I think a little clarification is needed. No. I don’t actually think everyone there is insane. I don’t care about the bans so stop trying to use that. HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point
Edit: Feel free to keep trying to brigade me. It’s not going to scare me to take this down
You must log in or register to comment.
“HB enthusiasts coming here and trying to call me out achieves nothing besides proving my point”
Without taking any sides, saying some group is insane and then saying that them lashing back “proves your point” is beyond stupid.
Like, of course they will, what else do you expect them to do? Sit and politely agree?
We should stop with this kind of BS in any sort of debate. Groups will protect themselves, and will not get polite to those who throw slurs at them; that’s natural, normal and speaks nothing about their average behavior.
This never proves any point and is nothing but a dirty rhetorical device aimed to shut your opposition up and make them seem irrelevant. This is not part of any possible healthy conversation.
Also, post is not a genuine question.
Also, post is not a genuine question.
I’ll answer yours in good faith.
what else do you expect them to do? Sit and politely agree?
Internally reach consensus to segregate themselves, then brigade the fediverse whole with content that allowed the majority to believe it was their choice.
Because such actions are well outside of status quo want for bandwagon validation they’re by definition “insane” and “unexpected”. But, the hexbear community is well aware that the majority is better off not yet knowing what they believe. Many expected such actions as it was an obvious moral and ethical imperative that lacked internal leadership support.
Internally reach consensus to segregate themselves, then brigade the fediverse whole with content that allowed the majority to believe it was their choice.
Hexbear was the only lemmy for 4 years, over that time their code base diverged, it took a few months to make federation possible again. There was never a consensus on whether HB should be segregated, a lot of users opposed federation over concerns about harassment or just valuing one of the few leftist communities. The end result was slow federation, with users suggesting specific instances to federate with, and instances getting defederated if the admins failed to take adequate action against transphobes/chasers.
hexbear community is well aware that the majority is better off not yet knowing what they believe
Half this thread is hexbears and others telling people exactly what they believe about random topics. If you doubt that, Hexbear has 4 years of history and a search function. You can even find the struggle sessions where they came to the conclusions I mentioned previously.
Many expected such actions as it was an obvious moral and ethical imperative that lacked internal leadership support.
What are you talking about?
Hexbear was the only lemmy for 4 years, over that time their code base diverged, it took a few months to make federation possible again… a lot of users opposed federation concerns about harassment or just valuing one of the few leftist communities. The end result was slow federation, with users suggesting specific instances to federate with, and instances getting defederated if the admins failed to take adequate action against transphobes/chasers.
Now there’s two of us that are speaking truth.
Half this thread is hexbears and others telling people exactly what they believe about random topics.
Are they? That wouldn’t be thematically consistent with their years of telling others what they’d like to hear for their entertainment. Their culture is selfish in that way.
There was never a consensus on whether HB should be segregated
There was never formal consensus in that leadership repeatedly denied the vote, favoring a granular, instance-by-instance approach.
What are you talking about?
An organized, grassroots movement that employed questionable means to force the wisest decision upon leadership and everyone else.
That wouldn’t be thematically consistent with their years of telling others what they’d like to hear for their entertainment.
What?
There was never formal consensus in that leadership repeatedly denied the vote, favoring a granular, instance-by-instance approach.
Here’s the vote that approved the granular instance-by-instance approach
An organized, grassroots movement that employed questionable means to force the wisest decision upon leadership and everyone else.
Are you describing the consensus building and struggle sessions as “forcing the wisest decision on everyone”?
Nope. They seem pretty sane and rational in comparison to places like Reddit, Lemmy.world, Twitter, 4chan, Facebook, etc.
You wrote reddit twice in a row.
Found the Hexbear user doing a psy-op.
Edit: stay mad, tankies.
That persons instance and hexbear are defederated. It’s unlikely they’re a secret hexbear user.
Prolly just a regular idiot then
huh, surprisingly this tanke isn’t using the hard r
I’m not a tankie lol. I’ll use this opportunity to encourage everyone to vote for Kamala Harris though, and to say fuck hexbear and it’s smooth brained users.
oh sorry for assuming all of .ml users are tankies, please go switch to another instance though as you will be categorized as a tankie.
Yeah I’ve been meaning to but I’m lazy. When I signed up I didn’t k ow much about lemmy and ml was popular with signups
Have you considered that its simply possible for somebody to have an opinion that differs from your own?
To be clear, this is coming from you getting banned for being a debate-pervert after you claimed Putin invaded Ukraine to “reinstate the USSR” as a secret Commie and refused to take a pro-Palestinian stance, equating Palestinian resistance with a century of settler-colonial genocide.
I think it’s a bit terminally online to run away to a defederated instance to lick your wounds, rather than reflect on why being a debatebro is unhealthy.
