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.
Literally the first time I ever tried to honestly refer someone to a video of socialism, just to educate them on terms, not even try to convert them, I got a death threat.
A fucking death threat.
I mean, yes we need to try to do better than them, but man, that's just hard when you are up against someone who thinks you're a terrorist when you try to clarify terms.
Yes we need to do better, but don't feel like you can't take a break, take a break from the internet, from the terrible people calling for genocide.
Edit: I forgot to mention that internally here, yes we need to be less dogmatic, more unified, and be more willing to simply explain things and preech less, even to each other. In real life I try to do more explaining and less arguing, but even then that's mostly to family.