/lit/ - Literature

I think the anonymity is one of the most powerful tools available to the modern counter-culture. The degradation of the counter-culture which sprung up 'popularly' in the '60s was effected in large part by the re-integration of the trappings of bohemia into the capitalist system, empty of their original radicalism. This pattern has repeated itself again and again with counter-cultural movements, punk, 'selling-out', etc... but the anonymity of places like 4chan or groups like the Black Bloc offers a real challenge to the ability of capitalism to reintegrate the identity trappings of the counter-culture - as there, in some sense, is not an identity - at least not a firmly fixed one. can't really say anything for sure at this point...much remains to be seen

>>3624092
*the anonymity of the internet

>>3624092
That's an interesting point.
I guess to narrow it down, I'd have to ask what radical anti-capitalist movements have emerged in America that are promising to grow rapidly? With Occupy, surely something came about from that that could be a force to be reckoned with.

I'd think that any truly counter culture movement would have to be full of neo-luddites. Inside that framework, a number of different ideologies could be considered or applied. But it seems today that American culture cannot be removed from consumption, whether it be Apple products, reading Facebook, watching TV, or driving a car. I think you'd have to remove yourself from that to truly be counterculture and not just claiming resistance to a culture you fit firmly inside ("Edgy").

>>3624126
I like that concept but it seems that how effectively you can do this is directly related to how old you are.

>>3624126
"The Question Concerning Technology"

>>3624080
It's still Communism, or any other radically leftist ideology. It's the only stuff that has considerable and cogent theoretical work backing it up.

>>3624080
I'm interested in counterculture; however, I feel that it has all but died in Europe today. Sure, there are fringe groups who like to protest the mainstream, but nothing that really "sticks it to the man". You could walk around with a shirt saying "I'm a collectivist" and it's generally accepted and mostly scorned as being edgy. What groups or movements (underground, of course) that exist today in Europe represent true counterculture? What groups of people continually piss off traditionalists and conservatives with radical thought? Is the coffee shop politician dead? Has the arrogant ex-patriot and beatnik replaced him/her?

Perhaps there's selected music or literature that aligns with this underground movement.

>pic related. It's the kind of movement that I'm talking about but is deemed as either "edgy tryhard" or "under no clear leadership or organization"

>>3624248
Specifically, Maoist Third Worldism. Occupy is weak ass diluted class struggle so afraid of calling itself class struggle it makes up this fantasy-based 99% vs the 1% nonsense, which has no material basis in reality as actual class analysis. The large majority of the US, at this moment in history, is non-revolutionary.

>>3624126
> But it seems today that American culture cannot be removed from consumption

I would pay money to live through a time period that features ascetic high schoolers.

Maybe people call them edgy hipsters because it makes it easy to not be afraid of them.

>>3624273
People love irrational Pareto-esque analysis though.

>>3624298
are you really afraid of contemporary communists?

>>3624273
Slogans are not supposed to be precise. They are supposed to speak a message clearly, without getting into detail. 1% - 99% speaks clearly a message of the wealth disparity in America and the World.

But yeah, being present in European Demonstrations with riot cops all geared, K9 units, burning trashbins, stones being thrown, McDonald's being destroyed... Even the most peaceful demonstrations are more hardcore than American Demonstrations that are going around today. I think they never learned how to do it and achieve results, it is more a doing for the sake of doing it. The Occupy Protests were a surprise to me, seeing so many people protesting in America

>>3624302
they seem pretty badass to me

>>3624302
Don't worry, just being contemporary communists here..

>>3624318

I'm all for slogans if they fit, but the 99% thing is too fantastical to be of any help, it's too far off the mark--there's nothing about soccer moms and small business owners in America that is at all revolutionary. Don't get me wrong, I fully supported the movement and went down and did a bit of work when it was in full swing, I think building bases of solidarity with the Third World is important, but right from the get-go you could tell Occupy wasn't going to lead to much, especially with the weird boner everyone there had for non-hierarchy.

I wonder how many Occupiers went on to vote for Obama

>>3624302
Yup, just minding our business here in Europe

>>3624340
>I wonder how many Occupiers went on to vote for Obama
99%

The only thing that even remotely qualifies as a counterculture in America or Europe today is the far right. You can't be a revolutionary if you're a tentured professor of Marxist criticism making $200,000/year. People really beyond the fringe either end up dead or in jail. Leftism is more than just safe. It's the orthodoxy in many quarters.