Please tell me what a debate bro is for the people who don’t know the terminology
Someone who goes fishing for fights online.
Everyone knows Putin invaded Ukraine because he’s a dumbass dictator who started to believe his own propaganda. It’s the dictator trap. Putin surrounded himself with backstabbing yes men by literally killing anyone who wasn’t.
As to Palestinian resistance. I don’t think Hamas is a good resistance movement. For a whole host of reasons. Which is why the Israeli government has been propping them up since the 80s.
An unsympathetic resistance movement can do more to damage a cause than not having a movement at all.
From now until the ethnic cleansing is complete, Israel will call any resistance movement Hamas, regardless of their actual name or beliefs. I’m not sure how to fight that… I don’t think anyone really knows beyond screaming the truth everywhere we can.
It didn’t work in the 1920s in Europe. But maybe with the Internet… Likely not though.
Everyone knows Putin invaded Ukraine because he’s a dumbass dictator who started to believe his own propaganda. It’s the dictator trap. Putin surrounded himself with backstabbing yes men by literally killing anyone who wasn’t.
Do you have any evidence of this? Could it be that there were economic factors at play, and rational actors, regardless of morality or immorality? This seems utterly vibe-based and lacks a materialist analysis, so I’d love evidence.
From now until the ethnic cleansing is complete, Israel will call any resistance movement Hamas, regardless of their actual name or beliefs. I’m not sure how to fight that… I don’t think anyone really knows beyond screaming the truth everywhere we can.
Hamas isn’t the only resistance group in Palestine, there are others such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The key though is that Israel has been committing settler-colonial genocide for a century, oppressed peoples have a right to use violence against their oppressors, especially when non-violent means have tried and failed, and especially in the face of active genocide.
Equating Hamas to Israel equates resistance to genocide with genocide itself.
what about the 10s of thousands of baltics sent to siberia? wasn’t that a genocide? or all the famine in Ukraine? or the invasion of Hungary and checkoslovaka after they implemented democratic reforms?
The transport of Baltic peoples, Tatars, Japanese, etc were ethnic cleansing, but not genocide because it didn’t seek to destroy those people. I don’t think you’ll find anyone defending those actions.
The famine in Ukraine was part of a wider crop failure of the grain-producing regions of the USSR. The role Soviet policy of distribution grain, reaction to soviet policy in the form of destruction of grain and livestock, and the reaction to that resistance all played is contested, but no serious historian argues that the USSR intended to bring about the destruction of the Ukrainian people.
Life And Terror In Stalin’s Russia, is a great book that is critical of the USSR, but with more nuance than the western narrative. Here’s a free PDF.
The invasion of Hungary
While the initial uprising was sparked by democratic reformers, it was quickly co-opted by fascists, as evidenced by the destruction of communist imagery and murder of Hungarian communists.
i have my own narrative as an estonian. and stop talking about fascists, hungary and spain were never going to be fascist nuclear powers.
There was no economic or rational factors. The only thing that makes a lick of sense is the irrational.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-dictator-trap-russia-ukraine/627064/
Those are a warm-up, but then you have the purges since the invasion began.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle
Putin has sort of been the butt of jokes for years for killing anyone who looks at him funny. He’s a KGB stooge, who made his career out of backstabbing and paranoia. His entire inner circle were afraid to tell him the truth, because he would kill them if they did.
He’s never been “savvy”, he’s just been willing to kill as many people as necessary to secure his own power.
The classic authoritarian dictator who throws people out of windows for saying no. And whose vaulted military had body armor made of cardboard, because the corruption was so ingrained that every single level was accepting bribes and stealing shit.
I’m surprised that they’re still going, but Russia has shown the world that they’re a third rate military, at best.
As to Palestine. It doesn’t matter what the resistance movements call themselves now. Israel will just say they’re Hamas, and no one likes Hamas. There are good reasons not to like Hamas, they’re religious extremists who want to kill all Jews.
And for decades, Israel has funded Hamas behind the scenes, while coming down extra heavy on any other resistance movement. And now it’s all paid off for them because they can just claim that anyone they kill was actually Hamas.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/
This tactic of creating the perfectly detestable opposition has been used in quite a few places. For example, Greenpeace gets a lot of money from oil company heirs. Specifically the Rockefeller family.
I doubt anyone from Hamas, or Greenpeace, ever took orders from the people giving them money. They were given the money with no strings attached, because they were already jackasses. The money just extended their reach.
There are absolutely rational reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine.
Looking back to the dissolution and subsequent plundering of the USSR, there became a rising Bourgeoisie within the Russian Federation. Since there wasn’t already Imperialist infrastructure for the Russian Federation to exploit the Third World (large, monopoly and financial Capitalists with international footholds), Putin tried to join NATO and join hands with the rest of the Imperialist western nations, and take “their share” of the super-profits. This was denied, and thus began a long few decades of growing tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation.
