It's both. Popular fronts are a thing, and Spanish Republican style coalitions are incredibly powerful tools. Political pluralism within leftist movements is healthy when we let it be healthy. The CIA, FBI, and various governments and reactionary groups have engaged in psyops against this for decades.
But these divisions are real and they come from real ideological differences and hurt. The CIA didn't force the red army to fire on the black armies, it didn't force the blunder of ideology at Kronstadt, it didn't force the betrayal in Spain. And it also didn't force anarchists to have issues controlling their people or implementing their goals. It didn't force the syndicalists to fuck up in South America and Berlin. And it didn't force the USSR and CCP to nearly go to war with each other.
What they did do however is project Gladius, COINTELPRO, operation condor, and various other anti left programs. They made damn sure Fred Hampton died and they made sure the Black Panthers couldn't trust each other enough to be effective. They also made sure the inner cities were filled with crack to destroy black anti capitalist organizing.
And here's where you get the mix. Anarchists already don't trust MLs, because of the aforementioned betrayals and disorganization, then you get government campaigns working to ensure that trust remains broken and that the culture becomes one in which cooperation is anathema. And the trots are kept distrustful of the MLs and the anarchists. MLs are encouraged to keep thinking of themselves as the only real socialists except MLMs. It's similar to the Russian campaigns between democrats and republicans, both already didn't like each other and the goal is to keep picking at the wounds and encouraging off putting behaviors.
Speaking at least in the context of the US, any revolutionary minded leftists (or "leftists", if you prefer) have goals that diverge so far from the present day as to be irrelevant.
Right but it isn't that easy. MLs and Trotskyists were taught things a certain way, a way that developed contrary to each other. Trotskyists and anarchists were purged ruthlessly and that has an effect on our politics. It would be nice to just dispense with it, but its not that easy. As long as people learn organizing from more experienced organizers, we will carry baggage from the past into the future. It takes an enormous amount of work and reflection to overcome, and I argue that most leftists regardless of ideology lack the tools that are needed, because many of us also carry the baggage of philosophical liberalism by default, either we don't know how it affects us or when we do know we act contrary to it, which is still a source of heavy influence.
This isn't being doomer about it, the solution is praxis, but the problems caused by history do actually exist, and have to be reckoned with
An easy thing we can all do, is refrain from sniping at one another online. I don't mean serious discussion in good faith, but throwing barbs and shit.
Yankistanis on their capitalists raining in on societal failures causing division:
Chinese 50 cent army, Russian Bot farms, Tankies. Russian Trolls. We see you, comrade. They're trying to divide us. Reeeeee
Yankistanis when a recorded history of CIA interference, coup, embargo, wars, propaganda where most yankistanis shrieks at the mention of the words and country trying a different economic system:
I've run into some terminally online-dumb shit. Look at my account age and post count for how strong a claim I'm making here:
I'm less terminally online brain poisoned and social media brain rotted than 95% of the people I find in left spaces in California. It's wild.
It's not even about real ideology sometimes. I recommended an essay about why being a cop is bullshit by George Orwell and got iced out of a mutual aid project for 'liking problematic authors', and that's not even the dumbest one. I've been called ableist about a disability I have for saying reading theory has value.
There are real problems in organizing, and I too have seen things like you're describing. I just try not to take part in such petty squabbles. If a group is too wound up with internal politics to get anything done, I just find somewhere else to put my energy.
Yeah. It means I work without other organizers most of the time, bringing people up from total disempowerment. Need to move on pretty often to avoid... excessive regard.
i'm in the same position as you. i'm trying (or rather i tried) to be active in a number of activist groups where i live but most of them are too busy with petty infighting to actually improve anything. that's why i'm so active on lemmy now, because here i feel like i can actually get things done by talking to people, having interesting discussions, learning and teaching stuff.
