Which we should see as an excellent radicalization and growth opportunity!
It can be exhausting explaining ourselves again and again, always met with the same accusations and assumptions born from the mythos spun by our enemies.
However, we must remember these people are people, and many people change their minds given enough information, delivered with firm respect. For every belligerent person who appears like they wouldn’t change their mind for anything, there are 10 people quietly lurking who are more on-the-fence. Even those who regurgitate insults and contempt may change their mind when the stars align!
These people are not our enemies, they are victims to the greatest campaign of dishonesty in human history! It is our duty to draw out the poison and deliver the medicine!
I know many comrades here have very difficult lives and do not have the patience or energy to deal with such people. Please do not exhaust yourself interacting with liberals, and allow comrades with more energy to deal with them.
Radicalizing online is not the end-all be-all, but at this point in the psychological war for those within the Anglosphere, every victory is invaluable!!!
I completely agree with that. I find the trick is recognizing whether a person disagrees, but wants to have a genuine discussion to understand where you’re coming from or just trolling. I think we can give people the benefit of the doubt, but as the discussion progresses it’s important to watch for signs such as the person ignoring or misrepresenting the points you’re making, talking past you, using tropes, etc. At that point it’s best to just leave a note pointing that out for people reading the thread and disengage.
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I usually just hope that other people reading learn something. I’m trying to engage less with them less as well, blocking a few really prolific trolls definitely helped. I gotta say though, with hexbear federating the vibes got so much better.
Gotta say I was expecting some friction with ya’ll at lemmygrad after Federation (because we are all libs on hexbear) but so far you folks rock and I have been very pleased to see your high quality posts on my feed.
Loving to see posts like this. Can’t remember the Sankara quote but ya’ll know it. Cannot get tired of explaining ourselves because when the people understand us they will side with us.
Loving having new comrades in the posting trenches with us.
Hey this is about me!
I probably don’t know the right words to use and I don’t know my history or theory and couldn’t hold my own in a real debate but I sure am learning a lot from you all when I find your posts on All and your comments all over the place.
Realizing that, I don’t exactly know where I fall politically. Previously I would say I am left, but seeing conversations I realize that I don’t even know where Left-land is. At the moment I don’t see myself agreeing with a lot of stuff posted by hexbear/lemmygrad users, but I’m open to learn, and, more importantly, have a fuller understanding of your perspective(s).
Coming from Reddit I’m not used to the incredibly in-depth dialectic with a non-/anti-Western point of view, nor the intense levels of trolling/sarcasm/dunking that you all seem to love so much. So it’s hard to navigate conversations sometimes, and figure out what is a joke and what is serious. And even if I personally don’t engage in the conversation, usually someone with a similar mindset to me will do so, and I appreciate it when you folks take the time to soften your words/message to
actually(edit to cross out judgy word) explain your position.Additionally I hope we can see and treat each other as individuals and not our instance names when traversing the fediverse (honestly this is more about non-hexbear/lemmygrad users, but felt I should say it anyway). It certainly is a shame that some instances choose to defed you. I hope mine doesn’t, but I’m prepared to move if mine gets overly censor-y, though my understanding is that sdf is unlikely to do so.
Anyway, keep it up, there are absolutely people out there lurking and reading what you all write, and occasionally learning something.
Stuff like this is why I loved the internet so much long ago (near 30 years, wow) and I’m really happy to see it hasn’t gone anywhere, I just lost track of it.
Cheers!
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I heard about that, I should have figured the consequence.
Well, it’s like old GenZedong days, only we can’t get quarantined 😈😈😈😈
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lol libs on from lemmy.ee and lemmy.world are having a complete meltdown over that, for a while they were big enough to run around and brigade things they didn’t like and all of a sudden the floodgate opened on the left 😂
While you were away, reddit made a big fuckup by charging a fortune to use their APIs, killing third party apps. This caused many redditors to jump ship to other platforms, and lemmy was the biggest alternative.
Hence all the libs.
So many federated libs have a “fuck you, got mine” attitude and outright brag about throwing money at their corporate masters, so why did they leave Reddit in the first place?
Hmm, I have another take on it.
