dialectical materialism and it's weird to apply it to a person but it seemed like a fun thing to do :rolleyes:)

Some things that have changed my views:

- Reading about Guevara and workers' struggles in South-America in general, in the long run this is probably what eventually made me identify as a communist instead of a social democrat.

- Reading about liberation theology.

- Studying economics and realizing the capitalist economy is just one big vicious circle.

- Joining the CWI.

[Devrim]

A massive wave of wildcat strikes in the Post Office (where I worked at the time) in the late 1980s changed my views on the trade unions completly moving me towards left communist positions.

Devrim

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

my personal transition to the left started when I was sent away to a juvenile prison.
At the age of 17 I was very self destructive and very reactionary. I was raised poor so I broke the law in order to make money. I was really into drugs, and ran with a gang that was extremely prejudiced against African-Americans. Untill one day I got charged with robbery and sent away for a year at a Juvenile Prison (ODYS). In prison I continued to act reactionary and racist, untill they bunked me up with a black roomate. At first we didn't get along, but in a fairly short amount of time we became best friends. I realized that race is only a color, and that no man is better then another, especially in terms of color. I then found a book on Communism in the library. it was very old and biased, but it still interested me. So I read as much I as I could obtain untill I was released. I got out and studied further into the subject by reading Marx and Bakunin. Most of my old cronies hate me now that I'm diffrent and don't associate with their stupidity, but I feel that I have made a great decision, and that transitioning to the Left has truley saved my life. :hammersickle: :grin:
Nice story. It has some similarities with American History X.


Me personally, have always been a Communist, which is normal considering all my family is Communist too. But they still didn't actively convinced me to be one.

[Art Vandelay]

I had two teachers in high school who really helped shape my intellectual development.

There was one teacher, who used to have pictures of Castro at the back of his classroom. I remember asking him why and he said because he respected him. I responded with some piece of rhetoric I would of heard my step dad say about the efficiency of markets and some general anti-communist phrase and the teacher patiently told me that if I wanted to discuss communism with him, we could, but first I had to do some reading about it, so that I could properly understand what we were discussing. I was livid. Who was this nerdy computer teacher, with picture of a communist in his class, who was telling me I didn't know enough about the topic to discuss it. I discussed things with my step dad all the time, he was always reading and certainly smarter than this guy. I went home and dedicated myself to reading the entire wikipedia page for Marxism, I wanted to show up that teacher. Turns out, after reading it, I found that alot of it seemed similar to things I had always felt and I realized my step dads remarks about human nature being inherently greedy was bullshit. I certainly wasn't and if I had to share so others could have the things they needed, I wanted to, it seemed so logical, so basic, like common sense. I went back and had some really interesting conversations with that teacher (while he never said it explicitly, the guy was a commie) and it helped set me down the path of being extremely interested in Marxism. I would of been about 14 at the time.

About a year later, when I was 15 or so, I had a high school teacher give me my first copy of the manifesto. That was a big changing day for me, since I had always been fairly left wing and interested in this Marx guy but it was all so inaccessible. She let me do some write ups on it and I read it about 4 times through, before I felt like I was beginning to understand what he was talking about. That teacher wasn't a Marxist, but she helped me become one.

Another big political event for me, was the anti-nato summits in Chicago, which is the even that solidified my break with anarchism. I remember being so pissed off at how little we accomplished, that as a group (all those engaging in black bloc, or the more militant sections of the demonstration) all we could do was break some windows within a few blocks of the summit? It left me pondering alot of the political convictions I had at the time (anti-organizational fetish) and the drive back home was a long one, in which I mentally worked through some of the political ideas I held and realized I was returning to Marxism.

This isn't a political event, but I think my grandmothers death had a larger impact on me than I ever realized. She predominantly raised me when I was young, since my mom was still in high school and she was an awesome lady who spent her entire life dedicated to the cause of improving the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities. I think it instilled a ethic within me from a young age that you should treat people with respect. She was my role model and I think her memory played a large role in my decision to work as a support worker.

[Slavic]

My politics were almost wholly organized around social freedom issues, I was extremely ignorant to economics and their relationship to ourselves and those social issues I was so passionate. It wasn't until I discovered the exploitive and oppressive nature of capitalism in my second year of college that I wanted to stretch myself intellectually and learn more about Socialism.

Are you me?

Seriously though I went through the same situation. During high school and early college I assumed Libertarian principles because they aligned with my social freedom beliefs and since I only had a basic understanding of economics.

