I’m differentiating between online “anarchists, socialists and communists” and the real deal. I had an anarchist on Lemmy the other day tell me that they don’t think class analysis is important.
Yeah, no, I heard you the first time. I just don’t get why you give a fuck. They’re not doing anything negative, so who fucking cares what the call themselves?
Arguing “I’m an anarchist” and following it with “anarchism doesn’t need class analysis” is harmful to anarchism in particular, and to the left in general. Would you also see no problems with a self-declared leftist saying “trans rights are irrelevant”?
Yes, I understand that you think that. I also don’t agree with you. I think you are gate keeping a term.
Like, if I want to dismantle hierarchical structures that oppress me and all that jazz, but I know jackshit about class because I don’t read or participate because I just gotta work my day job day in and day out, am I not a leftist? I don’t think the answer is no. Now, I wouldn’t trust a person like that to make good decisions in forwarding or explaining leftist ideas, but… They’re not the problem. I don’t even care if they call themselves a leftist because they’re not contributing the problems. Like… This feels like a fake problem.
To me, I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to be knowledgeable about the things they believe in. I think it’d be great if they were, but it’s not always a great starting point for everyone, and if a stoner bro wants to call them self a leftist, ain’t no skin off my back. Anyone that was going to use that guy as baggage against me was going to also use sex workers and unhoused people and gay people and trans people and furries and anyone else that’s seen as undesirable. I just don’t give a fuck, man.
Like, if I want to dismantle hierarchical structures that oppress me and all that jazz, but I know jackshit about class because I don’t read or participate because I just gotta work my day job day in and day out, am I not a leftist?
Well, if you’re openly what’s called “a baby leftist”, then yeah, I get it, nothing wrong with that, we all start somewhere, but at least there should be a drive to get informed. My comment was specifically towards people who use specific labels such as anarchist or communist without really knowing what they’re talking about.
Right. I think it’d be great if they have that drive. But some of them won’t. And I don’t see them as not a leftist just because they don’t. And I especially don’t see it as harmful to me if they identify as such. The label isn’t mine to dole out.
I think it is. To say that you need to perform some arbitrary action or have some arbitrary prerequisite to be a member of a belief structure is silly. I see it as simply being that you are a leftist if you have leftist ideals. Like, you can argue about the applicability of communist vs anarchist vs socialist, because those relate to organizational structures, but to say you can’t label yourself as a leftist for a reason that isn’t really related to being a leftist is just moral gatekeeeping.
Words mean things, if you don’t fit the definition for a political ideology or movement then you’re not in/a member of it in any meaningful way, also there’s a long and extremely well documented history of US intelligence agencies infilitrating leftists groups so gatekeeping is actually just 100% necessary and anyone who says otherwise is either a moron or a fed
Just gotta generate some more means to divide ourselves!
Yeah, idk, man, those guys that infiltrated leftist groups were fucking stupid and were easily picked out because they were morons that didn’t understand why people were leftist. But, sure, you gotta gatekeep to stop those idiots, lol.
Like clockwork, here’s one now. And he plays a reverse card like this is Uno and not an intellectual exchange.
“CIA propaganda” is the other ML buzzword that approximates conservatives alleging “woke” and they’re always baffled that people outside their echo chamber don’t immediately concede the point. Like they just made the first move in a game of chess and legitimately think it’s checkmate.
If you really wanna get informed about it, Gabriel Rockhill literally just published in Iskra Books an extensive analysis of the ways the US State Propaganda Apparatus affects media, arts, political organizing… There are literal entire books written about it if you wanna get educated.
I usually start people on the COINTELPRO entry on Wikipedia unless I’m explaining to someone that they’re using the word “Anarchy” as a synonym for chaos because of a concerted effort by the authorities to depict anarchists as violent and out of control criminals.
My point being that actual CIA propaganda was a godsend to MLs. They can use the existence of it to deny anything bad about their movement to outsiders and while avoiding any painful self-reflection of their own failures. While somehow always refusing to accept that the USSR and other ostensibly socialists countries or countries opposed to the west would ever themselves engage in similar propaganda efforts.
My point being that actual CIA propaganda was a godsend to MLs. They can use the existence of it to deny anything bad about their movement
The most nuanced discussion I’ve seen of communist crimes is in ML circles. Deportations of ethnic Koreans and Crimean Tatars in the USSR, excess repression during the eve of WW2, freedom of speech and discussion in the late USSR… All of that receives extensive detail discussion in ML works such as Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in The Soviet Union” and “Is The Red Flag Flying”, long discussion in “People’s Republic of Walmart” with an entire chapter devoted to repressions in the USSR, and an in-depth analysis in Robert C. Allen’s “Farm to Factory” and Alec Nove’s “An Economic History of the USSR”. I’ll update you when I read Domenico Losurdo’s book on Stalin.
The fact that we don’t uncritically swallow anti-communist propaganda fiction works such as The Gulag Archipelago, and refuse “historians” who worked with guesswork before the opening of the Soviet archives doesn’t mean we deny atrocities. The point is that despite big mistakes in the construction of REAL socialist states, they’ve still been the most emancipatory and anti-imperialist projects on the face of the earth, and have brought untold good on the people who lived under them
You mean terminally online wannabe leftists who haven’t read theory or engaged in organizing while they regurgitate CIA propaganda?
