free software resistance

 the cost of computing freedom is eternal vigilance

### informed-vs-uninformed-socialism *originally posted:* feb 2025 a few of the projects i worked on years ago were with someone who was associated with the international marxist tendency, or imt. they have since rebranded as rci, which i will call reactionary communists international. imt were trots, and im not- but i did like imt at the time. rci is complete trash, they can absolutely get fucked. but lets talk about me for a minute, i dont believe in capitalism. like so many leftists, i believe that capitalism is a system inherently based on theft and exploitation. i may not like every individual or group who calls themselves marxist, but i dont have a problem with marx. i could be wrong, but i think lenin was a decent feminist, for his time. he was concerned, as am i, with the balance of increasingly left wing causes and the overarching problem of capitalism. i say "overarching", because its generally framed that way, and i mostly agree with that framing. and i say "mostly", because even if capitalism is the main problem (and i think it is) that framing doesnt always lead to the best solution. i think it usually does! but it depends on what youre trying to solve. lenin had a phrase, namely "left wing communist". i think most people would say "left wing communist" is redundant, and "right wing communist" is an oxymoron. what lenin really meant was left and right of himself and his own politics. i suppose that i may also mean it that way. tankies for example, are authoritarian and thus right wing communists. and lenin was concerned about communism becoming too left wing and missing the point of abolishing capitalism. its not that i think it isnt possible to stray so far from the overarching goal as to lose the plot. i think that fear is not entirely unfounded. but for left wing politics to cause minor revolutions on a regular basis, to lead to better lives for workers in tangible ways and then when reactionary pushback comes, the self-proclaimed "socialist" joins the reactionaries on hating the workers for not being laser-focused enough on ending capitalism because theyre too caught up in BASIC RIGHTS, and the rci calls that "broken", the rci can fucking burn. seriously nick, get fucked you worthless piece of shit. i may be too left wing to make lenin happy, i dont know- but i do know that lenin was concerned about making things better for women. its true that he saw abolishing capitalism as vital to that- so do i. capitalism and its centrists will always co-opt progress and turn revolution into reform wherever possible. we should at least be on guard against that sort of thing. what rci is doing is celebrating incredible setbacks for workers, because it sees them as a boon to their own increasingly reactionary politics. what theyre doing amounts to shifting to the right and trying to court fascists with their rhetoric. its as stupid when communists or socialists do that as when the democrats or labour do it- its not unreasonable to ask "which side are they on?" because i dont think they necessarily know, or care anymore. just to be clear, womens rights are workers rights. trans rights are workers rights. minority rights are workers rights. and martin luther king knew this. he was anti-war, pro-socialism, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist. while its possible to focus so much on other politics that you lose the anti-capitalism, a concern lenin and i would share, whats reactionary is to say that "other politics" are the antithesis of anti-capitalism and communism, and to celebrate the defeat of those other important causes. rci has completely lost the fucking plot, and doesnt care about workers at all. its line is purely sociopathic, and like the far right insists that whats its spewing is "just science". from the imt, when it was the imt- maybe some of this line was tolerable though the imt keeps losing support from its own people. for all the science it claims to have, it keeps getting things wrong and finding itself on the wrong side of history. its not "workers rights" if it only considers the rights that white men need. it has to be possible for black people to fight for rights for black people- if the rci wants to ignore the benefits to anti-capitalism gained because of the civil rights movement, they can be the anti-capitalist equivalent of white feminism- and fuck them again. white feminism, white anti-capitalism, these are inherently reactionary things. while lenin and i may not agree on where the left should be exactly, lenin knew the importance of feminism. if he were around today, he would probably know the importance of other civil rights causes. but, he might still dismiss some of it as "left wing communism". even so, the issue is with theory, and the way rci talks about theory is increasingly out of touch and lacks humanity. i dont know if they want to appear tougher than a bunch of bookish history buffs reliving the glory days of the revolution with reenactments, but to me they just sound like idiots who forgot why their organisation actually exists. that was stalins problem too, and while the rci arent tankies, maybe they should be careful not to become what they hate. theyre so fond of saying they know why a thing can turn into its opposite, but they ought to look in the fucking mirror. anyway like i said, fuck the rci. i hope they get destroyed. but whether im the sort of left wing communist lenin complained about, or if i just think that there are other things that need to be fought in addition to capitalism, i think climate change is a perfect example of that. climate change is incredibly urgent. while capitalism is surely the cause of it, climate change gives us less time to fix the problem than capitalism itself does. no capitalist solution to climate change will work, of course. what i mean is that fixing climate change is a life and death matter that must be fixed whether we have a communist revolution or not. we have decades or just years, and capitalism may well still exist by then. theres no "we can fix climate change after we destroy capitalism" because if we do that, there might not be a world for the workers to live, by the time they have finished their revolution. on the other hand, climate change gives us one more reason for workers go on general strike. as for civil rights causes, why wait? just because capitalism is the overarching cause of racism, sexism and transphobia doesnt mean that we have to put every other cause on hold until capitalism is vanquished. yes, there is a risk that if we get "too caught up" in other things, we might somehow forget (or fail) to abolish capitalism. that just doesnt mean we should wait to do literally anything about these other issues. and i see, in free software, the same kind of idiotic tendency to say all that other stuff can wait until all software is free. they dont actually say it, though. its implied through rhetoric and arguments and actions taken year after year by many proponents of free software, but they rarely come out and say it, because they would be admitting how stupid they are. meanwhile, rci comes right out and says it. i want socialism thats informed by the actual needs of workers, not just theory from the white social bourgeoisie and loaded with the general ignorance that tends to go hand in hand with unrecognised social privilege. if your idea of a workers revolution is for white male workers now and everyone else after capitalism is destroyed, then fuck you too. but the rci lacks the nuance and reason that the imt had, if the imt even had it- and right wing, reactionary communists can get fucked. license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR # ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES # WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN # ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF # OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. ``` => https://freesoftwareresistance.neocities.org