On stuff outside of lemmygrad, we are receiving a lot of hate, especially by those who just moved from Reddit. Guess they lost their hidden privilege at Reddit as their rhetoric used to be almost universal over there, while genzedong and our other subs get censored and banned. And now, on lemmy, their stuff isn’t universal, as we are more prevalent here. Seems like they really want that hidden privilege back
The really good news is that all the communities on lemmy.ml have been created long before radlibs showed up, and are administered by sane people.
That post on !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone got me fked up because one of the comments there was like “authoritarian communism” is an oxymoron actually 🤓 and another was like “Marxism is not materialism” and it had double digit upvotes.
Like jesus WHAT THE FUXK are you on about. Read Marx and Engels. Read Lenin.
It’s like arguing with toddlers.
Read Marx and Engels. Read Lenin.
Marx is a tankie, Engels is a tankie, Lenin is a tankie.
You lost them at asking them to read. They do not read.
This is false. They can definitely read… Twitter and reddit and anything else pumped out by the feds that comes in short quips with no real background information or data backing it up.
Stalin dunks on these types in Anarchism or Socialism it’s funny af, some say Marxism bad bc it’s materialism, some say it’s bad because it’s not materialism, some say it’s bad because they don’t understand the what type of materialism it is, and don’t even get him started on what Nobati and Sh. G. thinks of Dialectics😪
dear comrades living and dead, please help give me the self control not to try arguing with all the “Lemmy is anti human rights” takes polluting the fediverse rn 🙏
outrage liberals are the worst
I deeply care about human rights
Must be one of the most nebulous and abstract things you can stand for. What rights? The right to die on the street? The right to monopoly?
The right to be airstriked by NATO peacekeepers, duh
The right to be forced to work to earn back the right to exist
I wonder if it’s struck them yet that, as their neoliberal platform fails, other platforms built on fundamentally better ideas and infrastructure are rising up. I wonder if this challenges their preconceived notions at all? Nah, it’s just a bunch of tankies.
It is definitely inducing cognitive dissonance. The developers are simply are communists trying to collectivize social media, and that will live in their heads rent free as long as they stick around.
I saw someone comment, in an almost gleeful manner “I didn’t even know of the word Tankie until today!” like a kid who just learned about the word “Fuck”. 🙄
liberals flooding OUR website and then saying to kick us out is hilarious to me
Lemmy.ml banned my account there lol. Why are they so concerned with a little bullying of liberals?
Lemmy is tone policed… apparently except when someone is calling us “red fash”, that’s not bannable.
really makes you wonder about the proclivities of the devs tbh
You gotta get the normies on the network for the network effect to take off!
i hate to say it, but i don’t want the network effect taking off. in fact, that’s a sign it’s time to leave. is it possible to ever just have a smallish community where real discussion and ideas can flourish without the rest of the US dragging everything down to the lowest common denominator?
You can always just only stay here, the admins are great about banning the wandering reddit libs pretty quickly
I guess you have to ask yourself, are we spreading ideas and looking to chip away at the predominant hegemony, or do we want to self isolate?
One of the nice things about lemmy.ml is that it starts from a far left perspective and as a result of reddits own unmaking, places normies in a position of no longer being the predominant opinion in the room.
This has two outcomes from what I can guess:
- Normies show up in droves, and their perspectives shift as a result of having to defend their point of view for once.
- Normies show up, but leave because they can’t handle not being able to call forth the shibaliths they’re so accustom to, and having their points of view challenged on equal grounds.
Or normies show up and take over?
You think they’re going to take over lemmygrad, or hexbear? The thing about federation is that you can avoid the outcome you’re talking about by only federating with communities that share our values.
Isn’t that what the entire federation point is? We can keep this community and keep it insular.
To expect that lemmy as a whole can remotely be the same as lemmygrad is delusional and indicative of being way too online. If anything having lemmy as a whole being more moderate and broader based is a propagandistic tool (not that it even matters that much, online is fake, join a party).
Gramscian hegemonic analysis with regards to the superstructural “war” is silly as fuck and a huge waste of time. We will never have hegemony offline or online under capitalism, the smart response is to adapt, propagate our ideas where it makes sense, and act strategically.
Honestly for me online is mostly a venting space, I see literally zero value over debating libs in that area. Pushing a counter narrative has some use yes, but even then that impact is minimal, and conclusive to at best the worst recruits you can possibly imagine.
edit: it’s also a dogshit habit when it comes to mass work where you have to interact with countless ideologically backwards elements in the organized working class. You will never find purity. Going full guns blazing on libs is a time and place and contextual situation and you need to learn how to not flip the fuck out over backwards and even reactionary ideas in those settings, because doing that will lead you to never be able to stamp them out amongst the masses.