Lmao. Are you gatekeeping being a leftist?
I’m differentiating between online “anarchists, socialists and communists” and the real deal. I had an anarchist on Lemmy the other day tell me that they don’t think class analysis is important.
Yeah, no, I heard you the first time. I just don’t get why you give a fuck. They’re not doing anything negative, so who fucking cares what the call themselves?
Arguing “I’m an anarchist” and following it with “anarchism doesn’t need class analysis” is harmful to anarchism in particular, and to the left in general. Would you also see no problems with a self-declared leftist saying “trans rights are irrelevant”?
Yes, I understand that you think that. I also don’t agree with you. I think you are gate keeping a term.
Like, if I want to dismantle hierarchical structures that oppress me and all that jazz, but I know jackshit about class because I don’t read or participate because I just gotta work my day job day in and day out, am I not a leftist? I don’t think the answer is no. Now, I wouldn’t trust a person like that to make good decisions in forwarding or explaining leftist ideas, but… They’re not the problem. I don’t even care if they call themselves a leftist because they’re not contributing the problems. Like… This feels like a fake problem.
To me, I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to be knowledgeable about the things they believe in. I think it’d be great if they were, but it’s not always a great starting point for everyone, and if a stoner bro wants to call them self a leftist, ain’t no skin off my back. Anyone that was going to use that guy as baggage against me was going to also use sex workers and unhoused people and gay people and trans people and furries and anyone else that’s seen as undesirable. I just don’t give a fuck, man.
Well, if you’re openly what’s called “a baby leftist”, then yeah, I get it, nothing wrong with that, we all start somewhere, but at least there should be a drive to get informed. My comment was specifically towards people who use specific labels such as anarchist or communist without really knowing what they’re talking about.
Right. I think it’d be great if they have that drive. But some of them won’t. And I don’t see them as not a leftist just because they don’t. And I especially don’t see it as harmful to me if they identify as such. The label isn’t mine to dole out.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing
I think it is. To say that you need to perform some arbitrary action or have some arbitrary prerequisite to be a member of a belief structure is silly. I see it as simply being that you are a leftist if you have leftist ideals. Like, you can argue about the applicability of communist vs anarchist vs socialist, because those relate to organizational structures, but to say you can’t label yourself as a leftist for a reason that isn’t really related to being a leftist is just moral gatekeeeping.
Words mean things, if you don’t fit the definition for a political ideology or movement then you’re not in/a member of it in any meaningful way, also there’s a long and extremely well documented history of US intelligence agencies infilitrating leftists groups so gatekeeping is actually just 100% necessary and anyone who says otherwise is either a moron or a fed
Just gotta generate some more means to divide ourselves!
Yeah, idk, man, those guys that infiltrated leftist groups were fucking stupid and were easily picked out because they were morons that didn’t understand why people were leftist. But, sure, you gotta gatekeep to stop those idiots, lol.
Like clockwork, here’s one now. And he plays a reverse card like this is Uno and not an intellectual exchange.
“CIA propaganda” is the other ML buzzword that approximates conservatives alleging “woke” and they’re always baffled that people outside their echo chamber don’t immediately concede the point. Like they just made the first move in a game of chess and legitimately think it’s checkmate.
If you really wanna get informed about it, Gabriel Rockhill literally just published in Iskra Books an extensive analysis of the ways the US State Propaganda Apparatus affects media, arts, political organizing… There are literal entire books written about it if you wanna get educated.
I usually start people on the COINTELPRO entry on Wikipedia unless I’m explaining to someone that they’re using the word “Anarchy” as a synonym for chaos because of a concerted effort by the authorities to depict anarchists as violent and out of control criminals.
My point being that actual CIA propaganda was a godsend to MLs. They can use the existence of it to deny anything bad about their movement to outsiders and while avoiding any painful self-reflection of their own failures. While somehow always refusing to accept that the USSR and other ostensibly socialists countries or countries opposed to the west would ever themselves engage in similar propaganda efforts.
The most nuanced discussion I’ve seen of communist crimes is in ML circles. Deportations of ethnic Koreans and Crimean Tatars in the USSR, excess repression during the eve of WW2, freedom of speech and discussion in the late USSR… All of that receives extensive detail discussion in ML works such as Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in The Soviet Union” and “Is The Red Flag Flying”, long discussion in “People’s Republic of Walmart” with an entire chapter devoted to repressions in the USSR, and an in-depth analysis in Robert C. Allen’s “Farm to Factory” and Alec Nove’s “An Economic History of the USSR”. I’ll update you when I read Domenico Losurdo’s book on Stalin.
The fact that we don’t uncritically swallow anti-communist propaganda fiction works such as The Gulag Archipelago, and refuse “historians” who worked with guesswork before the opening of the Soviet archives doesn’t mean we deny atrocities. The point is that despite big mistakes in the construction of REAL socialist states, they’ve still been the most emancipatory and anti-imperialist projects on the face of the earth, and have brought untold good on the people who lived under them