New tagline just dropped.
Hexbear is fascist. They’re pretending to be tankies, but every single post on there is right-wing and bigoted. It’s so damn obvious.
These people absolutely just make shit up relentlessly.
We are fascists for checks notes... not supporting ukrainian nazi militias in their struggle to purge ukraine of the ethnic russians.
Wasn't the fact that "the nazi ukranians with a jewish president are trying to ethnic clean the russians" the same excuse used by Putin to start the invasion?
CW: holocaust, corpses, nazis
the nazi ukranians with a jewish president
suggesting that their president is jewish means they don't have a nazi problem in their military is just as ridiculous as suggesting that america doesn't have a racist cop problem because Obama was black. Imagine if we had elected Bernie Sanders (who is Jewish) in America. Does that mean all the nazis in our military and police would simply disappear? of course not. Nor would have electing Hillary Clinton brought an end to sexism. Nor would electing Pete Buttigieg have brought an end to LGBTphobia. There's a difference between the milestone of electing to high office a member of a marginalized group and the literal end of all discrimination against the marginalized group. The two should not be confused with each other under any circumstances.
Zelensky admits it is in US interests to use Ukraine
Biden before the war admitting the US would target nordstream 2 if Russia goes into Ukraine
the same excuse used by Putin to start the invasion?
Just because someone uses something as an excuse doesn't mean it isn't a real problem. America used terrorism, a real problem, as an excuse to invade 7 different countries. The irony being that many of those right wing jihadist terrorist groups the US was fighting were originally CIA-backed anti-soviet reactionaries.
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Putin's actual reason for the invasion was Ukraine threatening to join NATO. NATO membership means the US can stage nuclear weapons in your country, train your troops, etc. Putin didn't want US power that close to Moscow (the Russo-Ukrainian border is the closest international border to Moscow). This makes sense. After all, the so-called Cuban missile crisis back in the day actually started when America put nukes in Turkey, about 1200 miles from Moscow, so Moscow put missiles in Cuba, about 1200 miles from Washington. It was a tit-for-tat. After 3 decades of NATO expanding eastward into former Warsaw pact countries (usually under the rhetoric of "increasing security cooperation") Putin finally decided to invade Ukraine. However, yes, it was rhetorically convenient for him to point out the neo nazis in Ukraine.
NATO gave informal promises to Gorbachev to not expand eastward (Gorbachev was stupid to believe these promises and not get them in writing as formal, legally-binding promises)
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The Soviet Union tried to join NATO in 1954 but wasn't allowed
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Meanwhile NATO kept expanding
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and including "former" nazis in its ranks
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST USE FACTS AND CITATIONS AND PRIMARY SOURCE EVIDENCE YOU TANKIES ALWAYS POST A WALL OF DOCUMENTED SOURCES THAT SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS AND THEN WHEN WE REFUSE TO READ OR ENGAGE WITH THESE SOURCES IN ANY WAY AND INSTEAD SPEW IGNORANT REDUCTIVE BULLSHIT LIKE A PARROT LIVING IN THE LOBBY OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT YOU CALL US MEAN NAMES YOU TANKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES
Lol Finland and the Baltics abstained from the "Nazis are bad, actually" vote because of course.
Also, could you throw a CW: on there for holocaust, corpses, and nazis please?
What I love about that article from The Independent is that, up until recently when they republished the Robert Frisk article, you could old find the piece in their archives and, conveniently, they redacted the image of Bin Laden to soften the blow as much as possible without outright censoring the article.
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too bad for them it's all over web archive and everyone has scans of the newspaper
Have you thought about turning this comment into a post on c/effort?
I'm humbled by your well documented reply. I can't argue with that. Yours is probably the only one comment I've learnt something of.
I'm happy you read it, and had something to say in response. Thanks!
