I could tell you, but the last time I responded to a thread like this I got banned for a couple weeks because toxic political personalities aren’t very tolerant.
Nah that’s about it. The majority of active users are disingenuous in any real way to anyone outside of thier toxic insider joke club. The whole “my personality is based on this political view” is a tiresome trope, regardless of what that view they actually have IRL.
Lemmy isn’t Marxist-only. The majority of Lemmy users are what the more vocal Lemmygrad and Hexbear users deride as “libs.” As a thought experiment, imagine that you are one of us for a moment and then browse Local on one of those.
Leninism is antithetical to Marxism. As you said. If they were Marxist there wouldn’t be a big issue. They’re Leninist as an angry 13 year old can be. Combined with the fact that people in the West, the US especially, have no idea what either one is. And that’s the problem.
Just like literally every other system ever devised or imagined. Ideas never work perfectly when people are involved, best never make the effort right?
No? No one has, except for some very isolated cases on the small scale. One of the downsides of a system which has never been tried at the large scale.
I have seen the effects of capitalism though: the concentration of resources in the hands of a few, homelessness, environmental destruction, neo-colonialism and third world exploitation.
Additionally, I have seen the effects of state capitalism pretending to be socialism, and even that brief period of apparent socialism elevated the impoverished, fed the hungry, housed the homeless, and literally rocketed a nation of peasant farmers to a world superpower in like 50 years. As everyone knows, that period soon gave way to to the corrupting influences of capitalism. Toward the end of the the USSR, and shortly after its collapse, the forces of capitalism again ravaged the region, and looted communal resources for personal enrichment.
You’re making things up. The hungry were hidden, the disabled were shamed, the homeless were turned to thieves, no reason was needed to send anyone to siberia. And sent they were. russia has not been just a nation of peasant farmers for a very long time.
Generally, they aren’t marxists, they’re “tankies”. And even fairly extreme socialists tend to dislike that. That’s lemmygrad.
Hexbear is just filled with trolls that federated specifically to troll and disrupt the rest of lemmy in the name of their beliefs.
On either, you can find individuals that are perfectly cool to talk to. But it’s like rolling the dice where only snake eyes win. And, even when you win, you can’t be certain that it isn’t a long troll waiting to fuck with you because some of them do that too.
People who throw the word “tankie” around indiscriminately aren’t using it right. From what I’ve seen, it applies specifically to extreme communist fanboys who are apologists for communist militarism. For example, Tankies will say that the Tiananmen Square massacre was either justified or didn’t happen.
Just being a fan of communism doesn’t make someone a tankie.
People who throw the word “tankie” around indiscriminately aren’t using it right
There’s no right way to use it, because it’s a completely meaningless term which only serves to discriminate and isolate those who support more radical views, such as a defense of revolution against capitalist dictatorship.
it applies specifically to extreme communist fanboys who are apologists for communist militarism
There are “military apologists” among the conservative population which admires the Soviet Union because of its army. Are they tankies as well?
I see this as an aversion against violence in general, common among liberal “leftists”. Someone who is deserving of the label “communist” simply don’t reject violence as a way to fight against the capitalist system, which is already a very violent system. Communists do not support unjustified violence, but they simply don’t condemn it in a revolutionary process. All successful revolutions were a violent, brutal process, to defend an abstract non-violent revolution is simply falling into idealism and losing sight of reality and history.
Tankies will say that the Tiananmen Square massacre was either justified or didn’t happen.
As what liberal leftists would call a “Tankie”, the Tiananmen Square protests did in fact happen. What didn’t happen is the army gunning down on students and civilians. There is not a single footage of that happening. And even eyewitnesses of what happened there, like a Chilean diplomat whose cable has leaked in WikiLeaks for public view, they all say they didn’t see any army member shooting people. They saw hurt people, bleeding people, and even army soldiers being killed and burned down. A lot of people were hurt in the midst of the confusion of protests. But not a single army soldier shot a single student on that day.