Man… I haven’t been on reddit in quite a while but I don’t remember it being such a shitlibfest. It’s really bad and it pretty well overran lemmy.ml immediately.
It puts me in an odd spot because I care amd believe in Lemmy as a project and I want it to grow, but on the other hand it was kinda nice to not be called a fascist… because im a communist… because that somehow makes me the antithesis of communism
I think there will be an adjustment period, where the Reddit habits will continue to be exhibited. Most redditors have been heavily propagandized for years. Those that stick around and don’t end up in defederated instances will eventually grow more and more deprogrammed.
There’s currently a big push on reddit to keep the protesting communities away from a lemmy migration (downvotes, censored comments, highly upvtoed suggestions towards irrelevant alternatives that are owned by corporations and not part of the Fediverse). I suspect that the massive Western psyops mechanism is afraid to lose one of their most effective echo-chambers.
The only concern I have is that lemmy.ml is already leaning towards tone policing, which makes it somewhat susceptible to be taken over by the shitlibs and fascists.
How are they leaning towards tone policing?
I think we need to some easier ground for people to land and figure out an alternative to propaganda exists. That’s the role of main lemmy.ml, in my opinion, being a landing pad. I think it would be sensible to remind people that the place for talk between tankies is here, not there. And arguably, some general communities here should be more accessible to the “general” public than others.
People that give themselves the work to come check us out need to be happy to see sensible people, and sensible discussions, even though we know and are angry at seeing the same pattern and problem everywhere. There’s a path, a funnel to understanding that. And everyone is in their own personal journey. Our role is to feed them and give them directions.
We didn’t get here because someone though us. We got here because someone fed our curiosity. And there’s different food for different stages of curiosity.
Lemmy.ml mods/admins tend to remove heated discussions. That by itself is not necessarily bad, but it has been taken advantage of by various alt-right characters who were seeking to troll or propagandize under the guise of “asking questions in a civil manner”, then reported anyone who responded to them in an even slightly offensive manner. That will certainly be happening again with the massive migration from reddit.
As for the rest of it. I completely agree, and that was my original point: Be patient and engage the new arrivals. At the very least, it’ll help them grow out of the behaviours reddit has taught them.
How are they leaning towards tone policing?
The rules lean towards “civility” over the actual content of what is said, which left it vulnerable to “just asking questions” types. It’s being revised after a spat with a TERF who took advantage of those rules.
Reddit tends to ban commies. It’s like a mini red scare: with the left removed, the right thrives.
Just you wait until US newscorps start advocating to ban the entirety of lemmy and its source code from the USA.
obviously the Chinese are making us all think for ourselves and talk amongst ourselves… there could be no other answer
“China is a censorship dictatorship and we should ban all things that come from there to protect our free speech.” liberals probably
The regularity in which I have this exact conversation with my local friends group is exhausting. Admittedly, its only one out of the few, but they are by far the loudest. The same nonsense about “changes to movies” because they want to also be released in China. “Can’t say anything because CHINA has MONEY and the entertainment corporations want their money!!”
probablyactually
If Imperial America suffers a crisis even severer than the one in the summer of 2020, that would become a serious possibility.
Idk man, I got a temporary ban for saying that ACAB means all cops and some dipshit told me to read Lenin’s State and Revolution lmao. Seems to me like a lot of people on here are just having dick measuring contests about how far left they are.
I don’t think I’m a liberal. If you have any kind of empathy at all for a fellow human and look outside (in the US, at least), I really don’t see how you can come to a conclusion that isn’t “Holy shit capitalism causes so much harm and suffering we need to find to do something else.”.
I don’t know what flavor of leftist I am. I looked at anarchism for a bit and I ultimately found it really idealistic. No one seems to agree on what a “just hierarchy” is, and anarchists as a whole seems to argue for the complete annihilation of any hierarchy. I really wonder how they’re going to run a hospital in an anarchist fashion.
But at the same time, I don’t want to create something worse. I don’t want to help build an authoritarian regime that paves over people’s individuality and rights. I’ve seen the outcomes of that and I just can’t agree with that.
I probably look dumb saying this but my preferred ideal society is pretty much Star Trek.
Hey, just want to say that I think you’re on the right track! A lot of us felt this way before (at least I know I did for the most part), I would highly reccomend reading marxist theory, imo it really does answer a lot of these misgivings. If you don’t want to read, there are a lot of audiobooks out there, or even just starting with beginner socialist videos is ok
I’ve read the communist manifesto in high school. Since those years, I’ve struggled with reading any kind of long-form text. It’s something I’m trying to work on as it causes a lot of strife in day-to-day life.