Ukraine on the other hand has been increasingly militarized, with anti-Russian sentiments rising. NATO increased expansion against Russian requests, leading to Russia trying to forcibly demilitarize Ukraine.
Regardless of morals, there is a material basis for this conflict.
As for Palestine, again, the oppressed have the rights to use violence to free themselves, especially if non-violence hasn’t worked, and in the face of genocide.
Ukraine has been super militarized with anti-Russian sentiments rising since they illegally stole a part of their country in 2014 and started providing money, arms, vehicles, and soldiers to separatists premised on said separatists murdering their fellow citizens and providing a thin pretext for Russia ultimately taking more of Ukraine.
Given the profoundly destructive nature of any such conflict with Russia and the impossibility of winning or even surviving without a coalition of supporters there is zero chance of Ukraine ever starting a conflict with Russia itself.
Given the risk of nuclear war and the impossibility of pushing Ukraine to start such a conflict there was never any chance of NATO either starting such a conflict OR being able to start one by proxy.
It’s hard to argue that Russia had security concerns when the only person in a position to light this candle is themselves.
NATO was virtually entirely a mutual defense pact vs Russia in their previous incarnation as the USSR. Inducting Russia into NATO would only serve to give them veto power and influence on an org which virtually exists to defend against THEM! It makes no coherent sense nor would it somehow provide the Russians some share of “super profits” it would solely give them an opportunity to undermine NATO which is why Putin wanted it.
The material basis for stealing the Ukrainians country from them and murdering its children is that by doing so they gain access to tax payers, resources, people, strategic resources, land, fossil fuels etc. Based on what we know about their strategic planning we have every reason to believe they thought this would be an inexpensive and quick affair that would be concluded in a matter of days with minimal loss of life.
It is purely a function of avarice, stupidity, and immorality. It is no more complicated than asking why a burglar invaded a home and took the lives of people there when he just ended up leaving bloody himself. They did it because they thought it would profit them and because they thought they could get away with it.
NATO was virtually entirely a mutual defense pact vs Russia in their previous incarnation as the USSR.
This “defense pact” has invaded, bombed and destroyed many countries within only my lifetime, it’s a laughable statement unless your historical horizon is less than a decade.
Living in America it’s incredible to me how people I run into don’t even know the countries that their own government has invaded using its “defense pact”, or pay attention to people whose lives they’ve ruined, and thus can’t even understand why people see them as a threat.
I think anyone who’s even remotely curious about hexbear should go make an account and just… Iunno, check it out? That’s what i did and it ended up being my home away from home.
Their viewpoints are gonna be absolute whiplash for most people unaccustomed to speaking about world topics from a non-us-centric perspective, or who have only learned about what communism actually is from our (definitely not biased) general education.
Calling those viewpoints “crazy” is just a shortcut, a base dismissal of thought unworthy of critical thinkers.
If you take me up on this, go lurk a bit! They can’t hurt you. If after awhile of lurking, you have a question (you will have questions) ask them from a position of curiosity that you’re interested in their perspective instead of one there to “educate the commies” and you’ll be just fine. Hell you don’t ever have to engage in politics at all there, hexbear has as many shitposts as the other instances do
I recall i went to hexbear because sh.itjust.works was defedding and erryone was just so mad at them i had to see what the fuss was about. Im very glad i did
These pathetic foxes are pissed they’ve been neutralized by defederation. They’re mad that the contagion has been contained. That real lefties, even communists don’t take them seriously.
These guys aren’t fooling anyone. The online left doesn’t need their rotten discourse, and they don’t belong there.
It’s just 4chan cosplaying communism. Truly despicable.
These pathetic foxes are pissed they’ve been neutralized by defederation.
Hexbear has been around for 4 years, unfederated. It wasn’t until 10 months ago that they started slowly federating. At least try to be honest.
That real lefties, even communists don’t take them seriously.
Who determines what a “real lefty,” or a “real Communist,” if not Communists who regularly read theory, talk about it, and post memes that require understanding theory to even get?
It’s just 4chan cosplaying communism. Truly despicable.
Do you genuinely believe people would put in that much effort to meme amongst themselves something they don’t agree with?
Oh, they do agree with the imagery. Not so much with the actual left-wing values. Which is why I used the word “cosplay”.
Leftism isn’t just aesthetics, folks. It’s not enough to just hate american imperialism.
On what bounds do you say that? If they read Leftist theory, advocate for Leftism, and attack Imperialism and Capitalism, then they are Leftists.
No, because substituting one imperialism with another one you like more means you never understood any leftist theory to begin with.