The revolution is not posting. Go outside. Share a pack of beer or regional hot beverage with a few unhoused people on the sidewalk and chat, vandalize some cameras, build a shadow library operating on secret rootkitted daemons on government servers, grab a machete and hunt fascists like you're something out of a particularly based Asian noir film; whatever your contribution is: do your fucking part.
Do what you like is my point. Posting just isn't the revolution.
It's not great education either! The overwhelming majority here is either too defensive or bad faith, so every discussion is incredibly basic surface pithy and conforming. you get surface bullshit with no depth or background. Long form content-whether that's long private discussions with educated people or a fucking book-has advantages.
This is why I I try to focus on the right and just ignore stupid people on the left. They can be by my side as long as they throw rocks at the fascists.
This is why I work on blind solidarity. If a leftist organization organizes something and I like it I help it and assume they're better than Democrats. If I think its demonic I ignore it.
Plus I like bragging about achieving to an infighter
It's not all CIA. In fact, in a lot of cases, it's just human nature, especially our tribalism. I have seen the same amount of "leftist gatekeepers" by ratio as I've seen fandom ones, often on the same exact beats being translated into leftist linguo.
Granted, nobody needs a conspiracy or invisible hand to create problems like this.
That said, it's far easier to look for weak points to exploit for political means, than build a new movement from whole cloth. In the US, ideological divisions, wedge topics, racism, and even the ghost of the Civil War, have all been used to sow division for various means.
Many of the early neoconservatives were members of “the family,” Murray Kempton’s apt designation for that disputatious tribe otherwise known as the New York intellectuals. They had come of age in the 1930s at the City College of New York (CCNY), a common destination for smart working-class Jews who otherwise might have attended Ivy League schools, where quotas prohibited much Jewish enrollment until after World War II.
Gertrude Himmelfarb, Irving Kristol, and their milieu learned the art of polemics during years spent in the CCNY cafeteria’s celebrated Alcove No. 1, where young Trotskyists waged ideological warfare against the Communist students who occupied Alcove No. 2. During their flirtations with Trotskyism in the 1930s, when tussles with other radical students seemed like a matter of life and death, future neoconservatives developed habits of mind that never atrophied.
They held on to their combative spirits, their fondness for sweeping declarations, and their suspicion of leftist dogma. Such an epistemological background endowed neoconservatives with what seemed like an intuitive capacity for critiquing New Left arguments. They were uniquely qualified for the job of translating New Left discourses for a conservative movement fervent in its desire to know its enemy.
basically the ideal text length is 1-2 paragraphs where you say your opinion, not longer than that, because longer text easily is perceived as a wall of text, and that's very exhausting to read.
Basically my ideal piece of text looks like this:
3-5 paragraphs, 1-3 lines each, and 1-2 images strewn into it.
in separate but related news, high-calorie food is better digested when it's mixed with lots of low-calorie fiber. relevant link
edit: to clarify, it's relevant because it's the same with ideas. "high-impact ideas" are better received when they're mixed with a lot of low-impact context and examples.
I'm familiar with both the formal and informal versions of this idea. I actually wrote a pretty good essay on it for a communications class like twenty years ago.
Doesn't change the fact that some ideas simply are not easily or legally conveyed in this format. Many, in fact. Some of them really fucking important. Lefties who got their entire grasp of shit from twitter posts are useful primarily as mass.
You're an addict defending your brain rot surrender as noble crusade for truth. I won't scold you for not doing the hardest kind of activism, but dont entrench yourself in the failures of those around you to make space for you and not suck by defining your cope as high morality.
In an ecosystem full of text-based discussions, a single individual putting up an enormous wall of text that fails to engage the reader is often ignored in favor of a number of smaller posts layout out the argument piecemeal.
Also, iterative comments expressing the same view in a few short words can reinforce the idea as popular in the eyes of a reader. A long winded spiel can come across as defensive, by comparison, and weaken the argument in the end.
See, I feel like 'can read a book every month or so' isn't all that much.
That this is considered broadly difficult, much less impossible is terrifying. Something is very very wrong here.