I will gladly take audiobook recommendations.
I didnt get a notification for this for some reason, damn lemmy bugs… anyways I’m not super into audio books, but I like socialism for all’s voice, here’s a playlist starting with “On Authority” by Engels and going through a lot of other ones on socialism vs anarchism.
If you want something more modern, there’s also this audiobook of Black Shirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, which is less theory and more a history book in a way. I would probably recommend at least listening to On Authority first, it’s only 9 minutes compared to like 6 hours for Black Shirts and Reds
If you like his voice, there’s a ton of playlists labeled by author or topic on his channel
Dessalines also has a lot, like non-degetic said
I don’t know much about audiobooks, but I recommend reading/listening to Principles of Commumism. It’s, in my opinion, a better introductory text than the manifesto and also quite short. It’s essentially a communism FAQ written by Engels.
I came across this comment today, and it really makes me wonder how people just dismiss intellectual curiosity outright.
yes!!! they’re everywhere and anytime I see someone bring it up someone comments some shit about having an open mind… uhhh no???
Unlike the side many of them seem to blindly and militantly defend, the side they rage against is not asking for blind adherence to beliefs. You have to open yourself up to questioning your beliefs; there is no value in a closed mind.
Yeah they have the audacity to invade our space and then complain, and when we try to tell them to have an open mind, they respond with “tankes”.
Wait until the liberals find out that free and open source decentralized networks like Lemmy align with the general direction of communism.
( At least, I assume it does. I may be very wrong. In which case, I apologize. )
Ah yes. The big communist governments are known for * checks notes * their staunch, unmoving ideals of free speech.
You should talk to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange about free speech.
“free speech” without consequence from the state has never existed, and certainly not in capitalist states
Everyone click on the All button and start participating in federation.
Worst thing that can happen is the liberals complain.
But if you’re going to be participating on lemmy.ml please don’t make the admins’ job harder, respect the instance rules. They’re already working overtime to handle the influx of new users across the software.
If you’re going to throw around “liberals” as some sort of derogatory “us vs them” term then you should probably think twice before clicking all.
There are two sides to any coin. Check yourself before you shit on other people, to make sure you’re not just proving yourself to be at least as bad as them.
liberals is a derogatory term lol
You have the same pfp as @ParentiBot@lemmygrad.ml
The quote
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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Yes, thank you, I’ve been posting on lemmy.ml for 4 years now.
Unfortunately the more invested and “hardcore” Redditors still tend to be libertarians, although a lot of run-of-the-mill liberals are now included in that group.
So what happens when you get tons of them leaving a platform en masse? They’ll bring their reactionary toxicity with them, claiming “no hatred” or “bigotry-free”, while enabling pro-rulling class rhetoric and blanket-banning/defederating with communists. At least this split on Mastodon isn’t as heavy as it was already filled with a lot of “leftists”, and as there aren’t really any explicitly ML instances available, a lot of communists are intermingled in left-leaning spaces.
Here though? They can push all their ire onto lemmygrad.ml, alienating a pretty big chunk users if they defederate, even worse if they eventually do so with lemmy.ml given the admin crossover.
they eventually do so with lemmy.ml given the admin crossover.
There’s an admin crossover?
Yes, both are run by the devs who are of course communists. These were the two original lemmy instances: lemmy.ml was the “standard” flagship to show what lemmy was capable of, while lemmygrad was the communist space
Which of our admins are on the dev team?
I don’t really consider myself a liberal or a communist. Maybe some mixture of both? I have my own ideals that probably align mostly with eastern philosophy, and maybe some more “esoteric” practices. Id like to think im well read, for being a mostly uneducated person, and I’m very accepting of just about everyone outside of violence or blind hatred, but I have never heard the term “tankie” until reddit. Is it a reference to Tiannemen Sq or something? Just curious as I like to know as much as I can. Thanks.
Also, as someone who’s coming from reddit as of yesterday, it’s kinda cool seeing more than one political ideal, as I really don’t think there is a “perfect” system. Humans are flawed in their very nature, and tbh, we’re a little late to “get it right”.
Tankie is a meaningless term now, the deprogram just did an episode on it:
It’s also on other platforms like spotify etc.