In what manner does Hexbear advocate for expanding predatory IMF loans to the Global South, and exporting machinery and industrial Capital directly to the source of the Raw Materials so as to over-exploit the Global South by directly owning these sources of production?
You guys can’t help yourselves. Anyone interested can read the Nazbear slip-ups in this thread. You don’t even to do any hardcore research.
Do you have any examples of this? Since world is defederated from that instance, I only end up visiting it when people like you come in and talk about how absolutely crazy it is over there, so occasionally I’ll take a curious peek. This time I see… a post about Indigenous rights, a post criticizing capitalism, a post dunking on musk, a post about FOSS… when do I start seeing the crazy?
They very quickly ban people who disagree with their propaganda. So just browsing, it looks like left leaning but generally sane people.
Go on there and say anything negative at all about China. You’ll see the crazy.
I might not agree with the moderation practices or even their opinions, but that doesn’t make them crazy.
You got cause and effect mixed up.
We disagree with them because they are crazy.
do you have an argument that doesn’t rely on ableism?
Yeah. Here it goes:
“ableism” is used as cover for shills to attempt to shut down people who call out their batshit insanity.
Oops
got it. for anyone else reading this: why exactly is jumping straight to mental illness as the source of any disagreement not ableist? Does someone who struggles with mental health get no say on literally any topic?
Blah blah fuck tankies. Fuck Putin. Fuck the CCP. Fuck hexbear.
lemmy.world users don’t interact with hexbeqr users because your admin preemptively defederated from hexbear “as a last resort”. At no point were the two federated. I don’t know about crazy, but that seems inconsistent. Don’t you agree?
Found the hexbear with a .ml alt rofl
That’s how we interact with hexbears. Via .ml
Have you considered you are just observing this:
Hexbear is for communists to talk to communists. They get plenty of the “default” liberal opinions from waves hands around vaguely and are entitled to their own community, no?.
Obviously if you go into Hexbear and just start posting anti-China stuff they’re going to ban you. It’s not like the English-speaking world is bereft of anti-China news articles.
I’m not trying to join their cult. I’m not feeling excluded from their cult. I’m saying their cult should not exist. It is a mixture of crazy people and Chinese propaganda, and it deserves to be stamped out.
Ah yea, everyone that has an opinion that isn’t mine is dangerous and deserves to be silenced. I totally agree. I think lemmy.world should refederate, and then defederate a second time, just to make sure they get the message.
Not everyone who disagrees with me. Just extremists and morons. Tankies happen to be both.
REAL communists are cool. Hexbear is a pile of shit.
Are the real communists kept around back with the real scotsmen?
What do you consider a real Communist, if not people who read Communist Theory, advocate for Communism, and defend real movements towards Communism?
Not tankies.
The Falun Gong are, right now, kidnapping children and brainwashing them into being performers for their shitty dance troupe. These performers are not paid, cannot leave The Compound, and cannot contact their family. That’s a cult that the government should stamp out.
Hexbear is a bunch of people with a different opinion on the western world’s designated Enemy Governments. They’re not in the same ballpark, or even playing the same sport.
Lol who the fuck said anything about Falun Gong? That’s out of left field. You got a bug in your programming?
We were talking about cults, I brought them up as an example. I could have just as easily used Scientology.
i guess I don’t understand your point. Cults are bad, seems like we agree on that.
This isn’t accurate, they were very active in brigandine other federations, hitting random threads on .world for instance with hundreds of reply comments drowning out anything that may be a tiny bit critical of china or Russia. Or pro west.
There wereultiple cross-posts daily pointing to specific threads posted on hexbear to organize brigading.
hitting random threads on .world
Dang that’s pretty impressive for an instance that got blocked by .world before they ever started federating.
Or did I already miss make stuff up o’clock?
This isn’t accurate, they were very active in brigandine other federations, hitting random threads on .world for instance with hundreds of reply comments drowning out anything that may be a tiny bit critical of china or Russia. Or pro west.
Have you considered that their users were just browsing the front page and what you’re describing is just the nature of lemmy and how federation works?
There wereultiple cross-posts daily pointing to specific threads posted on hexbear to organize brigading.
You’re likely referring to the_dunk_tank which is a community that encourages bullying homophobia, transphobia, fascists and liberale (pretty based imo)
hitting random threads on .world for instance with hundreds of reply comments
.world preemptively defederated from hexbear “as a last resort” can you clarify when the events you’re referring to would have happened?
Thank god for hexbear and lemmygrad though. Imagine the effort needed to block them all individually if spread over all the other instances.
Before instance blocking was a thing I blocked individual trolls wheb I saw them and after about the fifth block I didn’t see a lot of hexbear, so it they have a few very loud individuals but instance blocking hexbear really made my browsing a lot more chill
Yeah, it’s actually helpful to have safe spaces for hateful assholes so they can be corralled away.