The fact you don't understand that simple idea despite reading it (I hope reading it) like five times here is not promising. I feel like if we're just going to keep looping here, I'm done.
"walls of text" are anything that's hard to read because it's very long, tedious, without a clear format or structure, and mostly boring because it repeats itself in 5 variations without any clear reason.
Most people even on the left are just tribal, doing things for group membership and not really understanding or caring about underlying ethics. Most people haven't read a single book of theory¹, and if they have they didn't understand it.
They might be doing vaguely the right thing,but they're probably doing it because that's where they made friends. It's not a bad reason, it's just not really that radical. They don't care about truth much more than the average howling christofascist orc does; they mostly judge information on group acceptance like everybody else, and just fell into a less awful group.
exactly my experience. people actually looking at data and making decisions based on reality is rare. most people adhere to group-think and do what their friends think is acceptable.
Believe it or not, not everyone needs or wants to live the exact same way. We dont need to agree on how to live our lives to have solidarity amongst each other.
Not everything is the fault of the CIA. I don't think left parties need any help in self-destruction, they are well capable in this department. 😁
It's how it is, because the left parties are democratic and discuss many ideas and people get passionate about different things. The right are usually authoritarian and people fall in line, no matter how much they disagree with the actual set of ideas, also because of the consequences.
Totally true. Also true, when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, they had any Leftists that didn't sufficiently agree with them arrested; many were murdered. I have solidarity with many Leftists who have many beliefs, but not MLs; they've already proven their "solidarity" is a lie.
Rehashing conflicts from 100+ years ago, that took place in wildly different context and material conditions than our own, strikes me as a particularly futile exercise.
I have met ML people IRL who are sound. I have also met absolute bonkers ML people also. You just have to guage a person by talking to them really. Not all MLs are bad.
Most of the people that you hear described as radical leftists are actually not radical leftists, which means most of those conflicts are coming from somewhere else, and they're a distraction from the potential goodness of serious radical leftist policy proposals.
Obviously there's a lot more that can be said on the topic, but what we typically see with those buzzwords is pure distraction, 100% spam, totally intentional deflection from what should be serious discussions.
Not necessarily, but I've seen capitalists preferring them to less-authoritarian leftists for some weird reasons, likely as they can push a certain kind of narrative about leftists with them much easier.
honestly, most "leftist infighting" is men who won't stop hanging out with their rapist mates who got kicked out of an organising space. im an ancom but we have a wide array of ideologies in our scene but the bullshit shows up wherever you organise.
nah I mean if any of those people over there did anything productive in the real world I'd absolutely join. I can set differences aside for the greater good. unfortunately, most on ml serve only to disparage and divide, with no positive real world impact. you ever post a comment on a tankie post and get 13 people with essay responses complete with irrelevant/propaganda sources and uncited statistics? those take time to create, even if you are bullshitting together sources as they tend to do. that's time that could have been spent talking to real leftists IRL or making real change in your community, which is desperately needed right now. there are more IRL leftist spaces around than you would think, but most of these ml tankies will not join an IRL space as an IRL leftist will punch you when you deny tiananmen square or say that ukranians are Nazis or any of the other horrid shit I've seen come from that chronically online "leftist" cesspool.
even memes like this become hard to take at face value. obviously I don't know anything about this particular user and don't feel the need to dig through profile history or mod logs, but a lot of shit like this coming from ml comes down to projection at best.
102 Comments
dogbert@lemmy.zip · 59 pts · 243d
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 243d
It's both. Popular fronts are a thing, and Spanish Republican style coalitions are incredibly powerful tools. Political pluralism within leftist movements is healthy when we let it be healthy. The CIA, FBI, and various governments and reactionary groups have engaged in psyops against this for decades.
But these divisions are real and they come from real ideological differences and hurt. The CIA didn't force the red army to fire on the black armies, it didn't force the blunder of ideology at Kronstadt, it didn't force the betrayal in Spain. And it also didn't force anarchists to have issues controlling their people or implementing their goals. It didn't force the syndicalists to fuck up in South America and Berlin. And it didn't force the USSR and CCP to nearly go to war with each other.