Jewish people can be nazi collaborators. Of which, Zelensky is all-but-explicitly one, given the kinds of people he materially supports and empowers. Source: I’m Jewish
Wasn't the oligarch that backed Zelensky's career also backing Nazi formations at the same time? I haven't looked in to this stuff in years because why bother, but I recall that being a thing.
this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihor_Kolomoyskyi
One of Ukraine’s most popular TV channels 1+1, owned by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, has given Zelenskiy a powerful platform in recent months during his meteoric rise to the brink of the presidency.
On Saturday, a day before Zelenskiy won the first round of the presidential contest and set up a run-off with the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, 1+1 filled its schedule with back-to-back shows by the comedian and actor.
The fact that Zelenskiy is a major star on the channel has stoked worries among some investors and voters, and accusations from his political opponents, that he is in the pocket of Kolomoisky.
and this guy was also involved
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadim_Rabinovich
just reading a few paragraphs from this one, this kinda jumped out:
On 25 March 2014, Rabinovich registered with the Central Election Commission as a self-nominated candidate for the presidency of Ukraine. This was partly to counter the characterization of the new Ukrainian government as antisemitic. After registering, Rabinovich said: "I want to destroy the myth about an anti-semitic Ukraine which is spreading around the world. Probably I'm the most fortunate candidate. Today unification is needed, and I'm a unifying candidate. I have no maniacal thirst for power, I just want to help the country". In the election, he received 2.25% of the vote, with his best showing in Dnipropetrovsk and the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts. Rabinovich was elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) the same year, placing fourth on the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc's electoral list.
On 14 February 2022, Rabinovich published a post on Facebook, stating that "the war has started" and blaming the West and Ukraine for it. Following the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he left Ukraine and fled abroad.
Well, he ran on a platform that was much more conciliatory to Russia than his position in office, getting a lot of support from Donbas. Now he plays a Ukrainian nationalist that can hardly speak Ukrainian.
I think he was basically told in so many words that he could either get a lucrative deal playing wartime leader or he could get a bullet to the head courtesy of Azov, and he chose the former.
Now he's kind of stuck in this situation forever. He can't end the war with a treaty, because it would probably end in a negotiation to cede territory or for the Ukrainian military to leave Donbas and Luhansk alone. Zelenskyy would get shot in the head by some fanatical nationalist. He can't keep the war going forever, because it's such a mess that it's somehow put a stress on the world's supply of artillery shells.
He's just stuck in this eternal present, he's a human embodiment of the concept of a quagmire
Yeah if Zelensky signed peace giving up territory there's roughly a 100% chance Nazis would spin that into a 'stab in the back' type story
I think they're asking why a Jewish person would support Nazis
lots of minority groups have members who join their oppressors, it's sad and disgusting but not really uncommon. like have they never heard of a black or gay or trans conservative or fascist?
In Zelensky's defense he ran on a peace platform promising to get some kind of peace negotiations going. It was very popular, though from what I understand the popularity was skewed somewhat towards the eastern half of the country with less support in the Banderite heartland of Galacia. When one he tried to put his promises in action and found out that the president doesn't actually control the country, and that the Nazi formations and their allies had no intention of allowing the war to be stopped.
i could see arguments for zelensky as a tragic figure, though the
panamapandora paper reveals that he's deeply corrupt don't really do much for that interpretation imo. though i suppose depending on the timeline (i haven't bothered to check) he could have meant what he promised, realized a bunch of hardened neo-nazi fighters weren't going to take commands from a jewish man and then decided "might as well make some fat stacks at least"regardless yeah i remember that video of some right-sector (i think? might have been azov or someone else, there are too many nazis to keep straight) fighters flatly telling him to fuck off to his face when he ordered them to stand down
If Putin said "the sky is blue" would the sky suddenly turn green?
If Putin (or Trump, or Xi) one day jumps on the news saying the sky is blue, I'd totally look up with prejudice.
This is not really something to be proud of. It's an admission of completely reactionary behaviour.
It's OK to observe reality. Inventing a false one to suit your ideology is what the nazis do, and they're much better at it than liberals are. They will win at it.
Part of the success of liberal propaganda is getting liberals to performatively tell each other how propagandised they are as if it is totally normal, and for them to praise each other for it.