When I finally decided to actually conduct research into economic theories is when I discarded the libertarian approach for the socialist. Came to realize that the social freedoms proposed by libertarians are unattainable within a libertarian economy.

My family was always fairly liberal union-minded. They were working class union members. Every year my father would get laid off for months and we would lose health insurance, luckily I never had any major illnesses.

[Sinister Intents]

Moving out to rural New York certainly has had an affect on me. At first it helped me to open up to the world I think, it allowed me to walk into the forest alone at times and see wildlife and see real nature in stead of what you see in a city area. Then the feeling of isolation set in, truly I'm isolated, and this has had a big affect on me.

[Comrade Jacob]

Stumbling across a YouTube video on surplus value. Exactly 1 year ago today. I know...

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I've always been leftward in my views. Even as far back as eighth grade I was militantly anti-racist (which could be somewhat hazardous in Macon, Georgia). Becoming a socialist (and then reverting to a Libertarian for a while before going back. Long story.) was mostly a combination of curiositiy, youthful rebelliousness and reading Marx seriously.

That's the thing about Marxism: Once you really understand it, there IS no going back. For the rest of your natural life everything you see and hear will be filtered through Marx. The man managed to pull back the curtain and expose the engine that ran the world. That is why Marxism will never die....because despite of the bits and pieces you may disagree with Marx on, this sole truth remains: MARX WAS RIGHT.

[OfHammersAndSickles]

I was always right of center as most of my family is.

Getting high for the first time, helped oddly. It did not change me, but It helped me change my self.

This is as broad as I can get;)

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

I've always been leftward in my views. Even as far back as eighth grade I was militantly anti-racist (which could be somewhat hazardous in Macon, Georgia). Becoming a socialist (and then reverting to a Libertarian for a while before going back. Long story.) was mostly a combination of curiositiy, youthful rebelliousness and reading Marx seriously.

That's the thing about Marxism: Once you really understand it, there IS no going back. For the rest of your natural life everything you see and hear will be filtered through Marx. The man managed to pull back the curtain and expose the engine that ran the world. That is why Marxism will never die....because despite of the bits and pieces you may disagree with Marx on, this sole truth remains: MARX WAS RIGHT.
How do you explain ex-Marxists then?

[Philosophos]

My reasons that I turned to the left is because I can't stand capitalism anymore. The inequality, discrimination, hatred that it produces made me think that I might actually be 'crazy' and that there is sth very wrong with me. I also started questioning things in depth and stopped avoiding my own thoughts with conservative/right-winged etcbullshit arguments that make no sense at all.

After some reading I understood that communism is not just a fairytail and the only thing stopping it from taking place is just us...

[Art Vandelay]

How do you explain ex-Marxists then?

Lack of a understanding of the Marxist methodology and a tenuous (at best) grasp on materialism. I question if alot of them were ever Marxists to begin with, regardless of what they thought on a subjective level. There is a Trotsky quote in 'Their Morals and Ours,' which seems pertinent (although I'm not at home so I can't source it), where he discuses philosophical idealism being a temporary stop on the road from religion to materialism, or from materialism to religion.

[cyu]

I question if alot of them were ever Marxists to begin with


Reminds me of a radio interview I heard once about somebody who kept switching back and forth between a neonazi and an antifa group. Seems at least for some people, it's not so much the logic of any ideology that appeals to them, but rather an emotional feeling of belonging - and they'd just join whatever group where they feel more accepted. So yes, not everybody who hangs out with communists is communist - just as some people only go to church because otherwise they'd be lonely...

[motion denied]

One I remembered.

After a bit of talk and activities together, I decided to join a so-called leninist organisation. As the time passed, I became amazed at how there was no debate inside the org whatsoever (everything was decided from the top-down, for example); in fact, members were afraid of questioning the almighty CC. That's when Luxemburg's Leninism or Marxism? was handed to me. I was shocked, she did hit the nail on the head regarding this org.

It didn't make me a socialist, but was quite important for my political development.

EDIT:Well, apparently, this is not that OI thread.

[blake 3:17]

The coup against Morsi.

[Comrade Thomas]

Before developing my political views at around the age of 14/15 I was quiet racist etc. however, ideologically I developed when reading Plato's The Republic; just seeing how the whole concept of a state should b devoted to being moral etc really changed me. It also increased my consciousness of the world, nationally and internationally as prior to this I had a very sheltered life being middle class, stable family relations etc.