What they did do however is project Gladius, COINTELPRO, operation condor, and various other anti left programs. They made damn sure Fred Hampton died and they made sure the Black Panthers couldn't trust each other enough to be effective. They also made sure the inner cities were filled with crack to destroy black anti capitalist organizing.
And here's where you get the mix. Anarchists already don't trust MLs, because of the aforementioned betrayals and disorganization, then you get government campaigns working to ensure that trust remains broken and that the culture becomes one in which cooperation is anathema. And the trots are kept distrustful of the MLs and the anarchists. MLs are encouraged to keep thinking of themselves as the only real socialists except MLMs. It's similar to the Russian campaigns between democrats and republicans, both already didn't like each other and the goal is to keep picking at the wounds and encouraging off putting behaviors.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 243d
Speaking at least in the context of the US, any revolutionary minded leftists (or "leftists", if you prefer) have goals that diverge so far from the present day as to be irrelevant.
Juice@midwest.social · 2 pts · 243d
Right but it isn't that easy. MLs and Trotskyists were taught things a certain way, a way that developed contrary to each other. Trotskyists and anarchists were purged ruthlessly and that has an effect on our politics. It would be nice to just dispense with it, but its not that easy. As long as people learn organizing from more experienced organizers, we will carry baggage from the past into the future. It takes an enormous amount of work and reflection to overcome, and I argue that most leftists regardless of ideology lack the tools that are needed, because many of us also carry the baggage of philosophical liberalism by default, either we don't know how it affects us or when we do know we act contrary to it, which is still a source of heavy influence.
This isn't being doomer about it, the solution is praxis, but the problems caused by history do actually exist, and have to be reckoned with
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 243d
An easy thing we can all do, is refrain from sniping at one another online. I don't mean serious discussion in good faith, but throwing barbs and shit.
Juice@midwest.social · 3 pts · 243d
I wish.
0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 243d
My general observation:
Yankistanis on their capitalists raining in on societal failures causing division:
Yankistanis when a recorded history of CIA interference, coup, embargo, wars, propaganda where most yankistanis shrieks at the mention of the words and country trying a different economic system:
How can you be certain either way?
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 42 pts · 243d
It's not even always a MLM/anarchist split.
I've run into some terminally online-dumb shit. Look at my account age and post count for how strong a claim I'm making here:
I'm less terminally online brain poisoned and social media brain rotted than 95% of the people I find in left spaces in California. It's wild.
It's not even about real ideology sometimes. I recommended an essay about why being a cop is bullshit by George Orwell and got iced out of a mutual aid project for 'liking problematic authors', and that's not even the dumbest one. I've been called ableist about a disability I have for saying reading theory has value.
MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com · 17 pts · 243d
3.2k over 2 months is numbers I generally attribute to bots/shills. Is that a normal level of online in your spaces?
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 243d
No, that's what I'm saying. I am buried in and embalmed with grass compared to most people I've met.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 243d
There are real problems in organizing, and I too have seen things like you're describing. I just try not to take part in such petty squabbles. If a group is too wound up with internal politics to get anything done, I just find somewhere else to put my energy.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 243d
Yeah. It means I work without other organizers most of the time, bringing people up from total disempowerment. Need to move on pretty often to avoid... excessive regard.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 243d
Keep doing what you're doing ✊
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 243d
It's not the easiest way to do things, or the most rewarding. I fail a lot.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 242d
i'm in the same position as you. i'm trying (or rather i tried) to be active in a number of activist groups where i live but most of them are too busy with petty infighting to actually improve anything. that's why i'm so active on lemmy now, because here i feel like i can actually get things done by talking to people, having interesting discussions, learning and teaching stuff.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 242d
The revolution is not posting. Go outside. Share a pack of beer or regional hot beverage with a few unhoused people on the sidewalk and chat, vandalize some cameras, build a shadow library operating on secret rootkitted daemons on government servers, grab a machete and hunt fascists like you're something out of a particularly based Asian noir film; whatever your contribution is: do your fucking part.