>>3624318
In America it is something like the Top 10% own 80% of the Country. With the Top 1% owning 36%. (according to the data).
Of course the 99% own more, you just can't let yourself be driven away by slogans, there is obvious an extremely wealth

>>3624318
>>3624363
Top 25% pay something like 87% of the taxes though (in the US at least), so I think it balances out pretty well. They have more money, so they pay more and support everyone else. I'm not sure what makes having more money inherently evil though, or why they should be punished for it.

sage because this is a little off-topic

>>3624363
Well yeah but what this misses is that a gigantic portion of the 80% is just well off enough to make them basically okay with how things are. Politics is a hobby for people in the US, not a means of survival.

>>3624351
As some writer said a while back (can't remember who it was).
Being in the Right-Wing is easy. Being a Leftist is the real difficulty.

Also, Far-Right Parties are a part of numerous governments in Europe (Hungary is becoming as we speak a fascist state, with Censorship and the dissolution of the Constitutional Court taking place in the last week), they are not exactly counterculture.
There are far more people connected with Marxism today, there is a rising trend, and most Communist Parties are once again gaining importance after the Fall of the Berlin Wall stun

>>3624373
It's not about right or wrong, good or evil, or any other contest you can come up with.
They want free shit. They want other people's money.

>>3624373
counterpoint: it doesn't balance out pretty well.

source: real life

>>3624383
Their money was made with the work of thousands of workers, who go on to spend the money they earned in the commodities they themselves sell. The money never leaves Rich peoples hands.
And, of course, Property is Theft.

>>3624383
Money that was stolen in the first place. We just want it back.

>>3624383
Free shit? Have you ever heard of the Third World, motherfucker?

>>3624374

This, pretty much. I'm surprised presidential debates aren't on ESPN yet.

>>3624373
This is the actual trend of Taxes in America

>>3624399
What does the 99% have to do with the third world?
Oh, right. Nothing.
A bunch of smelly hippies sitting around being lazy lamenting the fact that they spent their college years earning unproductive, worthless degrees has nothing to do with social justice.
They're pissed off and want somebody else to pay for their mistakes.

>>3624410
If this isn't a joke, i'll be forced to fell bad for your existence.

>>3624418
Careful, don't hurt yourself.

>>3624298
Bullshit, Ive lived and hung out in NY for years, and these people are devoid of the intellectualism of the left in the 60s and 70s. They have no ideology except for shit music, and having their parents pay for their apartments.

The reason people arent afraid of them is because they are try-hard failures.

The people that they should be afraid of are young libertarian, numbers of which have grown exponentially more politically active over the last 2 cycles, and whom the RNC chair has recently been approaching with a less aggressive stance. These people are fiscal conservatives, social moderates, and extreme conservatives when it comes to civil rights. They were at the occupy protests AND tea party meetings. Think of it as a reactionary counterculture that doesnt disappear when you grow up. They are mirrored by the new nationalists and euro-skeptics in europe, who have seen the failure of the nanny state. The next couple of election cycles in the US will be fantastic.

>piss off traditionalists and conservatives with radical thought?

These days conservatives and traditionalists are the counter culture.

>>3624424
>it's been the same for the last 200 odd years of american history, it has to change some time soon, r-r-right guys?

>>3624426
They are just stupid people other people laugh at, it doesn't exactly make them counterculture.

>>3624410
I don't think the Occupiers are especially revolutionary for the exact reasons you just listed, but its by no mistake of their own that they're in the position of being possibly re-proletarianized (fear of this fate is the whole basis of Occupy).

What I saw at Occupy a lot of the time was people wanting to distance themselves from Marxism even. Pretty dumb, but with material conditions as they are you can't expect anything otherwise. So-called "progressives" in the US hardly ever bring up the Third World even though its probably the single most important factor for real radical change.

>>3624408
Yes, and? Taxes are going down for everyone, but this doesn't mean that the rich still aren't paying the majority of them.

>>3624385
I'd wager that it's more due to inefficient distribution and handling of the money, not because the rich aren't being taxed enough. The top 25% highest earners in the US pay 87% of the income tax, the bottom 50% 2.25% of the taxes. If it's imbalanced, then it's imbalanced heavily against the higher earners.

>>3624431
Thats what reactionaries are. They want to turn the clock back. The expansion of the state will by necessity reduce the power of the people. The state has grown too powerful in the last 2 decades in the west, the libertarian movement aims to reduce or stop the growth of the statist/welfare state movement.

>>3624433
This is ignorant. The right is not stupid in the least, but they do go after the stupid white vote. The democrats go after the stupid minority vote.