Nobody wants to think they were “lied to”, even if it’s true. Westerners default to thinking of themselves as the main character of the story, and swallowing the idea of having been fooled is difficult, nearly impossible. You can’t be a victim, can you? That doesn’t fit the narrative arc at all.
Come at it from the other angle. Even those people deep in the shit pit of reaction can still FEEL when an atrocity is wrong, even if they twist it into blaming it on minorities or whatever. The right wing runs entirely on feeling, it’s literally all they have. The other side of their knife is taking blame away from the self- it’s never their own fault, and they never have to sacrifice anything. The other edge of their knife is the dulling and nullification of feeling.
When someone you know- someone shamelessly liberal- agrees with you that an atrocity is indeed wrong, embrace them and build on it. Not “No, but”, but instead “Yes, and”! They’re feeling something, and the people profiting from their suffering would prefer if they dull that feeling. Instead, link the feeling to facts- “Here is why the bad thing is indeed bad”- and turn that feeling into praxis- “You can fix it!”.
The problem is that a lot of libs don’t recognise real atrocities (especially if committed by the US) while imagining all the “bad guy countries” commit a dozen atrocities every morning before breakfast.
I’m just not sure how we can build on that without just confirming their worldview that the bad guy countries are the only ones doing bad things.
I have absolutely zero patience for anti-communism
um…you should try to be torlerant…
Mind clarifying what you mean, or giving a little more context?
like…in response to Rasm653u
Yes, because how I read it was "be tolerant to anti-communest reaction, be tollerant to potentially even fascists and Nazis
Be tolerant to anti-commies. Do NOT be tolerant to facists and Nazis.
Fascists are the prime spreaders of anti-communism. Many of the myths about Soviet atrocities or Russian supremacy in the Soviet Union originated in Nazi propaganda. The most vicious anti-communists are usually fascists and the most principled anti-fascists are usually communists. The fascist blackshirt gangs rose in Italy as a counter force to the rise of communism, killing communists and labor organizers. The first people the Nazis killed were communists. Communist parties and the red army were the first to rise up and defend against fascism. US installed Fascist/neoliberal (what’s the difference?) dictators like Suharto and Pinochet genocided communists. Where were Nazis effectively cracked down on? Socialist countries like the USSR.
Where’s the liberal anti-fascism? Liberals always defend fascists’ “free speech” and condemn the suppression of reactionary views. They think you can “debate them in the market place of ideas,” but you can’t. The liberal United States allowed most medium to high ranking Nazi party members to keep their position in West Germany. East Germany effectively de-nazified. The US nuked Japan to make them surrender on their conditions so they could keep the same fascists in power to be an anti-communist beacon, just be under the US’s thumb. If they surrendered to the then invading Red Army (like they almost did) they would have had to Denazify and the on-the-ground Communists who were gaining traction might have gotten power. Today it is the Liberal democrats that support flag waving fascists in Ukraine and their banning of all opposition (especially left-parties and trade unions).
By the way, this is the first time I’ve seen you off matrix, welcome. I hope you learn a few things while you’re here.
These people are not our enemies
That’s where I disagree. Liberals fund the police and the military, which is the main reason much of the world is enslaved and unable to fight climate change. So long as anyone is making excuses for this shit, they are most certainly the enemy of history. That being said, people can change. I know that because I did.
Liberalism as an entity is absolutely our enemy. I just mean individual liberals.
I believe this war will continue to heat up, and I just prefer to convert enemies in order to lessen their ranks, while we still can.
I have never regretted extending humanity and compassion to my enemies, and trying instead to see them as a victim of brainwashing, which they are.
Don’t forget, brainwashing is a co-opted term, and you’re using the co-opted version. Brain washing is literally the act of washing the brain from impurities and toxins. This is what you are describing as your preferred course of action, which is also the strategy of Mao and the PLA. They captured KMT soldiers and they washed their brains clean of anti-communist lies and showed them the truth. Once their brains were cleaned, the KMT soldiers saw that the correct course of action was joining the PLA.
Our rhetorical opponents are not brain washed, they are brain dirtied. They need to cleanse their minds of false beliefs, and our role in the process is to help them find and eliminate those false beliefs.