Also read theory.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 242d
education is the most important element of progress, and discussion is literally the most effective tool for that.
also don't tell me what to do, i don't like that, thank you.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 242d
Do what you like is my point. Posting just isn't the revolution.
It's not great education either! The overwhelming majority here is either too defensive or bad faith, so every discussion is incredibly basic surface pithy and conforming. you get surface bullshit with no depth or background. Long form content-whether that's long private discussions with educated people or a fucking book-has advantages.
Posting is a vice, and only a vice.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 242d
posting/commenting is what we make of it. :-)
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 29 pts · 243d
Joke's on you, Mr. CIA Man, I want to be easier to penetrate
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 243d
bonk
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 243d
bonk harder nanny
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 243d
bonked all the way to horny
jailCIA blacksitenondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 242d
Bonking comrades to the Horny Reeducation Center
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 242d
End the war on horny. Full legalization of horny is maximum fun.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 242d
Lower next time
HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 27 pts · 243d
This is why I I try to focus on the right and just ignore stupid people on the left. They can be by my side as long as they throw rocks at the fascists.
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 21 pts · 243d
This is why I work on blind solidarity. If a leftist organization organizes something and I like it I help it and assume they're better than Democrats. If I think its demonic I ignore it.
Plus I like bragging about achieving to an infighter
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 243d
yikes
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 243d
It's not all CIA. In fact, in a lot of cases, it's just human nature, especially our tribalism. I have seen the same amount of "leftist gatekeepers" by ratio as I've seen fandom ones, often on the same exact beats being translated into leftist linguo.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 242d
Granted, nobody needs a conspiracy or invisible hand to create problems like this.
That said, it's far easier to look for weak points to exploit for political means, than build a new movement from whole cloth. In the US, ideological divisions, wedge topics, racism, and even the ghost of the Civil War, have all been used to sow division for various means.
Saapas@piefed.zip · 13 pts · 242d
Some of it is just genuine infighting over orthodoxy and interpretations and whatnot. People be passionate about the holy books
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 242d
I get it. I'm just saying, keep some perspective on the current stakes.
Saapas@piefed.zip · 6 pts · 242d
Without a doubt some of it is stoked by malicious outside actors, as you said
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 242d
The Neoconservative Counterrevolution
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 242d
Nobody reads books. Books are for fucking losers. If you suggest people read books you'll have a very bad time.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 242d
i unironically agree. i wrote about it yesterday
basically the ideal text length is 1-2 paragraphs where you say your opinion, not longer than that, because longer text easily is perceived as a wall of text, and that's very exhausting to read.
Basically my ideal piece of text looks like this:
3-5 paragraphs, 1-3 lines each, and 1-2 images strewn into it.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 242d
You understand that this is not a good state of affairs?
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 242d
in IT there's the Signal-to-noise ratio concept. i think verbosity increases the noise, mostly. i try to keep my comments succinct and to the point.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 242d
That just means not taking longer to say a thing than necessary.
Some ideas take longer. Short understandings of long ideas can have disastrous results.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 242d
in separate but related news, high-calorie food is better digested when it's mixed with lots of low-calorie fiber. relevant link
edit: to clarify, it's relevant because it's the same with ideas. "high-impact ideas" are better received when they're mixed with a lot of low-impact context and examples.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 242d
I'm familiar with both the formal and informal versions of this idea. I actually wrote a pretty good essay on it for a communications class like twenty years ago.
Doesn't change the fact that some ideas simply are not easily or legally conveyed in this format. Many, in fact. Some of them really fucking important. Lefties who got their entire grasp of shit from twitter posts are useful primarily as mass.