What you don’t know about Tiananmen Square protests is that while some policies of the Communist Party of China generated a dissatisfaction among the younger population, the protests were largely financed and fueled by the UK and US, especially by the “National Endowment for Democracy”, an organization specialized in recruiting and training leaderships of mass protests, used for regime change operations through color revolutions.
I have. I’ve still never seen it. What I do constantly see in those threads is dehumanization of Russian people and calls for mass genocide of them, though. Calling them orcs and talking about how they all deserve to die.
I don’t believe you, to be honest. One can acknowledge Russian security concerns (like multiple U.S. military officials and many high members of the UN have) without praising Putin. And I’ve still never seen a single communist say anything good about Putin. On any website.
What I do constantly see in those threads is dehumanization of Russian people and calls for mass genocide of them, though. Calling them orcs and talking about how they all deserve to die.
In Lemmygrad? Please link us any comment made by a Lemmygrad user which corresponds to what you just described. This seems absurd.
No, I see those in Ukraine threads, not specifically on Lemmygrad. Actually, I see it most on lemmy world, overall. Sorry, I should’ve articulated that more clearly.
I figured. Never would I see a liberal having a nuanced position on Russia like you did, but just wanted to make sure anyways we were on the same page hehe
How can someone misrepresent so bad what we defend? Yes, we indeed like Stalin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un. They are/were commendable leaders who suffer from delusional propaganda created by the West. I don’t claim they are perfect, like Stalin personally committed mistakes (I say personally because he wasn’t the only leader in the USSR, there was a collective leadership by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), but we don’t like Putin.
We understand the Ukraine war as a result of NATO expansion and aggression. But Putin is a right-wing conservative leader. We understand Russia as a capitalist country, but also a nation with the right to self-determine its destiny, like all other nations. And the West, through NATO and the extreme right-wing (fascist) puppet regime in Ukraine, has been trying to undermine the sovereignty and self-determination of Russia.
Though we criticize Putin as a leader and the Russian government in general, we support Russia’s right to defend itself from aggression. It’s a more nuanced position than “defending Putin” like liberal “leftists” usually portray.
Whilst I do admit that the US loves their devious little diplomatic plays I doubt Ukraine would have joined NATO. Take Sweden as an example to showcase how hard it actually is for a country to join the alliance if one country doesn’t play the game. And pre-war Ukraine would likely have faced backlash by more than just one country.
Even during the war when public support in the west for Ukraine was at it’s peak, when asked about if he could concretize what safety guarantees the G7 countries could give to a post-war Ukraine, German chancellor Olaf Scholz just replied: “Yes, I could…” and refused to elaborate further.
And French president Macron once considered NATO as a whole to be “brain dead” and wanted to shift it’s focus away from it. (A view I shared back then)
And now, a few years later NATO is - even by a lot of people who once opposed it - regarded as a safety guarantee with Finland and Sweden joining. So if the plan was to prevent an aggressive NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders that plan failed miserably and at the cost of thousands of civilians and soldiers, the world economics and the environment.
We reiterate our support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova within their internationally recognised borders. […]
We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merits. […]
Whether, they intended to accept Ukraine as an actual member of NATO, it’s an undeniable fact that NATO has been expanding to Eastern Europe and towards Russia. It’s an undeniable fact that the Ukrainian governments at least since 2014 have been promoting anti-Russian rhetoric and attacking Russian civilians inside the country. It’s an undeniable fact that NATO and Ukraine have been doing many exercises and drills for years, as well as other non-NATO countries close to Russia, such as Georgia and Moldova.
So if the plan was to prevent an aggressive NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders that plan failed miserably and at the cost of thousands of civilians and soldiers, the world economics and the environment.