>>3624431
>same for the last 200 odd years
Where are you getting this idea? If you've even been following foreign policy alone you'd see massive changes occurring between presidents and through US history, and then there's different views on budgeting, how to handle an "under-performing" economy, federal vs state, etc. The guy is closer to right than he is wrong.

>>3624445
The Right is dangerous and cares nothing for Human Beings. They have forgotten that the existence of society started to protect the weak and sustain a communal life and thus protect all. if it wasn't such, Societies wouldn't have formed

>>3624461
I think you're deliberately exaggerating his stance. A government can protect your rights, and the weak, and everyone under it, without "babying" them or strictly limiting their personal freedoms and rights.

>>3624461
if we are speaking of the US, the right and left are the exact same, with the libertarians on another spectrum which seeks to undermine the power of both parties, or rather the system the function within.

To believe the right or left in the US have fundamental differences is ignorant. Examples: the imperial presidency under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. The exercise of the power of the executive has in all cases resulted in the growth of the state.

Not to mention that whole "vietnam war" the democratic party ran for years. Human Beings, lol. Hows that Guantanamo closure going for you? Hows that support for Africa going for you?

>>3624476
I'm not American.
Something like that happens in Europe a lot, between the Conservatives and most Socialist/Social-Democratic Parties who have severely turned to the center. There are always Leftist Parties who counter-act them however.

Guantanamo is criminal, just serves to show that America is not that much better than North Korea.

All the "counter cultures" of today are far-right. You can get in on the class struggle with National Socialism if you like, but accepting Muslims and Negroes has got to go.

>>3624492
If you are European, than you must realize with the recent events in Cyrprus and Italy's impending punishment for "voting wrong", that the communal state is just another word for oligarchy, and that this one is run by German bankers (often ex goldman sachs employees) who backed unfunded welfare schemes for their soon to be client states.

If you are Scandinavian, hats off to you because it is the Scandinavian model, with perhaps a higher incentive that may one day bring the world to end of history status.
>the states role is to help the unfortunate
>provide healthcare through a stated agreement with its people that involves fair taxation
>to support business
>to safeguard fundamental human rights
>the state ends there

Unfortunately, as immigrants pour into sweden and the system becomes more socialist, the equilibrium will be upset, the incentives to work will end up like france, and the system will collapse.

>>3624519
I'm in the Southern Team. The European Union is not lasting more than a year. The only party that was against the EU since the beginning was the Communist Party and everyone joked about it. Now everyone is realizing that they were right all along, and that the EU only served to completely destroy our industry, agriculture and fishing (Portugal has the se

>>3624542
Just because the EU is bullshit does not mean the communists are any better for it. The problem with Communism is the same under Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, the old men, and Gorbachev. It is inherently extractive, both politically and economically, and doomed to failure. Progress in human society requires economic and political incentive. A communist society, whether under glasnost or under Stalinism, will always remove incentives due to the distribution of wealth, and the fear of sticking your head up too far and getting it chopped off.

Communism was initially successful in the Soviet Union because the entire GDP of the country was dumped into a 15 year industrial revolution, which could only be more successful than a post serfdom agrarian state. But in the end, it collapsed, as all non-inclusive systems eventually will.

If southern Europe wants to do things right, they should look to Finland, Denmark, or New Zealand. The people have to work for their bread, and need to receive rewards for their toils. Otherwise you have the black markets and lack of motivation that poisoned eastern european economies in the 80s and 90s.

>>3624554
You would be correct, if only the Communists believed in such a thing as a "State".

>>3624561
Im not interested in ideology, but in political reality. Even the Soviets realized after the war with Poland in the 20s that there had to be a vanguard state just as there must be a vanguard party.

The reality is that communists have to make a state work in order to promote the world revolution, and all that happens when that occurs is bloodletting and economic failure. Thus, my previous statement.

There are definitely some music scenes that capture the aesthetic of the counter culture.

If you step into the harsh noise scene or some of the more raw, less tumblr ridden hardcore and punk scenes, you meet a lot of people who've fallen off the edge. A lot of very radical politics, a lot of weird fucking people, and a culture that is pretty unique. We're slowly getting invaded on some fronts by hipsters and former scene kids who want to jump on the next trend, but if you avoid shows with those kinds of bands you really do enter a different kind of space.

Also I guess crust punks are also pretty "counter culture". They're also dirty and gross and don't shower and eat out of dumpsters sometimes. A lot of people in hardcore can't stand em.