On the other hand, an isolated community can also become a nasty brewing pot, reinforcing harmful behaviors and even intensifying them over time.
I don’t think calling them safe spaces for hateful assholes is accurate, but I understand frustrations with them.
Its a safe space for them to be… away from me
They still get loose and troll .world while the mods there give them free reign and ban you if you report them for trolling. You can’t call them trolls, but they can call you a troll.
Heavily scratched liberal gets banned from hexbear for being a debate pervert and trying to start fights, immediately proceeds to call everyone there mentally ill
What the fuck is a debate pervert? Yall are weird af to be following this dude over here and commenting on his posts and having your alt accounts or other weirdo friends upvote lol looks pathetic.
Constantly going back and forth on technicalities rather than actually discussing an issue. I admit I’m guilty of it from time to time, but after I get banned from a community or an instance I don’t make a thread in a place where the people agree with me begging for validation.
I’m not banned from there and I agree with OP. Those people need serious help.
Edit: I mean they think Donald Trump is a liberal FFS. Donald Fucking Trump.
I mean they think Donald Trump is a liberal FFS. Donald Fucking Trump
I mean, yes. Donald Trump generally supports the free market, individualist ideology of Liberalism, and is extremely pro Capitalism.
Liberalism doesn’t mean “left wing” or “center left.”
Trump is also a far-right populist, but falls under the umbrella of liberalism.
Lol Demential DonOLD is a fucking puppet who got his stage thanks to Russian interference. He’s whatever the highest bidder wants. Obviously Putin, the highest of bidders, wants him in so he can have his access to top secret documents restored and the supplies to Ukraine stopped.
Dude…he used to be. Lol
Here’s the thread in question btw. The mods left up OP’s comments that had some semblance of effort.
OP claimed putler was trying to bring back the USSR or some shit here lmao. At least OP deleted it.
They also went on to equate Palestine with Israel and refused to take a pro-Palestinian stance.
this person needs serious help, and by help i mean
eliminating one or the other is agiast self determination, 2 state or die.
States don’t have rights, humans have rights. An ethnostate is not compatible with human rights. The only solution is a single, multicultural Palestine.
Nice to see you going mask-off and thinking Nazi Germany should have remained.
Many of them, yes. They’re among the most radical of the leftist instances, which means that they attract a lot of propagandists and tankies. They have some perfectly reasonable people too, but you know, vocal minority. Its the main thing most people notice about those instances.
Many people block hexbear, Lemmy.ml, and lemmygrad for these reasons.
I have yet to see any reasonableness from hexbear.
Hell, I had a few members tell me that I was part of the evil capitalist elite because I had a job.
They brigade like annoying unwanted fleas that you cannot get rid of.
Hell, I had a few members tell me that I was part of the evil capitalist elite because I had a job.
Anytime a person claims something happened on the fediverse without providing a link to it, they are lying or misrepresenting what happened literally 100% of the time.
excluding anything tanke related.
Especially anything tankie related.
Y’all will believe literally anything with zero evidence of it means making people you don’t like look bad.
how the fuck do tankies fall for communism, LIKE HOW?
Well, for starters, I don’t blindly believe anything people say about it.
I had a few members tell me that I was part of the evil capitalist elite because I had a job.
Definitely a joke, I’m having trouble imagining a person who could believe this in earnest, let alone enough to say it out loud. I’m even having trouble accepting that you can imagine that a person would say this with no sarcasm. No one actually believes that.
edit: just realized that maybe you’re trying to be funny and I’m slow on the uptake
What is a ‘tankie’?
Apologists for Chinese/Russian government.
In theory, the things the other replies said.
In practice, anything left of the average Lemmy.world liberal/democrat.
I don’t Lemmy enough to say there are zero hexbear users who are pro China or pro wtfever people say, but I see almost none of the ridiculous shit the rest of Lemmy claim exclusively happens there. What I DO see is liberals (usually from lemmy.world if we’re swinging at instances) talking ridiculous trollish shit to hexbear users than using the silly trollish responses they get in response to justify these “all hexbears want to give America to Xi Jinping” posts.
I dunno, I ended up blocking the instance way before I knew about their reputation (like, when I first joined Lemmy) because all of the users their kept posting the most unhinged shit.
I have definitely seen blatant apologism for China/Russia from them.
FWIW, I’m much further left than your average Democrat (I consider myself a leftist/anarchist). I personally don’t consider what I’ve seen from them to be very “left”, just authoritarian.
I was sure to not be an absolutist for a reason, I’m not always cruising Lemmy. Hexbear in particular absolutely has a sense of humor sometimes that I myself am a bit old for, but judging them for that is very much more “Old man yelling at clouds” than anything. If you don’t like it, sure, but that doesn’t say A or B about them.