I don’t think that was Russia’s plan. NATO will continue expanding irrespective of what Russia does, because Russia has a huge territory which would be more useful to exploit by Western countries if it was fragmented and balkanized. This is a Western plan since Nazi Germany and has been in operation since then. What Russia has done was a preemptive attack against an aggressive regime spewing Nazi rhetoric against Russians with full military and logistic support by the US and Europe. What prompted the Russian leadership to being the invasion was the US sending military equipment such as intermediate and short-range ballistic and cruise missiles to Ukraine, already preparing for war.
If Russia did not invade Ukraine, it would have been the other way around in a matter of time. It was thoroughly planned by Western countries and leadership for years.
What exactly is the problem with 14. this is how it should be. After all, borders shouldn’t be recognised for nothing you know.
does indeed highlight the goal of Ukraine becoming an eventual member but it doesn’t state when. They’d certainly need to clarify Crimea first so that Ukraine doesn’t join and trigger Article 5 on Crimea. And as I said, looking at Sweden I’d not be so sure about the if either.
And even if Ukraine became a member state it wouldn’t be that easy to just attack Russia and expect NATO to help. They’re not allowed to trigger Article 5 if they are the aggressor and triggering Article 4 would likely not succeed as the risks of (nuclear) backlash are too high. I am aware that I am making assumptions here, and that this part might vary depending on the picture you have of NATO and their member states but I am certain, that they would not be so stupid to trigger a war that would likely be very unpopular within the populations of the various member states. But that point is overall highly debatable.
Regarding the point about Nato expansion: yes, the fact that it has expanded regardless of that oral treaty is a pity. But on the other hand, why would you so desperately hold on to something that apparently wasn’t even worth making a REAL treaty for. A signed one on paper. You cannot tell me anybody would be naive enough to take something that was orally agreed on without a signed treaty on paper for granted when the last decades have made it clear that sometimes even signed treaties aren’t worth their paper. Of course it’s a move of betrayal for Russia but as I mentioned, the US is good at provoking and oral assurances aren’t exactly something I would trust.
And on the other Hand, Russia hasn’t been that innocent either with a habit of solving disagreements with especially Georgia & Ukraine by using deterrence and the sledgehammer. And fair enough, that Ukraine hasn’t been innocent either. That’s for example why I was pretty neutral / hostile towards both sides before the war began. I especially dislike(d) how badly Ukraine tried and still tries to erase it’s Soviet history.
But (at least for me) that still does not justify the means.
Regarding your last claim: do you have any evidence to back that up? I heard numerous claims that both Russia & Nato got invasion plans for plenty of countries. I read articles (or in that case just their headlines because I thought of them to be absurd) that Russia had concrete plans for attacking Japan and Kazakhstan and what not, and likewise I read these kinda claims from the other side.
But as far as I am concerned these sorts of articles only exist to lure you towards a side and or make quick cash by spreading havoc and hate.
In any case I might call it a day. I need to get some stuff done. Was a nice debate tho. Might reply tomorrow if there’s anything else. Stay safe & healthy my lemmygrader comrades haha.
What exactly is the problem with 14. this is how it should be. After all, borders shouldn’t be recognised for nothing you know.
They specifically mention Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. They could’ve said they reiterate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of any country, or of any European country, whatever. But they specifically listed these countries which they have a massive influence on. So it’s a sign there was something going on there.
But on the other hand, why would you so desperately hold on to something that apparently wasn’t even worth making a REAL treaty for.
A treaty is certainly more concrete, and I agree with you. What’s important about this exchange is that the Russians made it clear they found NATO expansion threatening since the 90’s and every time it expanded it was thoroughly and systematically condemned by Russian authorities. NATO continued expanding nonetheless, warning after warning. NATO was looking for war, and pushing Eastern European countries towards war with Russia.
And on the other Hand, Russia hasn’t been that innocent either with a habit of solving disagreements with especially Georgia & Ukraine by using deterrence and the sledgehammer.
But (at least for me) that still does not justify the means.