It's the same mindset as when workers boast about how hard they have to work, as if it's a good thing. Pride in being over worked, and admonishing other workers for not having it as hard as they do. Literally a culture of shaming other workers for not exploiting themselves hard enough for the bourgeoisie owners. They say it to each other with pride, not realising how much they're fucking themselves over.
I can't leave my shit alone in like the first 2-3 minutes afterwards I am compelled to do an edit really frequently.
Editing this one just for the sake of it.
the advantage that fascists have over liberals is that fascists can openly make shit up and don't care if they have to change what they're saying, whereas liberals have to occasionally jump through hoops to justify cognitive dissonance. Liberals believe everything they say and think there's personal virtue in being naive. Fascists have a similar belief that feeling numb and misanthropic is a personal virtue, but that just helps them say more reactionary gibberish
I guess there are cynical liberals who just know how to parrot the language, but that seems more situational
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I feel like I'm walking over people's graves with these images sometimes, but who would you even ask about what is respectful and what is too far?
I don't know. As an anarchist, I do rather agree. However, it extends to all who pursue and attain power over others. That desire and the anti-social behavior typically necessary, historically, to succeed makes me inherently suspicious of their motives, which have also been shown historically to frequently not be aligned with the interests of the working class.
And secondly, if an emergency broadcast went out worldwide, from the UN chambers, featuring Putin, Trump, Xi, and, I don't know, Guy Goma that was to the effect of:
"Citizens of the world. We are reaching you on this special emergency broadcast to inform you that the sky is blue. I repeat, the sky is blue. Goodnight."
I'm pretty sure that all of us would be rather confused and suspicious of the statement and feel a need to validate it. Even if for no other reason but it being a very weird statement to make.
Excising large parts of your frontal lobe to own the tankies
lol you do realize you're not supposed to say that unironically, usually people say that as a joke
lmao "bro I was just pretending to be a dumbass bro, I swear to god bro"
Uh huh sure bud
Maybe try understanding the currents of material conditions informing ideology instead of solely reacting to the world around you being subsumed by ideology.
Let's pretend you're right: I have no idea how propaganda works... but Putin does! He has a history of creating fake news, bombing his own population and backstapping his political allies to gain more power.
So you'll understand I'm always a bit suspicious about anything he says.
So if Xi would ever mention that jumping into a bucket full of excrement is a bad idea, you'd consider covering yourself in piss and shit to own Mr. Pooh and the tankies? Sweet! I'd better make that phone call with Xi right now
Saying Zelensky can't possibly be supporting neo-Nazis because he is ethnically Jewish is exactly the same as saying Clarence Thomas can't possibly be supporting white supremacists because he is black. There is such a thing as a racial "pick me".
Yes, it was. I'm honestly shocked. No one seems to know what Russia's causus belli was.
Anyone of that video of the Banderites laughing about how Zelensky deflects all attention from the Nazi formations because Liberals can't hold the idea of a Jewish President in a country dominated by Nazi politics in their heads?
Oh yeah I remember that vid. They were so fucking proud of themselves.
"nazis with a Jewish president" seems to imply that by having a Jewish president, they can't be nazis. By that logic Wagner group can't be nazis, since Prigo is jewish
we're ideologically much, much further away from Putin than they are. if he didn't intervene in Crimea or Ukraine but kept all his policies otherwise intact, including the ones repressing minorities and pro-market ones, he wouldn't be nearly as hated by these people.
libs fall over each other for the esteemed opportunity to lick the boots of the most depraved, most despotic, most comically evil politicians and oligarchs, with three exceptions: when they carry out those acts in a transparent way rather than hiding it behind veils of "we need to cut social security because of X"; when they use the state for economic interventions rather than free market "solutions"; and when they decide to snub America on a certain issue (but are otherwise perfectly willing lapdogs)
e.g.
unhinged rightwinger: "I will kill 100,000 poor people."
