I've been trying to find a good Marxist instance, but Lemmygrad and Hexbear are widely hated. Why is that? Are there any good leftist instances?
Lemmygrad and Hexbear aren’t “leftist” in the confused sense that Americans usually mean “leftist.” They’re actually leftist in the original sense, meaning that they want to abolish private ownership of the means of production. To the extent they’re “widely hated,” it’s largely because the Anglosphere has been indoctrinated against real, actual socialism their entire lives.
More often than not, when Americans say leftist they really mean left-liberalism a la Bernie Sanders, which is really center-left at most, and not actually leftist in the original sense, a sense which Americans have forgotten thanks to two Red Scares and the first Cold War.
Liberals don't even really hate fascists, they just pretend to condemn them to keep up international appearances; as the past year's slippage, then shameless tearing-off of the mask has shown us. No one should be surprised by this, either-- the American way has always been clad in a pointy white robe, clutching a rifle in white-knuckled hands; if you peel back all the mythologizing.
Its a country founded on genocide that deported as many communists as they could in the 50s then killed and arrested the rest that remained.
Lets not forget the active genocides they carried out in vietnam or the middle east either, or the concentration camp they have open on cuba.
Indeed, liberalism is just a precursor of fascism https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
It's nonsense statements like this that should provide the answer to OP's question. When push came to shove in WW2, liberalism in the US, UK, and elsewhere sided with communism against fascism.
Lemmygrad and Hexbear are cool. IDK why you wouldn't like them if you're a leftist.
Hexbear in particular has been annoying in the past with nonsense comments from users there, and so many unhelpful replies that are just a tiny animated image and nothing else. I'm not even sure they actually are leftist as much as just trolls a lot of times, so I've blocked the instance in general so that serious leftist conversations aren't being drowned out by that nonsense.
If it looks like someone from hexbear (such as yourself here) is making a real contribution then I'll reveal that comment and engage. It's a shame there are so many goofballs on that instance, apparently. Maybe their moderation has improved though?
I think there was a culture shock when federation first hit. We had a ton of 'engagement' from people who were using ableist, racist, and transphobic slurs, which brought out strong reactions from our community because we believe its important to shut that stuff down on solidarity with our comrades. And as things got heated I think our willingness to believe people wanted good faith debate eroded.
We do love a good dunking though, and I think overall the community has a lower threshold for going full pig poop balls on people than I would prefer.
Valid criticisms tbh (I even could say the same as a day 0 account lol)
Moderation isn't going to "improve" because they generally are fine with everyone being goofballs, so I wouldn't expect that.
Some people have the cascade of shitposting and useless emojis coming with their crappy views, but I don't think our instance is great at propaganda or ROE, which is unfortunate. Would love to see what we could do with a little discipline.
Also the emojis on every other instance and all mobile apps look more obnoxious because they don't downscale to their intended resolution.
If a communist isn't hated by the capitalist establishment, he isn't a real communist. (I do not imply that being hated by the establishment alone qualifies you to be a communist)
Lemmygrad isn't "hated" by most of the wider lemmyverse. There's just a loud and obnoxious minority of people that will rail and rant about lemmygrad. They loudly rant about lemmygrad because they aren't used to seeing their worldview get challenged and by its very nature as a radical leftist community, lemmygrad is a challenge to the typical background liberal perspective.
It's no surprise we all end up seeing a lot of threads about "those mean tankies at lemmygrad" (and hexbear too) made by people who can't take their worldview getting questioned, or even shown to be flawed, or just not standing up to their own scrutiny, and who get mad when that happens. There are also of course people with ideological reasons to demonize leftwing politics and will spread shit for that reason alone. But overall, I don't think most people care enough except to think "oh yeah that's that instance with those radical lefties, they're weird but they do make some great memes sometimes."
They're both good instances. People have been heavily propagandized to hate communists. You could make the kindest most welcoming space on the internet and if you put the label "communist" on it, it will be hated.
They are hardline Marxist-Leninists, something that is very rare in the western world even amongst those who identify as leftist or socialist. If their views make you uncomfortable, then you're not a ML, which is okay.
Left-wing politics is a very broad spectrum, and a lot of Lemmy users lean towards the more moderate end which brings them into conflict with the more radical communities that are Lemmygrad and Hexbear.
That's all there is to it.
I've been trying to find a good Marxist instance, but Lemmygrad and Hexbear are widely hated. Why is that?
Because the majority of Ledditors are either liberals or full blown reactionaries and the ones who are not range from some cringey techno-libertarian who think FOSS will usher in socialism to some radlib cruise-missile socialist who strangely never deviates from the US state department. The very few who could legitimately be considered socialists are some kind of anarchist. They certainly aren't Marxist.
Are there any good leftist instances?
Outside of those two, I won't hold my breath. The easiest litmus test in the world is how they're responding to the genocide at Gaza. There's very few places where you'll get complete support for the Palestinian liberation struggle and not whining about the imaginary babies Hamas allegedly beheaded or trying to equate the conduct of a genocidal nuclear power to a paramilitary fighting for national liberation.
Lemmygrad I can't comment on. As far as I can tell they basically just talk politics and I'm not interested in microwaving my brain by obsessing about politics online. Haven't seen them out in any of the threads I've been on.
Hexbear I've enjoyed honestly. They've got nice hobby communities and it's all I'm here for. Quality of discussion is usually pretty good. My take on people hating Hexbear is people have made their personality getting mad about politics and Hexbear don't share their views. People screaming "tankie!" just seemed deranged to me, literally who cares what a handful of nerds in the US think of China. Neither of you have any influence on what China does at all.
Haven't seen any lemmygrad users in a while, but honestly the vitriol towards Hexbear is overblown. They're fine. Bit trolly, and they shitpost a lot, but it's kinda fun.
Because le epic former redditors are mad that Russian firepower made the invincible Leopard tank look like this almost as soon as it reached the battlefield.
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Also because Beijing and Detroit look like this and this, respectively.
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