Certainly. The idea is not to justify the war, but to understand it in context. These were countries which were under Russian influence for at least a century and only recently weaponized to struggle against Russia. This does not exempt Russia, obviously, though context is always necessary.
Regarding your last claim: do you have any evidence to back that up?
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to Ukrainian internal military documents, I can only attest it through indirect evidence. First, since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, Ukraine has been adopting an anti-Russian rhetoric and accepted neo-Nazi batallions (Azov, Pravy Sektor) into their army. This form of Nazism was against Russians specifically, treating them as subhumans. Also since 2014, these neo-Nazi militias has constantly harassed ethnically Russian people inside Ukraine on the Donbass region.
The Ukrainian government adopted textbooks in schools which taught children to hate Russia, see some evidence of this in this article by Sputnik (it’s a Russian source, but there are exceptional journalists from dozens of countries there). Here is an anti-Russian Ukrainian propaganda video being shown in a classroom way before the war, to illustrate this point.
This article by the Tricontinental directly responds to your question, too. It mentions how Ukraine military increased its spending by 500% from 2014–2019 and received military equipment from the West, along with military trainining, exercises and drills with NATO troops.
More indirect evidence includes this article from RAND Corporation, which is a very influential think-tank which serves as an advisor to the Pentagon. The article discusses strategies to “stress” the Russian economy, through exploiting its vulnerabilities and prompting a “costly Russian response.” Among the geopolitical measures suggested, there is:
Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.
Increasing U.S. forces in Europe, increasing European NATO member ground capabilities, and deploying a large number of NATO forces on the Russian border would likely have only limited effects on extending Russia. All the options would enhance deterrence, but the risks vary. A general increase in NATO ground force capabilities in Europe—including closing European NATO member readiness gaps and increasing the number of U.S. forces stationed in traditional locations in Western Europe—would have limited risks. But large-scale deployments on Russia’s borders would increase the risk of conflict with Russia, particularly if perceived as challenging Russia’s position in eastern Ukraine, Belarus, or the Caucasus.
At least for me, it shows the US military leadership was researching ways to actively provoke and cause a response from Russia so it hurts their economy. And since the US also had a finger in the Euromaidan coup of 2014, it’s very clear that the US was using Ukraine as an agent of a proxy war to affect the Russian economy for years before the Russian invasion.
Thanks for your detailed reply and sorry for my belated one.
I definitely do back almost all of the points you made. As I said the USA loves to play devious little diplomatic plays but on the other hand, the way I see it is NATO offering those countries help to stop Russia from using military force to force through their will in what are still independent countries. I certainly do not like how Ukraine is developing in the sense of Nationalism. But the way I see it every aggressive Russian action has further catalyzed it. From Crimea to Donbass up until the SMO and the various crimes against humanity that were committed.
And furthermore I see NATO’s guarantee to the sovereignty of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia as a way to prevent Russia from executing further military operations in the future.
So for me the blame lies on both sides. With the only reason for not supporting Russia being, that Russia started the war and that Russia’s president can de facto rule for as long as he pleases as long as he gets voted for in a country where the media is heavily cracked upon and where the opposition has the sudden urge to “commit suicide”. And I fear that Russia taking the land they currently hold control of would spark enormous hatred towards Russia just like the partition of Germany, Austria & the Ottoman Empire did after WW1. Actually increasing the tensions further until the conflict reignites.
But I do want to say, that the way you see it is a way it can be seen. I want to thank you for all the effort you put into this instead of just denouncing me. You had some very good points that were likely more convincing than mine, idk I don’t really keep track of that.
I’m not good at this and I don’t really love it that much either which has got nothing to do with you but with me just being the one giving in as soon as someone makes a point that I do not feel the need to counteract.
Discussions with people like you, even if we may not have the same opinion, are the reason I am glad my instance is still federated with you guys because if I didn’t have you, I’d feel trapped in the echo chamber.
Discussions with people like you, even if we may not have the same opinion, are the reason I am glad my instance is still federated with you guys because if I didn’t have you, I’d feel trapped in the echo chamber.