Maybe there’s blatant apologism, but in my experience it’s people taking whatever scraps they can find to claim “Apologism.” For example, discussing high speed rail development in China. Admiring a rail system isn’t “blatant apologism,” but most lemmy liberals would call it as such, because it was built by China. It’s like calling me a Putin apologist for discussing Dostoyevsky. Yes, I’m admiring a creation of the country or it’s culture, but I’m not saying that their current governments are the only way forward or really saying anything about governance at all.
Again, I’m not claiming you haven’t seen something “blatant” before (I could name so many one off events I’ve witnessed that don’t hold to norms,) I’m just saying that people claiming it to be this widespread norm on every leftist instance are spreading disinformation.
Sure, perhaps it’s possible that I saw an unusually high amount of apologists, but I’m saying that it happened enough times and consistently enough that it prompted me to block them before I even knew anything about them, which I think at least says something. I won’t claim to know what the majority opinion there is, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it’s an abnormal amount.
Don’t be gaslit, Russian warcrimes enjoyers are running wild on Nazbear.
What you saw is what I saw too, and that’s just disgusting. Don’t be fooled.
I’ve seen them pulling the debatebro tactics they complain about, and feigning ignorance when you talk about their favorite dictators.
Those people aren’t acting in good faith, and are trying to manipulate you. They’re pissed that they’re being treated like pariahs and are defederated from everything, because their influence has shrunk significantly and they’ve essentially been defanged (they’re getting banned left and right, even by real lefties).
As I mentioned, I’d be inclined to wonder what you’re considering “apologism.” The fact that you didn’t address the points I made makes me think you fall into that camp of boiling an intentionally wide array of ideas, conversation, etc down to “apologism” to take up arms against instances you don’t like. I see discussion of those countries, and examples of things that are happening there, but not one time have I seen people celebrating violence or excusing it on either hexbear or .ml.
the original origin of the term was a group british communists attacking anyone who supported the Soviet Union’s crushing of the hungarian uprising in 1956. it then morphed into a term used to attack anyone who supports the use of force and authority in general to suppress counter revolutionaries. it’s final degeneration is that it is now used to attack anyone to the left of an american democrat like facebones said.
here is a good article about it. To be clear: this is written from the perspective of a marxist leninist, who are normally the number one target of being called a “tankie”. Still, it is very short, and redsails is a really cool website that has the footnotes with citations pop up as you read long
It’s extremely unconvincing to say “Sure it was horrible last time, but next time it’ll be different.” Trotskyists and ultraleftists compensate by prettying up their picture of socialism and picking more obscure (usually short-lived) experiments to uphold as the real deal. But this just gives ammunition to those who say “Socialism doesn’t work” or “Socialism is a utopian fantasy.” And lurking behind the whole conversation is Stalin, who for the average Westerner represents the unadvisability of trying to radically change the world at all. No matter how much you insist that your thing isn’t Stalinist, the specter of Stalin is still going to affect how people think about (any form of) socialism — tankies have decided that there is no getting around the problem of addressing Stalin’s legacy. That legacy, as it stands, at least in Western public opinion (they feel differently about him in other parts of the world), is largely the product of Cold War propaganda.
That’s the gist. Then he goes on with another paragraph of whataboutism but of course not a single mention of the tens of millions of dead both, Stalin and Mao, were responsible for.
Of course he’s also an western armchair socialist. People that actually lived in the Sowjet Union (and not in today’s Russia) draw quite a different picture.
It’s interesting how the only criticism anybody can drum up is “tens of millions dead,” but nobody bats an eye at the death toll of capitalism, capitalist countries, and their endless war machine/endless interference in other countries via funding coups or outright assassinations in support of harmful leaders who will play nice with the corporations.
Your link describes discussion of labor camps as if it’s some long lost relic of a bygone era - but slavery of inmates is, right now, legal and prevalent in the US subsidizing private industries for pennies on the dollar. It references the conditions of the camps, but plenty of current US inmates face subhuman conditions and treatment. You imply that everybody suffered all the time under the Soviets, but a far from insignificant number (depending on how you do the numbers, with more support for the USSR than we have for our own government this past decade or so) remember the USSR fondly, or at least as better than their current governments.
All the things y’all constantly belt about to argue socialism is the great evil of the world is shit we do now that you support as long as it benefits private entities instead of public. I’m not going to argue that everything was perfect, or that nobody was corrupt, but I WILL argue that y’all spend a lot of time defending those same imperfections and corruptions under capitalism with this lazy weak ass “but fixing it would be spooky scary socialism” argument. Per the common reasons people call socialism a failure, so is capitalism. That’s why leftists call for, as you call it, “prettied up” socialism - not to fool people, but because what we’re doing now is FAILING EVERYBODY and tripling down on funneling even more of our economy to 1-3% of the population hasn’t helped anything so it’s time for something different and realistic change is gradual, not “seizing the means of production” overnight. Practically, we find a functional balance like the rest of the “first” world.