>inb4 music is for plebs
>inb4 somebody who isn't involved in punk or hardcore saying "punk is dead"
>inb4 people who don't know what they're talking about pretend they know something about hardcore

>>3624351
Nah, if you just talk to people in college in America, a lot of them are subtly racist towards black people and actively avoid them, think that Marxism is "cool on paper but would never work in real life" or just plain evil, subtly homophobic, and also kind of sexist.

When presented with a future of either the Far Right or the Far Left, they will almost always choose the Far Right.

>>3624554
>>3624573
Death to humanity then.

We had Occupy, which failed, the greatest celebration of nihilism possible. I mean for fuck sakes, its over man. Its always been over.

>>3624904
>implying they're smart enough to see that marxism is just a nice theory
They can't get past the "whoa, this would be awesome, let's do it!"

>>3624904

Scenes are not countercultural by definition. They're subcultures. They don't fight anything, just carve out enough room for themselves. If you seriously think that crusties are any more countercultural than common hoboes you need to stop smoking with crusties. Crust punk is about as countercultural as black metal.

The funny part is that this guy >>3624351
is actually almost correct. The reactionaries are countercultural in the sense that they are actively and violently struggling to change cultural norms. The fact that they want to change them into norms still more execrable than those which currently exist is fairly immaterial.

>>3624935

>>3624940
Dude, I don't go near crusties. But I think that people living their lives counter to many of societies norms in a subculture is pretty counter cultural.

>>3624938
Are you talking about the normal person? Dude, any conversation where Communism is brought up around most average people it gets immediately shot down. And the line "it's nice on paper but will never work in practice" is literally ALWAYS brought up. When I say literally, I mean literally.

>>3625021

Subcultures are where counterculture goes to die. As nice as it would be to claim affiliation to some greater movement by rejecting the norm and doing what I please - that isn't how it works. A counterculture is exactly what it sounds like - a culture built up in reaction and opposition to the existing norms. But if one can call it a subculture, one can straightforwardly subordinating this culture to the greater culture - the "mainstream" if you like. One is admitting that this putative counterculture has lost its bid for supremacy and that what it has to say has been absorbed into a greater whole. That's where crusties and the like fit in: they may be living in a manner counter to cultural norms, but they are considered a subculture and not a counterculture because nobody CARES that they are living in a manner counter to cultural norms. Yeah, occasionally you get some old guy waffling about how the kids listen to the satanic metal music, but by and large they don't give a shit -- and why should they? Crusties aren't exactly kicking the doors of the rich in to promulgate the anarchism and other radicalisms to which they ostensibly adhere. Neither - much as I love noise - are fans of noise. Neither is anyone really.

That's why I say that the extreme right is the closest thing that there is to a counterculture. It's no longer a political interest or even group of political interests so much as a common culture with shared preferences for a variety of social norms, with a relatively tiny group of politicians and businessmen sitting on top, the better to stir up shit below. These elites will never become any sort of counterculture, of course, but the little people are another story.

>>3625053
>Subcultures are where counterculture goes to die.

Indeed. But there are more interesting questions raised by this statement: Why does a given counterculture succumb to this fate? What are the determining factor or factors?

My hypothesis: Any countercultural group that relies on the economic machinery of the prevailing culture to provide for its basic material needs -- especially food -- is doomed to fade into subcultural status over the long run. There are two ways to avoid this fate. A counterculture can overtake the prevailing culture if its fundamental tenets spread far enough and fast enough to achieve critical mass among the population. Or it can survive independently of the prevailing culture if its members can find ways to sustainably provide for their needs without having to re-integrate into the prevailing culture.

>>3624080
>What groups or movements that exist today in America represent true counterculture?

I think the locavore and permaculture movements have the best chance of succeeding over the long run.

>>3624542
I see your communist party considers themselves patriotic. Does this translate into ethnic nationalism?

>>3624080
>What groups or movements (underground, of course) that exist today in America that represent true counterculture?
The homophobes. (By that I mean the sane people who realize that there is no such thing as 'gay rights' and that 'gay marriage' is a contradiction in terms.)

>>3625283

Countercultures really have only two endgames: they win or they get pushed back down. Usually both of them kind of happen at the same time. A counterculture can indeed overtake the prevailing culture to some extent. Witness the normalization of marijuana use and gay sex. But you don't see Woodstock or Stonewall happen again every weekend: the point has been made, the point has been accepted, and now there is no further need for these countercultures. The proponents of the new norm that the counterculture helped to create may now actively reject the counterculture. And should: after all, it doesn't do anything to support the case that marijuana users can be respectable members of society if ten million stoned hippies are wandering around the country in psychedelic VW buses. The transmission of countercultural ideas to the "mainstream" culture - if successful - destroys the counterculture. It takes away the issues that gave the counterculture meaning. This is why countercultures become subcultures instead of just vanishing: people can't let go of them even when they have expended their strength and gotten their message through. I think often this has to do with an obsession with the countercultural aesthetic, an obsession to which the counterculture itself is quite irrelevant.