This is refreshing to read, thank you very much! And this is why people should struggle to preserve federation with us. I’m sure your instance admins may be bothered if an event catalyzes polemics. When the war in Ukraine started, a lot of instances broke contact with us because we presented different points of view. But most of us ground our opinions on facts. Unfortunately not everyone has the same temperament to deal with different points of view, and this “denouncing” may happen from some users, but that happens anywhere, a whole instance cannot be blamed because of a few users. In our case, it’s not a systematic phenomenon, like some right-wing and fascist instances.
Also thanks for taking your time to read. A few people dismiss what I write because I’m very detailed in my answers, but imo complex topics demand complex answers, otherwise we are left with a distorted picture. I try my best to be concise and capture the essence of the things we’re discussing. That said, allow me to make some comments on your response. To be clear, I don’t want to “convince” you nor anyone else, for me we are just sharing our worldviews here, simply to pass time or something hehe.
But the way I see it every aggressive Russian action has further catalyzed it. From Crimea to Donbass up until the SMO and the various crimes against humanity that were committed.
I’m skeptical of the Russian claims that they are trying to protect the Russians living in Ukraine. Russia is a capitalist state, and the war obviously has bourgeois interests involved. The Ukrainian fascists have harassed Russian nationals inside Ukraine in the Donbass region for almost 8 years, why did it take Russia that long to intervene if that was the intention? However, as I see it, it was a matter of time a conflict would happen there, and the Russians attacked preemptively as a legitimate matter of national security.
Ukraine had a government which didn’t treat Russia as the devil and had a comprehensive partnership with the country until 2014, when a coup with full support from US politicians, including John McCain, suddenly changed everything. For decades Ukraine had an economic, cultural, diplomatic and political relationship with Russia, and then after a coup sponsored by Western countries, a regime took an opposite direction of denouncing Russians as the Fourth Reich incarnate. But there were already Ukrainian citizens who profoundly hated Russia, so much so, that the regime received support from the citizens in the Western Ukraine regions.
That country with an explicitly anti-Russian regime since then has been armed, trained, and sponsored by the greatest rivals of Russia, with increasing militarization. For scholars who study Russian foreign policy, such as the United Statesian John Mearsheimer, it was quite obvious Russia would intervene. As early as 2015, he said the actions of the United States would prompt a military intervention from the Russians. If an individual scholar who studies this issue was aware of this, you can be certain the Pentagon generals was aware of that, and this is probably what they wanted in the first place. So the war didn’t start in 2022, but in 2014, with blood in the hands of the US.
And furthermore I see NATO’s guarantee to the sovereignty of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia as a way to prevent Russia from executing further military operations in the future.
Only if you base on the (erroneous) premise that NATO is a “defensive” organization. The atrocious NATO interventions in Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Kosovo, and others, leads us to believe this is not the case. They are as aggressive as the Russians, perhaps even more so. And since NATO is led by Europe and the US, I’m pretty sure they couldn’t care less about the sovereignty of these countries. So much so that in order to let these countries into the organization, and these countries are desperate to join since their governments fear Russian intervention, they demand many economic and political “reforms” which precisely undermine the sovereignty of these countries::
“We know that right now is not the time for a breakthrough in the open-door policy. And I know the Georgian authorities know that, but they still need to be prepared, to fulfill all the reforms that are needed – in electoral reform, judicial reform, security, etc.,” [NATO’s special representative] Colomina told RFE/RL in an interview."
They demand the country to change its whole political system before they join NATO. That’s not what you’d expect from an organization interested in preserving the sovereignty of any country.
I can totally see your point there. I wished for Nato to be gone and even tho my view has slightly shifted, I definitely see the criticism. As for political reforms, I mainly back them because they suit my views, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean they are objectively good. It’s a hard one. I mean, of course: if it was that easy, we probably wouldn’t have heated discussions about it.