libs: "nooooo! we need to register with our local police department to hold a 1 hour march through the city and then get teargassed anyway and then mutter "just a few bad apples" on the way home! but it's important to remember that China does way worse things! stop using whataboutisms by bringing up America!"
unhinged rightwinger: "fine. I will reduce social security spending and cut funding to hospitals and homeless shelters (this will have the effect of killing 100,000 poor people)"
libs: "hm, yes, very wise, for I am also socially liberal but fiscally conservative and I think it's important to reach across the aisle and engage civilly with our opposition so that they will give us policies in return (they won't). the efficiencies in this sector will go up 4.7% according to this think tank's analysis..."
leftwinger: "we should increase funding to hospitals and build more houses in this city to fix the homelessness problem (this will have the effect of saving 100,000 poor people)"
libs: "noooo! you're using state funds which will increase the big magical national debt number! you're not allowing the free market to build the best and most efficient housing! we can't do this while there's inflation! read economics 101! some of those building materials come from Russia and China, you're a tankie!"
The concept of a national deficit is so hard for me to grasp.
So a deficit is when the government spends more money than they take in from taxes, cool. So government just raises taxes when they end up doing that, sort of like how I up my tax contribution if I end up owing at the end of the year. Wait, they only raise taxes on the working class? Because the capitalist class, through their money, is able to organize and consolidate power? That's shit but surely it doesn't get worse.
Okay, so where do they get the money to spend if they're spending more than they take in? It's gotta come from somewhere, I'm sure they just print more and that can't be bad. Oh, so when they print more money that makes the existing money worth less... Well that goes for the capitalists too, so at least that's even. Oh, you mean that they get to park their money in appreciating assets while mine gets spent day to day and my wage stagnates so my purchasing power and meager savings just fucking declines... It surely can't get worse.
Yeah, I remember that appreciating assets thing. Get it over with, how does that fuck me over? So the government issues bonds, basically guaranteeing a set return on the money capitalists spend on them. How can the government guarantee that? Isn't the market too volatile for that kind of guarantee? Ah, of course they would make up the difference with taxes, which I just learned are dis-proportionately paid by the working class.
Liberals have no consistency and are totally operating on vibes. I remember liberals used to really like Israel.
They've even somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush even though he's evil incarnate. They also admire literal monarchy? Like they were really into Elizabeth II back when she was around. They'll all trip over themselves to say nice things about Churchill, about Alexander Hamilton (slave owner), and will say war crimes like the atom bombing of Japan are complicated. Other things their heroes did just aren't in their worldview at all, like Clinton bombing Yugoslavia and Sudan, or Obama overthrowing Libya. Those events just vanished into nothingness for liberals. Or if you bring them up you're accused of whataboutism and the conversation stops.
And yet they have the gumption to say we're bootlickers?
And they criticize us for saying otherwise factual things about Russia? Not even bootlicking, just very neutral information like that NATO is openly hostile to Russia and that Crimea is currently administered by the Russian state. That's enough to be called pro-Putin, but more than that, you're not just expressing a political reality, your mind has been infected with Putin and you're a bad person now.
They've even somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush even though he's evil incarnate.
The bit where they had Bush giving candy to Michelle Obama six fucking years after the "end" of the Iraq War.
“He has the presence of mind and the sense of humor to bring me a mint,” Obama said of the former president, per ABC7. “And he made it a point to give me that mint right then and there, and that’s the beauty of George Bush.”
Actual quote from Michelle Obama.
In October of this year, Obama discussed her close relationship with the former president while making an appearance on TODAY to interview with Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush Hager.
“I’d love if we as a country could get back to the place where we didn’t demonize people who disagreed with us. Because that’s essentially the difference between Republicans and Democrats,” she began. "That doesn’t make me evil. And that doesn’t make him, you know, stupid—it’s just a disagreement and that’s how I feel about your father. You know? He’s a beautiful, funny, kind, sweet man.”
HE MURDERED A MILLION PEOPLE OBAMA!
(I never know how to refer to the spouses of major political figures. First name, for women especially, seems demeaning but not in a useful way, while last name is confusing, and fuck me if I'm putting "Mrs".)
