if you’ll pardon me complaining about this publicly: some of the meanest mfs i’ve met online are internet-poisoned communists. If i weren’t already a marxist-leninist, i would have some very unsavory ideas about what communists are like.
Lemmygrad and Hexbear are very nice places, thank you comrades _ … but elsewhere, even IRL, i’ve met incredibly rude people calling themselves communists and i need to stress this: if you want people on our side, you need to give good impressions of what we’re like. Don’t be hostile or dismissive or just violently anti-social. If you have to explain something for the millionth time to yet another liberal or anarchist… do it [insert Sankara quote], or at least find a nice way of saying you don’t want to. Save your offensive capabilities for people who deserve it. And please, PLEASE, go outside occasionally. IRL interaction is healthy, and will quickly kill any terminally online behaviours you might have. Maybe join an org while you’re at it ;)
i’ll stop stating the obvious now. Have a great day, comrades.
Dutch left is going through this now. Everyone right of the center party Green/Labor is a racist and everyone left of them is a traitor. People who get caught up in the right wing web of lies are called racist, dumb, stupid, whatever. It’s like they expect everyone to somehow end up on the left side of the spectrum without doing any outreach and while calling everyone who disagrees with them names. Meanwhile the far right welcomes these people with open arms while explaining how a brown refugee is responsible for Shell not paying taxes on their 36 billion euro profit.
Get off your high horse. Reach out to the people. Be nice to them and never stop explaining.