And in conflict, truth is what dies first, so my main hope for the future is that the past becomes clearer.
Idk if you will find it ironic, but what I hate most about the war besides people dying is, that I cannot even wear my grandpa’s NVA uniform at Halloween without getting those weird (is he really backing THOSE GUYS) looks. This pigeonhole black-and-white-thinking makes me sick because it splits instead of unifying us in a time where the Far-Right is on the rise.
I can’t speak about lemmygrad since the instances I’m on all defederate from it, but Hexbear users have a reputation for being generally aggressive, grating, and immature. It’s like that kid in class who keeps interrupting the teacher because they think they’re funny and clever. e.g., some were screaming at me that I can’t be an anarchist and I know nothing about anarchism since I’m married, replying with third-grade tier memes for some confusing reason
Exactly this. They are not leftist, they are just a bunch of idiot trolls who use extreme left views as a means of pissing people off. Their views, according to their posts, are cartoonishly extremist. And that’s why people don’t like them.
I fully agree. The problem is when we point out that they’re not leftist, they assume it’s because we conflate leftism with liberalism, whereas this is not the case at all. I think they’re not leftist because their antisocial/anti-human beliefs are antithetical to the concept of community and only serve to derail any chance we have to work together to create a new system. I can’t imagine that anyone who legitimately seeks the goal of a stateless, classless society would behave as they do.
some were screaming at me that I can’t be an anarchist and I know nothing about anarchism since I’m married, replying with third-grade tier memes for some confusing reason
Do you want to hear the punchline? I caught a temp ban for expressing my plan to block their instance as soon as that is made possible for users. I will admit I was a bit harsh in that I said I wanted them to be “effectively silenced,” but this was extremely mild compared to their comments to me.
Thought I should add it was them informing me that certain countries banning same-sex marriage while endorsing heterosexual marriage is just fine, actually. They espoused an objectively homophobic belief, and when I referenced my own marriage, they switched to calling me ignorant about anarchism. There are anarchist texts exploring the issue and some of the potential problems with traditions like marriage, but it’s not dogma. Nor do I view my own relationship as hierarchical.
This has the energy of a white gay man in a marriage pointing at a trans polycule and calling them homophobic because they said he had a bad take about how bourgeois privileges are more important than positive rights for queer homeless people.
White gay men wielding their gayness as a cudgel against people who are queerer and more marginalized then them sure is a gross thing to see.
Your comment is a perfect example of the pants-shittingly off-topic LGBTphobic nonsense I was receiving in the other thread, so thanks for proving my point.
You … you do realize that trans people and other “queerer” people than me engage in same-sex marriage too, right? And that it’s objectively homophobic for a policy to exist forbidding same-sex marriage while permitting heterosexual marriage? And that not all trans people are poly? I know people that fit all of the above, and every one of them deserves validation, and it would be unfathomably LGBTphobic for me to arbitrarily determine which ones are “queer enough” to be part of the community. You don’t see the problem with this line of thinking, with your entire statement? Of course you do, you’re just being deliberately cruel for your own amusement.
I’m unsubscribing immediately! And I blocked and reported that user, too.
My love is for all the LGBT+ community, and for the straight cis community as well. I just want equity. For anyone who had to read that homophobic comment above, just know that I do care, and I’m here for you.
And that it’s objectively homophobic for a policy to exist forbidding same-sex marriage while permitting heterosexual marriage?
Yes!
Do you acknowledge that some countries like the US which allow gay marriage materially harm lgbt people more than some countries that have banned gay marriage? Or is it only homophobic when it impacts your middle class ass?
Do you acknowledge that many socialist countries are progressive and moving toward more rights, and just starting from a worse starting point because of violently enforced colonial attitudes from countries that now claim to be progressive?
Do you acknowledge that Cuba, a socialist nation that you’d accuse of being tankie, is the place where lgbt people have the most material rights?