>>3625515
Exactly. People want to feel counter-cultural when very few of the so-called counter-culture movements actually oppose or seek to change the dominant culture in any way.

Which is sort of their point really - people can feel like they're opposing the "man" while actively partaking in mainstream society, and doing nothing to effect change. This is part of the reason why communism was so popular amongst ivory tower academics, particularly in the UK - feel edgy/deep without actually needing to experience discomfort or jeopardise your career track.

>>3625515

>this kills the counterculture

>>3625283
Nope. Economies of scale will always win.

They're pointless movements anyway which are antithetical to their alleged aims.

>>3624378
>Being in the Right-Wing is easy. Being a Leftist is the real difficulty.

Try being an honest fascist or an Evola style traditionalist in the modern world.

Obviously lots of people are reactionary and racist, but that doesn't make someone radically right. Especially in the US where the main parties are liberal democrats and neo-cons.

>>3624461
>The Right is dangerous and cares nothing for Human Beings
First of all, you need to define right. These days it could mean anything from monarchists, to libertarians, to fascists, to mystical hippies.

>They have forgotten that the existence of society started to protect the weak and sustain a communal life and thus protect all. if it wasn't such, Societies wouldn't have formed
What about those societies that practiced human sacrifice, owned slaves, rapped and murdered and pillaged everyone who wasn't them, and killed the weak? Do those not count? Does a society lose something when it strays from this theoretical "original intent" of societies?

>>3625522
prove it

>>3625554
>fascist
>honest

wat

>>3625283
This is probably the first time I've said this on 4chan outside of /sp/ but this dude right here is 100% right.

However, when a countercultural movement starts building steam and attempts to overtake the prevailing culture, the prevailing culture will fight back to maintain the status quo using any means necessary (see Black Intellectual/Black Panther movement of the 60s/70s)

That's because there never really was counterculture.

When it comes to the colloquial classification of culture, we're all doing the same things for the same reasons under different guises. It's always been that way.

The reason there aren't definitive movements in any particular direction is because we're running out of things to oppose.

There aren't many pressing social or political topics in industrialized societies anymore, it's why we're branching out so heavily in favor of charity and empathy towards third world countries and communist regimes.

Nothing really stands out in our immediate field of view anymore. I mean, look at the biggest protest we've had in the past ten years - "The 99%." That really tells you everything you need to know.

You can bury yourself in obscure media, and hope no ones find you there - it might provide you with some ability to consider yourself separate or superior to the general population for a while.

But it's unrealistic to think you can hold up somewhere in small numbers against the masses. The world population is expanding at hilarious rate, there are just too many people around to maintain the assumption that light won't follow you into the dark places.

You have company, embrace it.

>>3625623
As in, honest about being fascist/having fascist beliefs.

I've known several people like that. Nice people, but they get a lot of shit for their opinions.

>>3625641
>we're all doing the same things for the same reasons under different guises. It's always been that way.

Simplistic and incorrect.

>>3625652
Fascists love physical force right? Well I'll just beat the shit out of them till they stop being fascist.

>>3625656
You could say the same thing about practically any political movement. Fascists are generally more open about force, violence, ect. but that hardly means anything.

Compare for example the atrocities committed by fascist Japan during WW2 to those by the US against black people. Certainly Japan was more brutal and violent, but they where also more honest. The American law system systematically tears families apart, creates slums, and disproportionately punishes minorities/poor people for crimes. It's a different type of violence, but it's still violence.

Which brings me back to honest fascism. There are shitloads of fascist ideas floating around, both on the left and right. If someone was honest about those views however, and honest about the violence required in such a social system [social systems which exist today], they'd have faggots like you talking about "beating the shit out of them till they stop being fascist".

>>3625672
deal with it, i'll take them all on

>>3625653

You're such a flirt, I'm blushing.

Examining language for an excuse to offer vague criticisms is the intellectual equivalent of Elementary School girls kicking boys in the shins.

I know you have a crush on me, don't try hide it.

I'm not, you know, "saying anything," but if you were to, by chance, ask me to the Summer Formal, I might happen to say yes.

