Alright I guess I’ll risk the ban and ask, it seems like the excess of bad anarchist takes lately surrounding the conflict in Ukraine has lead to a laxing of the anti-sectarianism rule. Am I correct in this understanding mods?
Ngl dude every anarchist I know irl is having takes just as bad as the so called “internet anarchists” are having. The anarchists here who have good takes all kinda feel like non-committal MLs. I really hate to say it but I think there’s an undeniable trend here.
I call myself an anarchist because that is what I do. There's no vanguard party to join (no offense to members of ML parties that do exist here I just don't have one locally), nor do I have any hopes that one will manifest in the near term. In the interim the most praxis I can do are Unionizing my workplace and working with local tenants orgs and mutual aid groups.
People online and irl call themselves whatever they want but anarchism is something you do. Giving guns to neo-Nazis isn't anarchism, helping refugees is, DSA definitely seems sus in this case and I'm sure that there are ways to aid civilians that don't involve providing military aid to fascists that only prolongs fighting.
Well, I'm using my non-mod account to say that in an unofficial capacity, I agree with you. Not that we've been lax, but a lot of this falls into a gray area. I've even floated the idea of banning "anarchist" takes from the_dunk_tank, even if they are ostensibly bad takes. Because at some point it feels like dogpiling on our comrades by proxy.
They are socdems and radlibs wearing the black as an aesthetic.
Just a year or so ago we were calling them the synthetic-left, I liked that word for them. They are a manufactured and controlled left that have been alienated from liberalism by the democrats but have not been alienated from electoralism and would support any socdem put forwards, they wear anarchist aesthetics because it's not liberalism but without any real anarchist theory. They're just sort of loose moral idealists with no direction who wear the aesthetic without any real commitment to the action, and they are incredibly easy for :fedposting: to lead them into dogpiling anyone in the left that is legitimately committed to the action.
I'm like 50% pro the non sectarianism rule if only because a lot of ML spaces online just descend into anti-anarchist circle jerking. Thing is I've always had some qualms with it too. Like for one it really only seems to apply to anarchists, MLs and I guess also Maoists. Nobody really seems to hold back against Ultras or Trots. IDK why does anarchism get special protection? Also every movement has it's, uhhhh, unsavory and weird figures, but I really am seeing a disturbing consistency in the anarchist bad takes as of late and I'd be a liar if I said it didn't somewhat speak to some flaw in the ideology. IDK if or how this should affect mod policy, because if it keeps like this we are just going to be dunking on anarchists a lot which is going to piss the ones off here eventually.
I've wrote about this before but basically it's likely due to the fact that anarchism is the first flavor of radical politics most westerners and especially Americans dip their toes into. It's no secret that feds have deliberately fanned the sectarian flames and made attempts to coopt anarchism. After all it's too appealing to the American myth of the self sufficient frontiersmen and homesteaders to extinguish its allure entirely.
This means you have a hugely disproportionate number of self-identified anarchists who are really just baby leftists who haven't been exposed to any form of praxis beyond mutual aid and fucking with cops and have gotten most of their theory filtered through breadtube, which can be good if they land in the realm of say Luna and NonCompete, but principled anti-imperialists are certainly the minority.
That's not to say other tendencies don't have their own weirdos with bad takes like the PatSocs for example, but they aren't as prevalent because there isn't nearly as big an audience as there is for radlib grifters riding the (however small) new wave of leftist politics emerging in the west.
because if it keeps like this we are just going to be dunking on anarchists a lot which is going to piss the ones off here eventually.
I think there's a difference between good faith dunking on people for taking anarchist ideas in absurd directions like the bedtimes thing, but in this case we should just dunk on them for being libs. There's nothing anarchist about raising money for guns that will end up in the hands of fascists we already have a word for that and it's liberalism.
Alright I guess I’ll risk the ban and ask, it seems like the excess of bad anarchist takes lately surrounding the conflict in Ukraine has lead to a laxing of the anti-sectarianism rule. Am I correct in this understanding mods?
:PIGPOOPBALLS:
Regardless of sect this is an anti-imperialist forum, where we dunk on imperialists of all stripes.
Ngl dude every anarchist I know irl is having takes just as bad as the so called “internet anarchists” are having. The anarchists here who have good takes all kinda feel like non-committal MLs. I really hate to say it but I think there’s an undeniable trend here.
I call myself an anarchist because that is what I do. There's no vanguard party to join (no offense to members of ML parties that do exist here I just don't have one locally), nor do I have any hopes that one will manifest in the near term. In the interim the most praxis I can do are Unionizing my workplace and working with local tenants orgs and mutual aid groups.
People online and irl call themselves whatever they want but anarchism is something you do. Giving guns to neo-Nazis isn't anarchism, helping refugees is, DSA definitely seems sus in this case and I'm sure that there are ways to aid civilians that don't involve providing military aid to fascists that only prolongs fighting.
Well, I'm using my non-mod account to say that in an unofficial capacity, I agree with you. Not that we've been lax, but a lot of this falls into a gray area. I've even floated the idea of banning "anarchist" takes from the_dunk_tank, even if they are ostensibly bad takes. Because at some point it feels like dogpiling on our comrades by proxy.
We should just call them libs because that's really what they are.
They're the same mfers that would have sold out Rosa and other communists in Weimar Germany.
They are socdems and radlibs wearing the black as an aesthetic.
Just a year or so ago we were calling them the synthetic-left, I liked that word for them. They are a manufactured and controlled left that have been alienated from liberalism by the democrats but have not been alienated from electoralism and would support any socdem put forwards, they wear anarchist aesthetics because it's not liberalism but without any real anarchist theory. They're just sort of loose moral idealists with no direction who wear the aesthetic without any real commitment to the action, and they are incredibly easy for :fedposting: to lead them into dogpiling anyone in the left that is legitimately committed to the action.
I'm like 50% pro the non sectarianism rule if only because a lot of ML spaces online just descend into anti-anarchist circle jerking. Thing is I've always had some qualms with it too. Like for one it really only seems to apply to anarchists, MLs and I guess also Maoists. Nobody really seems to hold back against Ultras or Trots. IDK why does anarchism get special protection? Also every movement has it's, uhhhh, unsavory and weird figures, but I really am seeing a disturbing consistency in the anarchist bad takes as of late and I'd be a liar if I said it didn't somewhat speak to some flaw in the ideology. IDK if or how this should affect mod policy, because if it keeps like this we are just going to be dunking on anarchists a lot which is going to piss the ones off here eventually.
I've wrote about this before but basically it's likely due to the fact that anarchism is the first flavor of radical politics most westerners and especially Americans dip their toes into. It's no secret that feds have deliberately fanned the sectarian flames and made attempts to coopt anarchism. After all it's too appealing to the American myth of the self sufficient frontiersmen and homesteaders to extinguish its allure entirely.
This means you have a hugely disproportionate number of self-identified anarchists who are really just baby leftists who haven't been exposed to any form of praxis beyond mutual aid and fucking with cops and have gotten most of their theory filtered through breadtube, which can be good if they land in the realm of say Luna and NonCompete, but principled anti-imperialists are certainly the minority.
That's not to say other tendencies don't have their own weirdos with bad takes like the PatSocs for example, but they aren't as prevalent because there isn't nearly as big an audience as there is for radlib grifters riding the (however small) new wave of leftist politics emerging in the west.
I think there's a difference between good faith dunking on people for taking anarchist ideas in absurd directions like the bedtimes thing, but in this case we should just dunk on them for being libs. There's nothing anarchist about raising money for guns that will end up in the hands of fascists we already have a word for that and it's liberalism.