Do you acknowledge that communists have led every single queer liberation movement that has forced concessions from ruling governments? Or do you want to whitewash the communists out of stonewall?
You … you do realize that trans people and other “queerer” people than me engage in same-sex marriage too, right?
Yes, I’m one of them. And I’d happily give up my right to be married if it would erase queer homelessness, and erase conversion therapy camps, and erase the continual murder of black and indigenous trans women in our society.
You sound like one of these kind of gays; please quit the bad-faith crybully phobia-jacketing bullshit
As several scholars have noted, contemporary gay life is marked by high levels of racism directed towards gay men of color by gay white men, with much of the racism manifesting itself as negative sexual attitudes towards, and sexual exclusion or fetishization of, non-white men (Armstrong 2002; Bérubé 2001; Epstein 1996; McBride 2005; Tenunis, 2007).
Tankies usually are bastions of political understanding though, whether you agree with them or not. They have to be to stand up to the mountains of propaganda we’re all fed that people are trained since childhood to accept as “simply how things are.” Many tankies only earn that title after developing a perspective that requires spending years reading, you know, actual books, on history and theory and working to honestly understand why things are the way they are, not how they wish they were, nor simply accepting what everyone is told for the sake of reinforcing existing power structures. Hexbear is way out there, yes, since the overton window is so ridiculously far to the right, by design, that it keeps most people from ever even understanding what leftism is. Hexbear is not divorced from reality so much as it is painfully hyper-tuned in to how dire reality actually is.
smuglord tankies are not bastions of logical and rational thought. hexbear is way, way out there - about as divorced from reality as is humanly possible
tankies are not bastions of logical and rational thought
Apparently you aren’t either, since you mindlessly use the term “tankie” when it doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been conditioned to have an aversion to “tankies” when you aren’t even able to accurately represent what this group defends, I’m sure.
When you’re ready to think for yourself or if you feel like a “bastion of logical and rational thought”, try to engage with us on Lemmygrad and see if you can point out the flaws of our “irrational and illogical” views. I’m pretty sure you’d be easily crushed in any debate. 😉
We communists base our views on facts, on historical phenomena, not our feelings or wants.
So, as others mentioned, they're tankies. They circle jerk about how "the west" is entirely responsible for every bad thing that ever happened. They blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the West, they deny the oppression of the Uyghur people as pure western propaganda...
Any time you cite something horrible Russia or Iran or China or North Korea does, they say "the west is just as bad," draw some false equivalencies, and then proceed to explain why that means that the West is the only bad thing and there's nothing at all wrong with Russia or China.
And... they're so aggressive about it. It's not just that their opinions are so detestable, but that they brigade other threads and insist that everybody who isn't actively bombing US government buildings is evil.
They're annoying. On the fediverse, that might be the highest sin.
God yeah. Even if they had some interesting ideas they’ve been lost to all the circle jerking that there’s no way of seeing how any of them can be taken seriously.
Haven’t seen any lemmygrad users in a while, but honestly the vitriol towards Hexbear is overblown. They’re fine. Bit trolly, and they shitpost a lot, but it’s kinda fun.
I don’t think you even know what “totalitarianism” is. You know why? Because that term doesn’t mean anything. It was popularized by Hannah Arendt, an academic author indirectly associated with the CIA (as thoroughly discussed by Frances Stonor Saunders in her book The Cultural Cold War). The term was used in the context of the Cold War to promote the idea that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were the same thing or very similar. It served the interests of the US and Western European countries.
Now to call our userbase racist, I would expect at least further explanation. We have very strict moderation, and racist garbage is severely dealt with. So if you seen someone being racist in Lemmygrad, please let me know. I’m an admin there, and we could quickly resolve this. If you haven’t, then you should quietly think with yourself why you are lying to others here. You hate us based on a lie?
You realise that the instance has open registration that doesn’t require a specific political allegiance? I’m on it because it’s local, I would have chosen any other local instance if it wasn’t this one.