If I had interest in navigating back toward reality, though, I might offer an explanation about how people can react differently to the same biological responses based on psychological conditioning related to the way they were brought up - and how I wasn't necessarily using that statement as an absolute generalization, more as a condition of language used for effect to frame what I was trying to say.

Of course, I don't any interest in doing that, because I've already picked out a cute dress for the dance and I won't take no for an answer.

>>3625703

Drat! I meant Spring Formal.

I make mistakes when I'm nervous.

>>3625703
get a load of this nutcase determinist

you think you're fucking clever kid? you and your outdated behaviourist shit?

>we're all
generalization fallacy
also assumptions

you speak like you are an authority on the topic you nutcase nihilist

>>3625703
I liked your teasing response to the criticism without aggression. I also like how you switched from hinting at accepting advances to demanding it in the final line. Dammit anon, your silly bullshit made me feel lonely.

>>3625750

Clever? Heavens no!

I think I'm hilarious.

Not in the frou frou way either, this shit really does get my goat.

If you read me as soliloquy it makes a bit more sense, I think.

Is that even something we can do? Read people, rather than language?

That would be something.

I do sometimes wonder what people see when they have conversations, or if it's anything at all.

I have it easy, I suppose, since all of my conversations are with myself.

>>3625850
monsieur pls

>>3624080
Oh you're mad that your inclusive counter club has become so successful that it no longer divides the plebs of mainstream because their message is accepted?

Oh, oh, alright you want isolation. Okay well pick up a gun, right, hold it like this motherfucker not like you're jerking off don't be gentle with that shit... right, alright now hold it up... now look down the sights... squeeze that shit, right, squeeze it at your mother's head.

Bam! Go to jail, rebel. Few people want in on that club, right?

>>3624378
>Being in the Right-Wing is easy. Being a Leftist is the real difficulty.

Come on. Maybe this was true in the past, but today it's the complete opposite. No one bats a fucking eye if you tell them you are a revolutionary anarcho-communist, but reveal any fascist beliefs, give even a whiff of extreme right-wing views, and you are at the very least completely shut off and ostracised from society, and in many places you're liable to be carted off to prison on the spot, depending on what you've said. It's so easy to be a radical leftist in today's world. People LOVE radical leftists. How can they be counter-culture? But an intellectually honest fascist? You need to have true courage to openly adopt that position.

Wait, there are Marxists here? How exactly would another Marxist revolution play out differently from the Soviet Union?

>>3624099
None whatsoever, the guy you're replying to is part of the problem. Leftist movements abandoned class struggle altogether and will find it next to impossible to develop into a genuinely anti capitalist stance when they're built up by the co-opted "token dissent" of petty bourgeois academics and students.

This isn't so much what they're saying that's the problem, it's that their position in society would be threatened by putting what they're saying fully into practice.. and worse yet, they viscerally hate the US working class's "regressive" values (and distinguish their movement by their distance from them) rather than viewing false consciousness as an obstacle to be overcome.

>>3626111
>No one bats a fucking eye if you tell them you are a revolutionary anarcho-communist, but reveal any fascist beliefs, give even a whiff of extreme right-wing views, and you are at the very least completely shut off and ostracised from society

That's what racists deserve.

>>3626121
Capitalism has already created the means of production here, as Marx planned for it to do. All that remains is for the proletariat to seize them. The vanguard state is unnecessary. USSR fucking up by trying to transfer straight from agrarian feudalism to socialism. The country didn't get to go through all the stages in between.

>>3626111
>People LOVE radical leftists.

[citation needed]

>an intellectually honest fascist

Read a book, child.

>>3626128
It's also why racists are the real counter-culture of America. You lefties should be happy, really, but it seems that nothing upsets you more than being granted the mainstream acceptance you spent so long fighting for. It's because leftism's main appeal is it's underdog status. Your ideologies are morally and intellectually bankrupt and you know it.

>>3626137
A fascist accusing the left of being morally and intellectually bankrupt! How cute.

>>3626133
>I don't have an argument, I better tell him to fuck off and read a book

It's like arguing with a cocky teenager.

>>3626140
You don't have one either.

Your foregone assumption is that fascists are marginalized unfairly in favor of the far left, yet you have no evidence for this claim.

Fascists are marginalized for the same reason flat-earthers and creationists are. I'm sorry the internet has inflicted some sort of holocaust revisionism on you and you took it seriously, perhaps you should actually listen to what leftist thinkers are saying for a change.

>>3626139
Keep smiling, progressive scum. The people are waking up. You'll be the first against the wall on the day of the rope.