[Art Vandelay]

Reminds me of a radio interview I heard once about somebody who kept switching back and forth between a neonazi and an antifa group. Seems at least for some people, it's not so much the logic of any ideology that appeals to them, but rather an emotional feeling of belonging - and they'd just join whatever group where they feel more accepted. So yes, not everybody who hangs out with communists is communist - just as some people only go to church because otherwise they'd be lonely...

Sounds like that former poster Nox. Went from a Hoxhaist to an anarchist overnight, then an anarchist to a fash. Weird stuff.

[Ismail]

Sounds like that former poster Nox. Went from a Hoxhaist to an anarchist overnight, then an anarchist to a fash. Weird stuff.When I talked to him in his pro-Hoxha stage he knew nothing of anything, ditto when he was an anarchist. IIRC his girlfriend was a fascist, so he followed her ideology.

From what I understand he's really young too, so that plays a big part in it.

As for me, there was no "event," I just read Marx and figured "yeah this sounds correct."

[edwad]

I was a pretty big Obama fan for awhile and I didn't have any reason to dislike him until I was messing around on youtube looking at Ron Paul videos for laughs and I don't remember if it was the video or something in the comments, but somehow I learned about Obama's drone usage and I started looking into it and I started drifting away from Obama until eventually (with some help from socialists and commies on the web) I started calling myself a socialist and really started hating Obama. So yeah. I guess I can thank Ron Paul for making me the communist that I am today. :grin:

[keine_zukunft]

As for why im a communist? i guess just my experience of life and looking at how the economy works. seeing all the nazi bullshit and the infastructure that's leftover from that period is why im antifascist. Experience and thinking that life could be much better lead to where i am now.

[RedPanda55]

I remember watching some videos on these Nike sweatshops (can't remember what country though). Pissed me off to no end seeing people suffer like that so the suburban preppy kids can get what they want. I also remember seeing something about Apple putting up nets at their factories to prevent people from jumping off the buildings and killing themselves. And I gradually began to realize that capitalism is the ultimate abuser and exploiter of the people. But no one seems to give a damn, as long as they get the next iPhone or a new pair of Nikes, they're happy with what's going on. I guess I care more than others my age (though I do know there are like-minded teens and whatnot, I just haven't met any personally.), and it drives me to push for change and ensure the betterment of those who are being oppressed by power-hungry slave-masters. Of course, there's still learning that I need to do, but that's why I'm here and all. I'm just growing sick of the way the world is today and how ignorant people are. It pisses me off seeing them buy a pair of shoes that someone died for or join the military despite unlawful killings overseas. That's why I am the way I am.

[bropasaran]

When I got in high-school I was just a metalhead, not really interested in stuff about politics or philosophy. My parents weren't really interested in stuff like that, and I wasn't exposed to any of that growing up. Some friends I hung out with started to go right-wing, and in a short time, I accepted those nationalistic views, it was basically just the feeling of belonging and the simplistic propaganda on how our (Croat) nation is good, and the Serb and Bosniak nations, with which we had conflicts are bad. I went deeper in that story, and soon I was a fascist, I became a skinhead and a soccer hooligan, wasn't really ever a rasist, but I basically accepted is as something okay, and the extreme right-wing-hood just expanded the feeling of belonging, it wasn't just nation now, it was also a feeling of belonging to a race and a church, and also gave me a bigger enemy- the Jews and Freemasons, who were ruling the world, and we're were like on a on crusade to free the world of it's evil masters who are devil's servants, we felt real important. Yeah, the crusade and the devil- in my country right-wing ideas are connected with religiosity, so we were all about Church, there wasn't any talk or practice of any moral norms, but beloning to and praising the Church was a big deal, the heretics and the cults were also the enemies, along with pot and heroin users (us using alcohol like crazy, and also speed and coke somehow wasn't an issue), that religion stuff has to do with us having a clerical fascist regime during ww2, and of course, we were super proud of it, we were glorifing genocide, etc.

So, during the high-school I was increasingly sexually active, both autosexually and with girls and women, near the end of it I was super active, in both those ways, also doing various not so common stuff with various girls, I was into various fetishes. At one point, I started to have non-straight sexual desires. That was very unsettling, being that non-streight people were "the enemy" just like the Serbs, Jews, junkies and the rest I mentioned. I started autosexually practicing those desires and planing to consumate them, which was plain crazy, I was literally like two different persons, I would watch shemale porn and have phone or internet contact with bi and gay guys to see to try gay sex, while at the same being basically a nazi, hanging out with people talking about finding gays and beating them up. That pretty much messed me up, I got pretty depressed at times, I started to go really heavy on drinking, started doing some new drugs, parents sent me to shrinks who I didn't want to talk to, I was pretty shitty. I also got suicidal, not to go into details, after an attempted suicide, pretty much right after comming out of the hospital, parents sent me to a monastery to hang out for some time, thinking that would help me, even though they themselves weren't at all religious. That was basically right after finishing high school.