You're an addict defending your brain rot surrender as noble crusade for truth. I won't scold you for not doing the hardest kind of activism, but dont entrench yourself in the failures of those around you to make space for you and not suck by defining your cope as high morality.
frog_brawler@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 242d
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 242d
Separate reply; information theory isn't 'from IT'. The inverse is closer to true.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 242d
In an ecosystem full of text-based discussions, a single individual putting up an enormous wall of text that fails to engage the reader is often ignored in favor of a number of smaller posts layout out the argument piecemeal.
Also, iterative comments expressing the same view in a few short words can reinforce the idea as popular in the eyes of a reader. A long winded spiel can come across as defensive, by comparison, and weaken the argument in the end.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 242d
You're explaining what is and I'm saying the way this is has me seriously concerned. Its bad. This is bad. It's the opposite of good.
I'm not confused about what it is. I'm saying the thing you described is bad.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 242d
It's a heuristic for absorbing information that's predicated on people not having infinite time or attention.
Lots of Wall Of Text posts aren't actually worth reading.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 242d
See, I feel like 'can read a book every month or so' isn't all that much.
That this is considered broadly difficult, much less impossible is terrifying. Something is very very wrong here.
The fact you don't understand that simple idea despite reading it (I hope reading it) like five times here is not promising. I feel like if we're just going to keep looping here, I'm done.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 242d
I always thought walls of text were comments or posts without any paragraphs. Just one block of text.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 242d
"walls of text" are anything that's hard to read because it's very long, tedious, without a clear format or structure, and mostly boring because it repeats itself in 5 variations without any clear reason.
frog_brawler@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 242d
Saapas@piefed.zip · 0 pts · 242d
Zoomies want that influencer Youtube video take on those books
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 242d
Problem isn't generational.
Saapas@piefed.zip · 0 pts · 242d
It's definitely one of those things where it's worse every generation
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 242d
You didn't talk to a lot of boomer hippies when they were still alive, did you?
Saapas@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 242d
Big fans of Youtube, were they?
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 242d
Huge. Couldn't get enough of that shit.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 242d
saimen@feddit.org · 11 pts · 243d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_conquer
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 243d
It's because we actually care about being correct
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 243d
And prefer it over doing anything.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 243d
So true
Insekticus@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 243d
And that's a weakness that the elites target in us. We need to target their weaknesses, like their soft bellies, or their flimsy neck vertebra.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 242d
I have not found this to be generally true.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 242d
Elaborate?
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 242d
Most people even on the left are just tribal, doing things for group membership and not really understanding or caring about underlying ethics. Most people haven't read a single book of theory¹, and if they have they didn't understand it.
They might be doing vaguely the right thing,but they're probably doing it because that's where they made friends. It's not a bad reason, it's just not really that radical. They don't care about truth much more than the average howling christofascist orc does; they mostly judge information on group acceptance like everybody else, and just fell into a less awful group.
¹or equivalent
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 242d
exactly my experience. people actually looking at data and making decisions based on reality is rare. most people adhere to group-think and do what their friends think is acceptable.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 242d
And telling them to please be more than that does not go over well.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 242d
Believe it or not, not everyone needs or wants to live the exact same way. We dont need to agree on how to live our lives to have solidarity amongst each other.
fargeol@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 243d
Yes, we need to put our disagreements aside and focus on our real enemy... The People's Front of Judea!
PixelatedSaturn@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 243d
Not everything is the fault of the CIA. I don't think left parties need any help in self-destruction, they are well capable in this department. 😁
It's how it is, because the left parties are democratic and discuss many ideas and people get passionate about different things. The right are usually authoritarian and people fall in line, no matter how much they disagree with the actual set of ideas, also because of the consequences.
It's the natural natural way of things.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 243d
Sure. Wrecking absolutely exploits existing vulnerabilities. Resist exacerbating such vulnerabilities.
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 242d
Totally true. Also true, when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, they had any Leftists that didn't sufficiently agree with them arrested; many were murdered. I have solidarity with many Leftists who have many beliefs, but not MLs; they've already proven their "solidarity" is a lie.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 241d
Rehashing conflicts from 100+ years ago, that took place in wildly different context and material conditions than our own, strikes me as a particularly futile exercise.