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Gulags were used to try and rehabilitate dangerous people back into society, which is in theory what American prisons do too. But in practice American prisons are where the poor are tortured, raped, beaten, branded with second-class citizenry and commited to a lifetime of hellish punishment, especially for crimes of poverty.
You forgot enslaved. America outlawed slavery except as punishment for crime, so how do you get your slaves back? arrest them all for nonsense!
Why do libs insist on Soviet ones being called gulags?
Because GULAG is a Russian acronym (Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps). They were literally called gulags. They are corrective labor camps, not storage containers for human. Granted, most US prisons are labor camps as well.
i dont think they were called gulags tho. gulag was the name of the central administrative body, but the prisoners didnt call the camps gulags. just camps. or prison.
it’d be like calling US prisons BOPs.
Quite frankly, the term liberal refers to Democrats and Republicans not Conservatives and Centralists. I’m a Centralist and its sometimes weird when people outright call me a liberal. I don’t pay attention it though.
it refers to anyone who supports capitalism. if that’s not you, it’s not you.
oh…fuck…then…
if you’re willing to read and learn, people will make space for you here. but if you’re not, this place is going to get hostile real fast. lemmygrad and hexbear are leftist instances.
Liberal = supporter of capitalism. I suggest reading lots and lots on liberal and especially marxist theory, I used to be a centrist like you, because I only trusted what was trusted by liberal media, because ofc I wantdd to be correct, and it took years to realize they were lying and acting in bad faith. I was also hardcore falling for the golden mean fallacy
No one has suggested any readings yet (being a marxist is 50% reading and learning 50% trying to organize), so I’m recommending On Authority by Engels (this is a page long but very necessary, I highly suggest reading this future comrade!) After that dive in to State and Revolution by Lenin or Kapital by Marx, depending on how skeptical you are on supporting capitalism
On Authority, which is only a page long!
Lemme know if you have any questions too
I’m not THAT supportive of Capitalism. I just…go with it. Cuz I’m raised that way.
We all did. It’s just what happens when we’re raised in a system that teaches us that it is the “best” system to ever exist. It’s always important to keep learning, and challenging our preconceived notions about the world.
Yeah. However, I do sometimes wonder what went wrong to bring me here. About what exactly led me to be curious about ideas that I’ve been taught to dislike.
For me it was how as a child i saw everyone suddenly turn into murder robots about Iraq, and then just act like they didn’t, and I never felt at ease after that.
Yeah, thats liberalism my friend
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.
To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one’s own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
.To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.
To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along–“So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell.” This is a ninth type.
To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.
I was where you are, probably worse, but you should do some reflection on what you now know to have been instilled in you purposefully by the system which raised you
Centralist?
neutral. Not left or right. Well…kinda right…
I would recommend actually learning about what you support. You don’t seem overtly hostile, but remember you are on the same end of the scale with people who have decided that my ethnic group has no right to exist.
You might say “Those guys are evil! I would never support that!” You don’t need to support it directly, anyone who is even complacent is supporting those people.
That’s just one out hundreds of possible problems with being a “Centralist”. They simply don’t exist. You have those fighting oppression, and those oppressing. Being neutral means you have picked your side.
wait…what is your ethic group? (btw, I don’t discrimate cuz I’m not racist -_-)
Honestly, it doesn’t even fully matter. I could be Jewish, Romani, Slavic, Black. Other then ethnic groups, I could be handicapped, gay, Catholic, elderly, poor, chronically ill, and so on.
It doesn’t matter, because all those groups and many more deserve extermination, slavery, to be experimented on, starvation, and death.
I hope you understand the point I am trying to make. But my personal ethnic group is Slavic. We were labelled as little better then rats, abominations, and racially unfit to exist as a people. We needed to be exterminated so that our land could be taken and used properly for expanding the Aryan race in “General Plan Ost”. We were an disease, not people to them.
There are only those who support the oppressed, and those that support the oppressor. You cannot be both. Make your choice.
Oh. I like slavic music. You guys are cool tbh.
Those on the right don’t think so at all.
To a lesser degree, neither do liberals as they despise the Bolshevik Revolution.
The choice is yours. Who do you want to associate with?