There I was firstly bored and annoyed, I didn't much like the monks, but I started reading a lot about religion, not just catholicism, but all kinds of religions and denominations. I was still a mental wreck, but reading all the time got my mind of the topics of my sexuality and political views, I was in my world of theological ideas. After a year, I went really catholic, I got thinking that my life was a wreck because I gave in to the devil, I got into seminary, rejected sexuality and political views, started living like a monk, preparing to get ordained, be a Dominican friar.

Second year in the seminary, I started to get discontent with various practices in the Church, laxity in theology, church practices and way of living, I got involved with the traditional movement inside the Church, who were all about asceticism, piety and orthodoxy. In the third year of studying, I started doubting the catholicity of the Vatican, after some time of reading, I decided to leave the Vatican church and join the sedevacantists, which are a small, ultra-conservative, movement that teaches that Vatican rejected Catholicism in the Second Vatican Council, and that they were now heretics. I actually travelled to visit a monastery of theirs, and loved the rigour of asceticism and following of monastic rules, and dedication not just of monks, but also the lay people.

In that few months of process of leaving the Vatical church to go sedevacantist, I started to wonder about the question that I'm going to join a small group and believe that my parents are going to burn in hell because they're outside of the Church because I'm doubting the validity of catholicism in the Rome, but I have I really doubted the validity of catholicism in the first place. I have read about various denomination and religions, but what if no religion was correct, what if God didn't give any revelations, or what if he doesn't exist. Basically, my world built around my religious devotion fell appart, I started remembering what my (mental) life was five years before that, started again having suicidal thoughts, started for a short time to again take drugs, but after a couple of weeks saying, fuck that, I must do something else.

I remembered that last time reading was the escape, so I started reading again, some religious stuff, which I didn't really read last time, like about Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese philosophies, started reading philosophical works both ancient Greek and Roman and modern European philosophy, that got me to politic theory, so I started reading about that and I'm basically still in that reading continuity. In the last three years, three and a half, I've read and been reading and exploring pretty much the entire corpus of important modern political thought, and have been an anarchist without adjectives with influence of De Leonism for about a year now.

I'm no longer a Christian, I identify as SBNR, I'm something like a philosophical Hindu, and I'm still living like a monk- I'm celibate, I practice asceticism in pretty much everything corporeal, I meditate regularly, using Theravada Buddhism meditation.

So, that's about it, in short, concerning the instances of me changing my mind :rolleyes:

[Naroc]

I guess my Story isn't as interesting as some of the ones i read before, but i'll start anyway:
I became interested in Politics about 4 or 5 Years ago, where i had to repeat a class in school. I met new people and their opinions about Politics. I have to say, before i repeated the 8th grade, i wasn't that popular in school, and didn't have so many friends. That's why i was easy to influence me. At first i haven't been dedicated to a certain political spectrum. But as time moved on i went through different Phases, like being a Punk which led me to being an Anarchist (the stereotypical rebellious teenager :grin:). Later i became interested in a more "right-winged"-direction. As i said before, i was easily influenced, so i believed that mass immigration and stuff like that was the main problem of my country (damn you, fascist propaganda). After i realised that Immigrants aren't the cause of our and the worlds problems i started to became a liberal and read more about the topic. But there was one thing that bothered me the whole time during that time. It was the realisation that Liberalism is absolutely pointless, due to the fact that it supports the capitalist system. After thinking 'bout that for a while and researching for alternatives to that system, communism crossed my way. Of course, at first i was heavily prejudiced by anti-communist propaganda. But as i kept discussing with some communist/socialist friends of mine, researching on my own and reading the communist Manifesto, i became very interested in the whole idea of a classless society, abolition of private property, etc. Long story short, i guess that's why i ended up here.

[Marshal of the People]

Other things that always annoyed me as a child - and still annoy me today - were referring to entire ethnic groups when talking about the achievements of an individual from that ethnic group e.g. 'the Russians are good at Physics!' when referring to Nikola Tesla.Nikola Tesla was Serbian
Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July (O.S. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates) 28 June) 1856 to Serbian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs) parents in the village of Smiljan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiljan), Austrian Empire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Empire) (modern-day Croatia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia)). His father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox priest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Orthodox_Church).[15] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#cite_note-Bio-15) Tesla's mother, Đuka Tesla (née Mandić), whose father was also a Serbian Orthodox priesthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Early_years_.281856.E2.80.931885.29

[Marshal of the People]

The coup against Morsi.Mohammed Morsi?