>>3626155
It's amazing how much traction fascism has with pathetic neckbeards and betas. I suppose the flight from reality it provides is compelling.

I suppose living vicariously through an ideology that lionizes hypermasculinity while falling short of these criteria in real life is all that you turds have left.

>>3626160
>leftist
>mocks someone else for flight from reality

Go on, tell me more about how those planned economies panned out...

>>3626165
Have you fulfilled your cage-rattling quota for today? Can the adults talk again?

>>3624080
Side note: Do you actually know what Guy Fawkes's motivations were? He was a Catholic extremist that wanted to destroy parliament because he disliked that those in power were protestants not that they were tyrannical (which James VI & I most certainly was not).

Main point: The reason it is so hard to find someone who actually "sticks it to the man" is because all major political forces in our country attempted since the cold war to gain public legitimacy as being anti-establishment. Republicans are against "tax & spend, big government" liberals, liberals claim to be against the plutocratic conservative elite that runs our nation. Most criticisms levied at the major parties by "fringe groups" are that the main stream is not anti-establishment enough. This leaves us with essentially no visible establishment to rebel against.

Does an actual establishment exist? Probably. Most likely in the form of the major corporations but they hardly do anything but try to extract profit from the public's desire to be contented which the public is more than happy to accept. The sad truth is that there most likely is no conspiracy for global domination, no classic 'establishment' for you to rebel against. You'd probably just be better off accepting that and just get a stable job, play video games, settle down with some tolerable woman and make some kids to propagate a system you should be more or less ambivalent to. You'll be better off than Ted Kaczynski.

I'm working though, give me 15 years and $300,000,000 and I might be able to create something for you to rebel against.

>>3626181
>blind condescension

Is there a lower form of argument? If you're not interested you can go somewhere else, you know.

>>3626194
>Most likely in the form of the major corporations but they hardly do anything but try to extract profit from the public's desire to be contented which the public is more than happy to accept.

Capitalism's intrinsic instability mixed in with the warming climate and the coming end of cheap petroleum products will necessitate a political remedy, one way or another. I prefer sooner.

Whether or not there's a "conspiracy" or an ideologically consistent "establishment" isn't the problem, and never has been.

>>3626208
You accuse me of lack of substance but offer none of your own.

Do you post for its own sake, or something?

>>3626210
>Capitalism's intrinsic instability
>the warming climate
>the coming end of cheap petroleum products
>mfw this is what liberals actually believe

>>3626165
>>3626181
>>>/pol/

>>3626214
I'm not a liberal.

>>3626220
It depends on what you mean when you say liberal.

>>3626210
What do you mean intrinsic instability?

>>3626210
Also, there are 4 trillion barrels of oil shale in the green river formation out in Utah and Colorado. If you were actually serious about climate problems you would be supporting nuclear energy as it is the only non carbon emitting power platform that offers a capacity over 80%. That seems hardly a political issue, more of an economic issue really. The only problem is that nuclear has been politicized by the Fukushima disaster.

>>3626214
You best be joking

>>3624080
Al Qaida

Counter culture has died off in the US because just about everything has been co-opted by one of the two major parties, so the only thing left that's truly against the mainstream is some form of anarchy or libertarianism. Both of which don't really appeal to the youth and 18-35 crowd for obvious reasons.

Also Americans don't take politics as seriously as they used to.

the best way to research is too get into the subculture

>>3626433
haha, sir
t'was only an elaborate ruse!

>>3626461
Really? The biggest support for libertarianism/anarchism has come from the youth, at least in my experience.

>>3624318

>>3624273
>Maoist Third Worldism
>Useful

How does it feel to be wrong on absolutely everything? You know you can't call yourself a Marxist while replacing the revolutionary role of the proletariat with the peasantry (which Marx called reactionary for a reason)?

>>3624573
>Even the Soviets realized after the war with Poland in the 20s that there had to be a vanguard state just as there must be a vanguard party.

The idea of a vanguard State was written into the theories of Leninism. It wasn't 'realized', it was there from the beginning.

And I disagree about the need for a State. The experiences of the Makhnovists seem to refute it entirely.

radical trans rights activists and crust punks are both hated by pretty much everyone so I think they count

>>3627099
How can one be a radical trans rights activist? "I radically want radically equal rights for transgenered!!!!!!1" the fuck

>>3624426 , Thank goodness you spoke up with this awesome point. Counter-culture= Pop culture. This guy wants to be different like everyone else, haha!