To co-opt my criticism of zionists defending genocide with the “1,200 dead” figure: If tens of millions dead under socialism makes you so mad, just wait til you hear about the hundreds of millions dead under capitalism.
((I don’t know anything about how to do the thing notating an image so in the off chance it helps someone: Drake No/Yes Meme DrakeNo - tyranny.gov DrakeYes - tyranny.com ))
Yet more whataboutism. This thread is about tankies not capitalist slavery.
Maybe you shouldn’t have defended your point with a link using these talking points then if you didn’t want them responded to.
Thanks for proving my point though about liberals just saying shit then going “SeEeEe??!?!” no matter the response.
the tens of millions of dead both, Stalin and Mao, were responsible for.
Oh no! Won’t somebody think of the Nazis and Japanese invaders?
Stalin and Mao both killed a hell of a lot of their own people that is what they are referring to
They said “tens of millions”, the only number of people killed that matches that scope is the number of enemy combatants in world war 2.
Regardless, the Kulaks and the Landlords deserved it.
Mao was responsible for the deaths of 30-50M in famine. Estimates of Stalins score from famine, execution, forced relocation, labor camps is more difficult to ascertain. Estimates range from 3 -20M. Whether you disagree with this estimate it is incredibly likely that the prior poster was referencing the 33M–70M who died in intolerable conditions not the nazis.
The fact that you justify the state getting in the systemic murder business for any cause is a fundamental difference between our understanding of what can ever be morally acceptable.
The thing is, delinking socialism from Stalin also means delinking it from the Soviet Union, disavowing everything that’s been done under the name of socialism as “Stalinist.” The “socialism” that results from this procedure is defined as grassroots, bottom-up, democratic, non-bureaucratic, nonviolent, non-hierarchical… in other words, perfect. So whenever real revolutionaries (say, for example, the Naxals in India) do things imperfectly they are cast out of “socialism” and labeled “Stalinists.” This is clearly an example of respectability politics run amok. Tankies believe that this failure of solidarity, along with the utopian ideas that the revolution can win without any kind of serious conflict or without party discipline, are more significant problems for the left than is “authoritarianism” (see Engels for more on this last point). [5] We believe that understanding the problems faced by Stalin and Mao helps us understand problems generic to socialism, that any successful socialism will have to face sooner or later. This is much more instructive and useful than just painting nicer and nicer pictures of socialism while the world gets worse and worse.
this is directly preceding it. Even if I accepted your frankly hilarious black book of communism death tolls, the argument here is that the soviet union and China still greatly improved the lives of the average citizen compared to what came before while facing huge problems that you would crumble upon immediately upon encountering, like imminent war from the west that they predicted and prepared for correctly. As far as your other claim, it’s not nearly so simple as you make it out to be:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/21/why-do-so-many-people-miss-the-soviet-union/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ebrd-transition-survey-idUSKBN1422U2/
edit: also, nia frome is a trans woman
This essay resonates with me, thanks for sharing, the author makes her points pretty effectively. I’m not a historian and I don’t know shit, but I think even if I give the critics the concession that everything is absolute rubbish, I still think there’s no convincing argument that the beliefs are dishonest or malicious or not genuine.
There’s so much bullshit and conflicting views about literally every historical event that I find it really hard to penetrate the context of the discussion and feel confident in anything, but I think the fact that I keep seeing people who hold “tankie” opinions dismissed as malicious propagandists pushes me very strongly towards feeling that the critics have not made any attempt to seriously engage with the ideas they’re fighting against.
I think the realization I’m coming to now is that when part of your ideology is that people who claim belief in a specific conflicting worldview can be dismissed as bots or propagandists, finding out that those people aren’t manufactured makes it a lot harder to take everything else you’ve said seriously.
On the other hand, the guy you’re replying to is correct that the author’s points fall completely flat and are ridiculous once you hunt down that specific paragraph and remove the context immediately before and after. Then it becomes obvious to an unbiased reader that the author actually ignored communist death tolls because it was inconvenient for her argument.
glad it managed to reach someone! If you want the best nuanced review of Stalin from anyone anywhere, you will have to read Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo (free pdf here!). It is well sourced, and also uses western sources that should be biased against stalin to make its arguments! review on the same site as the tankies article here: https://redsails.org/on-losurdos-stalin/
additionally, some other articles I highly recommend if you want to understand our position better:
https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
https://redsails.org/the-case-for-socialized-ownership/
https://redsails.org/concessions/
https://redsails.org/what-is-dialectics/
https://redsails.org/communist-self-confidence/most of these are quite a bit longer, so sorry to flood you with them, but I’m always eager to share these excellent articles with anyone who will consider reading them!