[adipocere]

Oh I remember when I first learned about the US-Pinochet coup of Allende I was fucking scandalized. I mean I thought someone had shit in my hat. 'Murica!!? A democratically elected government?!!!! My mind was blown. It literally made my world tilt. If I had been holding an American flag, I would have opened my hand and watched it flutter to the ground in slow motion. :lol:
That was about 1998 when I had just gotten out of high school - after that I discovered an apparently bottomless capacity for moral outrage - it's like a fire that I dutifully stoke every day. Fortunately, my dad is basically the same way - my parents were social democrats when I was a kid, but he's gone full-on Bolsh this last decade - so we frequently hang out and talk politics and current events with twin expressions of indignation and disgust.

[Thirsty Crow]

To a much lesser extent, the first social democratic government here with its failures, which has through the exclusive lens of my parents' views on the failures produced a kind of an impression (I was 13 at the time of that election). Though, my initial political tendencies remained social democratic up until some other events.

Another were the Afghanistan/Iraq wars.

And finally, the student occupation of unis here. That was decisive in every meaning of the word.

[radiocaroline]

I have to say a massive influence on me was reading and watching the play "An Inspector Calls" by J.B. Priestley in secondary school (high school).

At the time it was the most advanced and beautiful literary work that I had ever read. Its narrative so complex yet so fascinatingly powerful, it captivated me at a time when my political mind was still developing and maturing.

The powerful monologues from the Inspector had completely changed my way of thinking on social inequality and the moral and economic interests of the upper classes.

The speech of "thousands of John Smith's dying all over the country" was so unbelievably powerful, particularly when I got the chance to see it at a local theatre as part of a school trip.

Its influence has no doubt changed the way I think politically and I believe that any developing leftist should read the play as a document of historical insight in the conditions of both the working and upper classes of the early 1900s.
It also condemns the corruption and hypocrisy of the social class system of the time and the power of the corrupt aristocracy in England.

[Redcanadian123]

I grew up in an environment surrounded by drugs, poverty ,and abuse, I wanted to make sure that no child would ever go through what I did.

[GerrardWinstanley]

Despite their tendency to make massive compromises and the conservative framework they work in, I used to be very supportive of the UK trade unions and wanted to be a part of them.

But after the University of London cleaning workers' sick pay dispute (where services sector union Unison disgracefully called the police on workers demonstrating outside their offices) and revelations from Boycott Workfare that Unite had been accepting forced unpaid labourers referred from the government's Work Programme, I feel they are less than useless now and I think the Left's energies would be far better spent denouncing these outrages than focusing on the significance of the even more awful Labour Party's estrangement from the unions or the Falkirk non-story.

[exeexe]

I had studied global warming for a long time and debated it on forums etc, so i knew most of all the physical science behind it.
Then there were the COP15 in Copenhagen, where all the political leaders from the world met and agreed to not agree on anything. Meanwhile there was the biggest demonstration ever in Denmark or something like that. People came from all over the world. And then in the rear of this demonstration there was a group of people dressed in black. They were the black block.
Then suddenly out of nowhere the police came from the flanks and surrounded them so they couldnt escape. And they all had to sit down on the cold ground because it was winter. And the police just let them sit there for many hours and when people had to pee they just had to pee where they were. Then finally many hours later the black block people were transfered to some cells the police had hurried up and set up on the go.

And i saw all this on TV (i was not in Copenhagen at that time), and i knew how stupid the politicians had been and i knew how stupid the police had acted. Well maybe someone threw a rock or something, never saw it, but thats what they said, but who gives a fuck when there is so much at stake. Thats when i lost all faith in our current political system.
xIjRHCy3FN8
And i also remembered that the rest of the demonstration didnt do anything about it. They didnt care at all if the anarchist and who else were there got taken away by the police

[Chris]

More a series of rather fucked up events in the past... five or so years, that's made me increasingly cynical.

Of more specific things... Well, I used to be a bit of a homophobe, until a friend of mine 'came out' six or so years ago, and got death-threats for it. Made me rethink it quite a bit. Getting the shit kicked out of me by an immigrant way back, when I had fascist-tendencies, hilariously enough turned me into an anti-racist.