000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 241d
I have met ML people IRL who are sound. I have also met absolute bonkers ML people also. You just have to guage a person by talking to them really. Not all MLs are bad.
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 240d
Only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 240d
Just Pointing out the potential for harm from people who idolize political figures and movements from 100+ years ago
bunchberry@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 243d
faction A will just say faction B isn't "really leftist" so therefore their attacks don't count as "leftist infighting"
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 242d
COINTELPRO
biotin7@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 242d
Don't forget the favorite buzzword, "Tankie".
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 242d
Cited the Simple Sabotage Field Manual and mentioned how it was used against civil rights organizers, anti-war demonstrators, and labor organizers.
Got called a Tankie.
Crazy how the term seems to shut down the higher brain functions for certain people.
biotin7@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 242d
It's a thought-terminating cliche
fodor@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 242d
Most of the people that you hear described as radical leftists are actually not radical leftists, which means most of those conflicts are coming from somewhere else, and they're a distraction from the potential goodness of serious radical leftist policy proposals.
Obviously there's a lot more that can be said on the topic, but what we typically see with those buzzwords is pure distraction, 100% spam, totally intentional deflection from what should be serious discussions.
mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 242d
Lemmy: So true!!!
Also Lemmy: TANKIE TANKIE TANKIE TANKIE
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 242d
Let's work to rise above it, comrade.
Digit@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 240d
at least in part
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com · 0 pts · 243d
Post needs text alternative.
So, are tankies a CIA operation?
dogbert@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 243d
HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 243d
If they didn't have a suitable threat, they'd have invented one.
dogbert@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 243d
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 243d
...yes thats what they were implying.
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 242d
Probably not but I guarentee there are bot operators that push tankie content, and tankie disinfo for the exact reason this post was made.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 243d
Not necessarily, but I've seen capitalists preferring them to less-authoritarian leftists for some weird reasons, likely as they can push a certain kind of narrative about leftists with them much easier.
username123@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 243d
Yeah.
StarlightDust@piefed.blahaj.zone · -3 pts · 243d
honestly, most "leftist infighting" is men who won't stop hanging out with their rapist mates who got kicked out of an organising space. im an ancom but we have a wide array of ideologies in our scene but the bullshit shows up wherever you organise.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 5 pts · 243d
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 242d
Misogynist bros are an FBI agents favorite kind of asset.
SleepyPie@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 243d
The CIA and Chinese troll farms lately
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 243d
Chinese troll farms are trying to divide leftists?
Quokka@quokk.au · 6 pts · 243d
Wouldn’t be surprising, leftist beliefs are a threat to capitalism.
cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 242d
They do seem like they could really use some communism over there. Most people my age probably don't remember it.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works · -10 pts · 243d
the irony of this coming from an ml user lol
electric_nan@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 243d
🙄
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 243d
Sounds like something a CIA agent would say!
Remember, it's only leftist infighting when you disagree with them.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works · -7 pts · 243d
nah I mean if any of those people over there did anything productive in the real world I'd absolutely join. I can set differences aside for the greater good. unfortunately, most on ml serve only to disparage and divide, with no positive real world impact. you ever post a comment on a tankie post and get 13 people with essay responses complete with irrelevant/propaganda sources and uncited statistics? those take time to create, even if you are bullshitting together sources as they tend to do. that's time that could have been spent talking to real leftists IRL or making real change in your community, which is desperately needed right now. there are more IRL leftist spaces around than you would think, but most of these ml tankies will not join an IRL space as an IRL leftist will punch you when you deny tiananmen square or say that ukranians are Nazis or any of the other horrid shit I've seen come from that chronically online "leftist" cesspool.
even memes like this become hard to take at face value. obviously I don't know anything about this particular user and don't feel the need to dig through profile history or mod logs, but a lot of shit like this coming from ml comes down to projection at best.