Tankie is such a weird thing to call these communists. They are way way less violent than liberals and conservatives are. They don’t even support any on going genocides like the others do.
The historical through-line is that the term originated from British Communists that supported the USSR putting down the Hungarian Counter-Revolution, which involved tanks and violent fighting.
Nowadays, Tankie is used for everyone left of liberalism that agrees with the Marxist theory of the State, rather than the Anarchist, it’s muddled and has no meaning.
If you say something wrong about something they care about and you can’t back it up, they’re going to be rude to you.
The one dude I spoke that was decent and respectful asked for proof of the Uygher genocide, gave him proof, the proof wasn’t good enough. Gave him more proof told me it still wasn’t good enough. Figured it wasn’t worth it anymore because he’s denying everything I give him. Told him he has a movable goal post and peace be with him. Blocked the community and just found out today they banned me. There probably are people that willing to have a dialog, but the few are giving all a bad rep
Do you have a link to that conversation? I’m interested in what your proof looked like.
Based on the link another user had to provide, you received a lengthy criticism of your logic and sources and then didn’t handle it well.
Now you are here calling them crazy.
I think I handled very well. The one person continued to refuse my assignment, so I left before OP, and I was going to get at each other’s throats. I got nothing at all against OP because they were cool. I’m pretty sure I said that 100 times by now. It was everyone else that was the problem.
They’re not insane, they’re just victims of tribal thinking like the rest of us. Very narrow worldview reinforced by the others around them, bashing outsiders, thinking “they” are smarter than everyone else. Mostly, they see themselves as good and everyone else as bad, which isn’t very unique among humans either. I don’t think hexbear is worse than anywhere else.
You’re doing the same right now probably.
Honestly my only issue with them is literally anyone who is not them is “an evil pro-genocide lib” (lib, liberal is like the biggest insult they can throw at you as it’s essentially the definition of their opposition.) Doesn’t exactly feel great to see an entire community see you as the absolute evil and everything that is wrong with the world just because you may not agree that an economy run by committee is the best way, or that an authoritarian “vanguard” is the right way to a better society.
If they’re all about workers solidarity and community then they should try to see us if anything as simply “ignorant” not stupid, not willingly aiding genocide, just lacking information that they could help share. Instead a lot of them are just vicious. There are some like Cowbee that seem like good people who want to help others understand their views.
♥️
Doesn’t exactly feel great to see an entire community see you as the absolute evil and everything that is wrong with the world just because you may not agree that an economy run by committee is the best way, or that an authoritarian “vanguard” is the right way to a better society.
There are many Anarchists on Hexbear, by the way.
Additionally, what is your conception of the Vanguard that leads you to call it “authoritarian?” The IWW is a vanguard, as is PSL. The role of the Vanguard is essentially to be the most knowledgeable and dedicated to proletarian liberation among the Workers, to help educate and organize.
You catch more flies with honey than vinegar indeed:-).
That’s a phrase I live my life by to be honest lol
It is a good one. I mean, there are definitely situations where being not-nice is required, e.g. police dealing with a shooting spree in-progress that shows no sign of abating on its own, but as a whole, I do think society would progress much more smoothly if people were to live by that. (and by “that” I mean logic as a whole, of which this is only one tiny piece:-P)
You are correct. Do your mental health a favour and block that instance along with lemmygrad.
Problem is that blocking the instance doesn’t block these clowns’ comments on other instances, you have to do a lot of manual blocking.
Lemm.ee basically doesn’t defederate anything. You should probably go to an instance that defederates those instances.
While I would prefer defederation in this case, I found being on an instance ran by competent admin small price to pay.
Where are people seeing this hexbear and lemmygrad content? I use the Thunder client with a lemmy.world account. I don’t have those instances blocked but never see anything from them. Is it because I created my account on lemmy.world?
My experience is that people in lemmy.world are intolerant bigots.
Yes, Everyone. the bots, the human user, me, and even you. You can’t escape it.
Yeah but my insane is cheeky and fun. Their insane is cruel and tragic
I’m going to pistol whip the next person who says shenanigans
Hey EABOD25, what’s the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
Insane!? You’re talking about Insane right?
No, no. The one with the wild and wacky activities!
You and @[email protected] aren’t on hexbear, though, are you?
I normally search search by “all” when scrolling and I’ll see one or two posts from there. I haven’t really figured out all the technicals, but I see posts from all instances
Sure, but I meant you asked if everyone in hexbear is insane, and they included you and themselves in the hexbear server, I think?
Anyway, you can block users/communities/servers, still. Maybe that can improve your experience?