I really loved Hakim’s take on it being a very privileged position within the imperial core to scold those who see the state as crucial to sustained revolution.
yes! Same thing for how I came to understand the hatred for American soldiers. A lot of the cheering for the bad shit that happens to them comes from people who actually suffer from their actions, and made me examine how I viewed the military
That discussion was halfway identical to my own commentary on the term four years ago. It’s a vague buzzword about 90% of the time and I’m ashamed to say that I said it unjokingly in my Fedbook days. After I understood why the people’s republics were appealing to so many (rather than dismissing the defenders as mindlessly desperate), I let go of my grudge and quit using the term for anything other than comedic purposes.
Hearing that podcast made me wish that I could have a live conversation with Hakim. Although at this point I’d be interested in having a live conversation with any communist. In that format they’d be likelier to offer active feedback on the history that I share.
It’s funny, I remember reading a takedown of this same article from criticalresist, https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/400717
Guess great minds think alike lol.
I agree, talking to other communists is awesome!
Is it a reference to Tiannemen Sq or something? Just curious as I like to know as much as I can. Thanks.
No, it’s a reference to Khrushchev sending tanks into Hungary during the 1956 revolt. Leftist supporters of this policy within Western nations were referred to as “Tankies” since then the term came to generally just refer to Marxist-Leninists. That is until more recently when Tankie has come to mean just any leftist a person disagrees with.
If you’re interested in leftist theory then go to Marxists.org, it has plenty of free literature. I suggest starting with the communist manifesto just to get a general idea of the principles of communism before delving deeper into Marx and Engel’s work. (And maybe sprinkle in some Lenin too cause he’s sassy and a great read.)
That is until more recently when Tankie has come to mean just any leftist a person disagrees with.
While there are undoubtedly people that use the term like that, I think there is a general understanding that it refers to people that can excuse or support authoritarian or oppressive actions
But the terminology ‘authoritarian and oppressive’ doesn’t really make sense in leftist circles where all states are understood to be just that by definition. I mean, that’s why people are socialists. Tankie is lib terminology referencing anything that undermines liberal democracy. It only makes sense when coming from anarchists.
You’ve never had the pleasure of interacting with someone that can produce endless excuses for the USSR or PRC?
Found the lib
Sure 🙄
Yes, but that doesn’t make them more authoritarian or oppressive because no matter what every state is using what it deems the most effective path to enforcing its will and if that means violence it will always resort to violence. It makes them bad communists.
It’s not a matter of oppression or no oppression but a matter of oppressing the right people. If the USSR and PRC were perfect they would be a contradiction to their own purpose, no?
Look amigo, I get there is a lot of depth to be had in a discussion like this, but I’m just explaining what people generally mean when they say tankie.
I would agree they are bad Communists, but unfortunately they are extremely visible and influence how non-Leftists see Communists, which is why many Leftists are quick and eager to disavow any connection with them.
They are bad because they oppress the privileged, I assume. The privileged do not need communism. Leave communism to the unprivileged people.
Hey, I am one of them. The usa is always 100x worse, arguing does not change this reality.
Nobody was arguing that, two things can both do bad.
The point there is not that the USA is bad but that it is order of magnitudes worse, which means that opposing its enemies must be considered through the lens of “Does this help the US?”
To say nothing of the incredible amount of State Department propaganda that many western so-called leftists readily accept at the same time as “disavowing” the US as “also bad”. If you believe the same things about the US’s enemies that the US is actively campaigning to make you believe, that is a red flag.
There is a world war going on and I have picked the side that fights against the usa.
Words that can only be spoken by someone who’s never tried to get together with others to change things for the better. You don’t get to take an entire society and immediately make it equitable and free it of centuries of hangups. You do the revolution with the people in your country, warts and all, and struggle to make them better at the same time. You do not have the luxury of only organizing people that already 100% agree with you, nor will you be “in charge”. And, let’s be honest: any of us in charge would bring our own hangups, because all of us look back on ourselves 5-10 years ago and say, “wow that person believed some problematic things”.
For example, the October Revolution and Russuan Civil War were fought by, believe it or not, Russians born (mostly) in the 1800s in a semi-feudal country without universal education and a large peasantry. The communists were incredibly progressive in comparison to the rest of thr country. But because they retained some of the harmful biases of their culture at the time, you write off the whole project and carry around little lists in your head about how actually they were also just “bad”.
Only that it is almost never the case. And never when people start giving your talking point.
It’s good to endlessly excuse the USSR and PRC, as most criticisms of them are bullsit that is only believable by people with poor knowledge of history and zero capacity to critically engage with the media. Unfortunately, this is basically everyone under capitalism.
It’s good to endlessly excuse the USSR and PRC
It really isn’t
I suggest you read the entire argument before responding to it.
