I was vocal and terrified about climate change in the 90s (although I didn't do a whole lot). I was super active in the anti war stuff during the war on terror. I said repeatedly that Iraq had no WMDs and that Afghanistan wouldn't go well. I was sorta active during Occupy. I was telling everyone not to buy crypto years ago. And I've been very COVID outspoken from day one.
This post is not to brag about how based I am. I was very slow to get on the correct side of trans issues, and I've said/done enough borderline racist and misogynistic shit. I have enough cringe memories of me being a lib. I've also just been really lazy and selfish.
Anyhow, I had hoped that the right would be so wrong, so badly, that people would wake up and warm to our side. I used to actually do organised debates with different groups at uni. I even sent a few a FB message years after Iraq went to shit (ya I'm petty). None have been like "oh fuck, you were so right want the WMDs". When I'm battling friends over COVID issues or the newest bullshit trans conspiracy theory, THEY FUCKING KNOW I was right about crypto and Elon Musk. It's like, all the Ls that the right had taken are in the memory hole and we're onto the next bullshit idea. I'm still the lone crank that's warning about war with Russia and China and telling everyone to mask when my mates were smoking weed through every horrible murderous mistake the West made.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm whinging for my own sake. I get that the right is very well funded, and that is no individual's fault. I'm just very aware that people around me find me to be a tedious crank, but they're all fucking liberals who've been eating out of the trashcan of ideology their whole lives.
Tell me about it.
I have also made mistakes as a Marxist. For awhile I thought Biden was going to lose the election, even as it looked like Trump was flailing (more than usual). Then I realized that Biden's victory would be the funniest result, which is often how national politics works in the USA. Another major mistake I made was listening to Radio War Nerd with regard to the Ukraine War. They maintained so hard that Putin would never be foolish enough to invade. While I recognize that their podcast is extremely entertaining and informative, I couldn't listen to them after that. In their defense, AFAIK the only people saying that Putin was going to invade were the motherfuckers in the state department who haven't told the truth about anything since the day they were conceived.
The thing I've realized is that when you argue with libs, you aren't actually arguing with them, in a way. You're arguing with the entire edifice of capitalism. This is why they all make the same arguments and all sound like the same person (except for the more notable weirdos). I almost believe that they'll talk about "human nature" if they've never even heard this term before. Similarly, when they argue with us, we all sound like zombies to them, because they are arguing with the edifice of Marxism. We've talked a lot about how we were radicalized, whether we were born or were made like this, but a lot of us have "inciting events" in our lives that shake us out of our liberal stupor (since we established long ago on hexbear that most of us were formerly libs). For me, liberals kept fucking me so hard over and over again, I just couldn't stand them anymore, especially because I knew from experience that what they said was nonsense. I discovered r/chapotraphouse, started reading theory, and here I am.
I also don't think it's a waste of time to talk with libs, however. The potential is there. They really, truly do not know what they are talking about, because if they did, they would be Marxists (just as is the case with regard to creationists and Darwin, for instance). This means that any discussion of the Soviet Union (for example) will quickly show that they are out of their league. Although almost every discussion with liberals goes nowhere, I do have to say that there were moments earlier in my life when someone might have been able to radicalize liberal me, and my knowledge of Marxism might have been able to save people who perished because they didn't understand that there was a way out that did not involve killing themselves.
Ohh I said that Russia wouldn't invade all the way up to the end. So that's an L for me. But honestly making predictions on world events isn't the same as judging obvious imperialism in one's own country.
I try talking to libs. But sometimes I just need to let things go as I'm too damn tired to argue with them about something they won't change on.
Assuming Russia wouldn't invade was genuinely the smarter bet, even though it ultimately ended up being wrong. All the actual facts looked like the usual wargame dickwaving every major power does, while the people insisting an invasion was imminent had been doing so for years and have literally never been correct/told the truth about anything else.
That's true.
I started getting suspicious at the evacuation of Donetsk about a week before the war actually started. It seemed like a huge reaction to a state of war that's been basically stuck in the status quo for years.
Before that, I assumed the Status Quo would continue.
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what do you mean, we used to be Libs? :ironicat:
Iirc correctly everyone on hexbear, including me, was saying Putin wouldn't invade and was just flexing. It seems like fait accompli in hindsight but almost everyone was genuinely shocked. In retrospect we now know that Ukraine was gearing up to invade Donbass in what would probably have turned in to ethnic cleansing/genocide, but at the time it was much less clear how strongly the war was an ethnic civil war and how deeply the nazi influence ran in the government and military.