Hexbear in particular has been annoying in the past with nonsense comments from users there, and so many unhelpful replies that are just a tiny animated image and nothing else. I’m not even sure they actually are leftist as much as just trolls a lot of times, so I’ve blocked the instance in general so that serious leftist conversations aren’t being drowned out by that nonsense.
If it looks like someone from hexbear (such as yourself here) is making a real contribution then I’ll reveal that comment and engage. It’s a shame there are so many goofballs on that instance, apparently. Maybe their moderation has improved though?
Valid criticisms tbh (I even could say the same as a day 0 account lol)
Moderation isn’t going to “improve” because they generally are fine with everyone being goofballs, so I wouldn’t expect that.
Some people have the cascade of shitposting and useless emojis coming with their crappy views, but I don’t think our instance is great at propaganda or ROE, which is unfortunate. Would love to see what we could do with a little discipline.
Also the emojis on every other instance and all mobile apps look more obnoxious because they don’t downscale to their intended resolution.
Not to mention that before federating, hexbear always had a soft aura of antisemitism floating around it. They’ve cleared house of it since but I remember wondering why they were so disproportionally vitriolic about Trotsky until I learned he was Jewish, then it all started to click.
Honestly I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if I found out in a couple decades that website was run as controlled opposition. Feels like everything there is designed to either placate or turn people away from communism rather than push them towards understanding it. Compare it to Lemmygrad where they’ll reach a hand out to help reactionaries be less reactionary but on hexbear they just post a picture of a pig shitting on its balls and hurl harassing comments their way as if that’s somehow going to make them any less anticommunist. (and as a fine bonus, all those comments boosts their reactionary bullshit to the top of the federation for everyone to see)
Opposing a settler colonial, apartheid State, which has been ethnically cleansing for three generations and is committing genocide as we speak, is not a “soft aura of antisemitism”.
Obviously not, i’m talking about the people there who were using the leftist environment to shield their actual antisemitism. That shit’s been since wiped off the platform but that wasn’t the case back when I was there.
You know the kind. The ones who would call them “Jews” rather than “Zionists” where if it was posted on reddit nobody would have trouble seeing the antisemitism for what it was but because it was hexbear it obfuscated their actual intentions. Outright antisemitism would get punished pretty hard which is why it’s a soft aura, since it just kinda hung around in the background seeing how much it could get away with. The mods/admins tendency to just ban people who went against the grain resulted in that shit being passively protected for years until the federation forced them to be at least somewhat accountable where blatantly silencing criticism wasn’t going to fly anymore.
I’m glad you view my instance in a more positive light, and I can’t comment on early Hexbear culture, but I am still so very confident, absolutely positive, that the hate you’re seeing for Trotsky is not because of his religion.
Nah I get reasons why he would get hate but it always went just a little bit beyond that. It almost felt like they had just that little extra motivation. Not that it matters anyway, because like I said they’ve cleared house of that sort of thing so it’s an anachronism at this point.
I’m using Connect which has the feature to block instances. It shows comments from all users on a blocked instance collapsed behind a spoiler of sorts that can be clicked to reveal if desired.
I think there was a culture shock when federation first hit. We had a ton of ‘engagement’ from people who were using ableist, racist, and transphobic slurs, which brought out strong reactions from our community because we believe its important to shut that stuff down on solidarity with our comrades. And as things got heated I think our willingness to believe people wanted good faith debate eroded.
We do love a good dunking though, and I think overall the community has a lower threshold for going full pig poop balls on people than I would prefer.
Because the lemmygrad opposes the American imperialist narrative of e.g. that CHiNa BAD, “we have to feed weapons to the far right ukranian state”. A lot of people in the west are brainwashed by capitalist propaganda hiding under different masks. Including the left one. How do you not let yourself be fooled? Just when you hear another political slogan, always ask yourself in the interests of which class it is uttered.
Add comment