Participating in the environmentalist movement (including being made leader of the local cell of a nation-wide environmentalist group) gradually turned me into less of an environmentalist, and I've acquired a dislike for most of the pet issues of the environmentalist movement (opposition to nuclear power, vegetarianism, opposition to hunting, wide-eyed idealism in general).

[Rosa Partizan]

a lot of the way I am has to do with me being an immigrant in Germany. I came to Germany when I was 5 and I adapted extremely quickly. After one year in Germany, I spoke and wrote better German than the German kids. I was a very serious kid and had to take more responsibility than many other children of my age. Like, translating for my parents at administrations, helping them find jobs and so on. Twice, we sued against deportation and were successful, while knowing other folks that wasn't. I just didn't think about it, or a lot later. In my early 20ies, I started devoloping a political conscience and I was like, why the fuck were those other people sent back to their countries, with their children going to school here, themselves working and stuff? How is this fair? I myself felt never discriminated against, being well educated, speaking German without any accent and having light skin.

But there was this question about identity, about home, being confronted with stupid dickheads who were like "you don't consider Germany your home?! You're so ungrateful!" Some of that was some real right-wing rhetoric. Still, after having lived here for 22 years, I don't consider Germany home. But somehow, Bosnia neither. I tend to romanticize this country, being there for only 2 weeks a year, with my German money and no obligations there. Another aspect of mine that developed out of this serious childhood is that I'm now catching up with everything I missed back then. Being much more joyful, laughing much more, having friends etc (in my school transcript for primary school 4th grade there stood something like "I'm glad that xy has now found a friend and doesn't stand alone on the schoolyard anymore". Remembering this make me somehow sad).

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

Another aspect of mine that developed out of this serious childhood is that I'm now catching up with everything I missed back then. Being much more joyful, laughing much more, having friends etc (in my school transcript for primary school 4th grade there stood something like "I'm glad that xy has now found a friend and doesn't stand alone on the schoolyard anymore". Remembering this make me somehow sad).

I was a loner a lot too. And people thought I was psycho, violent and a freak. I would have been a loner with you although I was already super political by then (I had read The Communist Manifesto in fifth grade when my dad gave me a copy and my mom read some Orwell as bedtime reading) so you'd have heard about politics a lot.

[Max]

Last year, I traveled to Peru. While i was there, I saw first hand the massive amounts of poverty surrounding me, and ever since then I now pay attention to the poverty surrounding me. This, along with reading Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky, drove me towards communism.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Sandy Hook. The fact that it was little kids made realize that everything I knew about gun ownership is not only wrong, but an outright lie. I already had left the NRA before because of their association with the lunatic right. Now I hate them. And the 2nd Am. doesn't mean what most people think it means anyway.

Let's see, Obama selling us out on national health care. People who voted for him thought they were voting for a Canadian-style socialized insurance system. What we got just reinforces the corporate status quo. Better than nothing, but not by much.

The fact that NO ONE in power cares at all about global warming, the most significant threat to humanity since neolithic times.

Frankly, just learning how life is for Palestinian Arabs has given me a very negative view of the State of Israel.

Trash continent, Pacific Ocean.

Just the whole neoliberal, fascist-wannabes. Back in the 1980s I saw companies exporting union and other well-paying jobs to easily exploitable labor overseas. I saw the increased mechanization of companies. I saw the squeeze on the public sector, plus runaway military spending, and just knew that the logical consequence of that was an impoverished society with no real democracy and a super-rich elite running everything. And the liberals actively collaborated at every step. Right now I am feeling a special anger for Arnie Duncan.

[Црвена]

I've never really been in contact with poverty. Technically my family are still proletariats, in relation to the means of production, but I've always been in the exact middle of the class hierarchy. If all wealth were to be redistributed, our wealth probably wouldn't change, since we're so average. As I live in an area where the right-wing run the council and we are consistently fed with propaganda and told how great our material possessions are, I needed reading to bring me to full consciousness. Thankfully I read Brave New World, which made me hate capitalism, then read some more socialist writing and political fiction to learn about politics and find an alternative to capitalism that I believed in.

[Chomskyan]

What the US/NATO is doing in the Middle East, supporting jihadists in Syria, but fighting against them in Afghanistan.

All their speeches about "freedom" and "human rights" and "democracy" are lies. They just want to profit off of the carcasses of dead babies by enforcing their economic imperialist puppet regimes.

This is my first post. I am not a radical Leftist, but I like Anarchism as opposed to the Fascist system now in power.