>>3624080
o you're a faggot who, insteadof trying to understand tradition, it's reasons and relevancy, simply wants to stick it to what you see as "the man". I got news for you. The counter culture of the past i the mainstream of today and has never been truly "revolutionary". National Socialist Germany and the American Revolution were the only movements who actually stuck to world elites.

The walls have already been torn down; now the only thing left to rebel against is rebellion.

Crust Punks are pretty cool people who stick by their principles.
The music is good too.

>>3624080
There isn't a counter culture that's looked upon positively in the mainstream, that's why they're counter cultures.

Fascism and white nationalism.

>Edgy: The Thread

>>3627200
lol i know someone that dresses exactly like that

>>3627200

crust punks are fucking pathetic. what a bunch of phony, tryhard tools. i love the way they perpetuate the fashion punk aesthetic. dressing up to fit in with your faggot scene is so edgy and punk.

The most counter-cultural things you could do right now is hold a job, adhere to a religion, and have manners.

>>3627634
This fella.

>>3624295
I'm an ascetic high schooler.

The Psalters is what comes to mind when I think of counter-culture. It's like they don't fit in anywhere, complete nomads with very different ideas on living.

>>3624269

my sides don't even exist anymore from laughing so hard. thank you

>>3627310
hm, i agree

but fuck that

otaku culture is pretty radical and pisses a lot of people. Visual Novels, doujinshi and denpa music are examples of music or literature that aligns with this underground movement.

>>3628878
>tfw /jp/ and /a/ are counter-culture

>>3628911
To be honest it kind of makes sense. Otaku just give no shits about the values of respectable society.

Hikikomori are pretty much rotting Japan from the inside out, and now it's spread over to the US.

>>3626125

This is why Occupy Wall Street was doomed to fail. Middle class Americans have too much to loose by going the whole way. That's why I think if there is going to be a revolution in the United States it will be by the people at the bottom who have nothing to loose but everything to gain.

>>3624126

>But it seems today that American culture cannot be removed from consumption.

Not with that negative attitude it won't be.

>>3628911
>>3628916
Hikikomori are the chosen ones who will bring about the destruction of capitalism.

I feel like South America still has a good sense of counterculture.

OP investigate the thirdworld. Quit looking in the tired and played-out US causes

>>3628936
>the people at the bottom who have nothing to loose but everything to gain

No, the people at the bottom have their welfare to lose, and desire little that they could gain.

The people getting angry are the law-abiding middle-aged white engineer types. Rising taxes, government intrusion, and new gun laws turning them from pure square to die-hard felons overnight.

Greek anarchists

>>3628916
>His hair goes to his ears

>instinctively touch tops of ears
>hair is covering them

>Tries to hide his powerlevel
I don't know the /a/ culture. Does 'powerlevel' in this context refer to intelligence in general, or specifically to a certain area of skill or expertise?

>>3628993
"powerlevel" doesn't refer to intelligence, just to how much of an obsessive otaku you are.

For instance, if you want to hide your powerlevel, you wouldn't walk around town bragging about how many plastic anime figurines you have, or about how your date with your 2D waifu went last night.

Basically it means hiding your autism.

>What groups of people continually piss off traditionalists and conservatives with radical thought?

Vice Media. They actually have fascinating reports, but across most of the mainstream press they are discredited on account of the Dennis Rodman-North Korea stunt.

Stephen Colbert, during the early days of the Colbert Report. Guests didn't know if he was supposed to be pretending or not. When he did his famous address to George Bush, the mainstream press attempted to ignore it (as I understand it, it wasn't mentioned in the first wave of articles covering the event, despite being the inarguable highlight). He's actually still a bit of a counter-culture underdog, appearing in surprising relations to the US government (especially with being the director of an actual super-pac), even if nowadays the mainstream press generally praises him & his work.

Same with Sasha Baren-Cohen ... until he became a famous Hollywood celebrity, anyway.

I suppose I would have to throw in Julian Assange & his accomplice Bradley Manning, the guys behind megaupload, the guys behind wikileaks, the guys behind pirate bay, etc.

>>3629018
>Same with Sasha Baren-Cohen
The problem with things like that were seen with Paul Kaye's Dennis Pennis, which is in the same spirit. Or even Adam and Joe or Dom Joly doing Trigger Happy. People start to know what you're doing very quickly, so it's often 2 series and that's about it.

>>3629018
>Vice Media
>piss off conservatives
Confirmed for not knowing any conservatives, or even knowing about conservatives.

>>3629018

>Vice Media

are we in 2002 again?

>>3628965
Don't forget Central America. The Zapatistas are still a thing.

>>3629107

A joke maybe.