He's just a kind old feller who spends time painting nowadays. Wholesome harmless grandpa with a guilt free conscience.
I’d love if we as a country could get back to the place where we didn’t demonize people who disagreed with us.
I politely and respectfully disagree with killing one million Iraqi people, Mr. Bush.
If she held Dubya to a higher moral standard than this, she might have to consider doing the same to Barack, and she definitely doesn't want to do that.
Hadn't thought about Clinton bombing that pharma factory in Sudan for a while. : |
Try telling them that there was no political reality where Russia would allow Ukraine to sieze control of Crimea and had it to NATO. Watch them seethe at you for denying the holiness of national sovereignty. Watch their minds bounce off the idea of strategic interest like a duck bouncing off a jetski. Oh, and try telling them that pretty much everyone in Crimea in some way worked for or worked to support the Russian Black Sea Fleet, so Russia didn't have to invade because they already had a huge military base there. They just took the old flags down and put new ones up.
There's also no political reality where NATO would actually let Ukraine become a member.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
You know that is one I haven't seen any libs reckon with? Most of them are firmly convinced Russia invaded Ukraine because Putler is evil with no real analysis beyond that, but the fact that Ukraine has been yelling about joining NATO for years, while NATO has repeatedly said that will never happen, should have raised some kind of flag at some point.
if he didn't intervene in Crimea or Ukraine but kept all his policies otherwise intact, including the ones repressing minorities and pro-market ones, he wouldn't be nearly as hated by these people.
all the old putin tough-guy memes are plenty of proof of this - you couldn't go anywhere on the internet without seeing that one picture of him on a horse
Oh god I forgot all about those! They were everywhere! And videos of him doing systema with his body guards, fly fishing, all kinds of shit.
To defend Azov, I've had a lib send me a picture of Putin riding a horse where it's reins had a metal swastika buckle and tried to imply that Putin is a nazi using the same logic but
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That wasn't Putin's horse, he was borrowing it on a visit.
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His visit was to Mongolia where Buddhism is the largest religion.
I expect swastikas in Buddhist countries. Swastikas in Europe only mean one thing.
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the efficiencies in this sector will go up 4.7% according to this think tank's analysis.
Of course that think tank is bought and paid for by a deranged right-winger, but being critical of your sources is a concept libs only understand insofar as to ask "who published it? Oh CNN, then it must be fine". They don't actually employ any skepticism or source critique, propaganda is something that happens to other people far away
Their idea of source critique is typing "media fact check" into google and clicking on the first result that pops up
he wouldn't be nearly as hated by these people.
I honestly cannot remember how they talked about him in the before times. It certainly wasn't with this level of mindlessness, but I'm also pretty certain they hated him back them too.
it depends whether you define the "before times" as pre-2022 or pre-2014. I think before 2014 he was just another world leader to some extent. he was initially hated a lot post-2014 I remember but because the invasion of Crimea was so quick (relative to this invasion) it was hard for a ton of self-reinforcing narratives to be set up in the media, and this was before the rise of calling everybody a tankie or calling out China on every political post, so within a couple years it was back to "strong-man Putin". Russiagate obviously made his reputation tumble but if you weren't really into that, you could still have been neutral on him leading up to 2022.
I've spoken about this before, but they think that everything is a binary good/bad. Liberals = good and Conservatives = bad.
We clearly aren't liberals, so we can't fit in that "good" box, so we must go in the "bad/conservative" box instead.
That's it. That's their rationale behind this. "They aren't liberals so they must be conservatives." Words mean nothing to a liberal, it's all about vibes.
It really is pretty much just this for a lot of them. Maybe the slightly more sophisticated among them will call us like "useful idiots in service of the right wing" or something along those lines. Not a lot of rigorous thought goes into this shit most of the time. It's basically a disney understanding of politics.
It's fiction brain. They need the real world to be full of simple good guys and bad guys, because they've always been a "good guy" their whole life, and if being good or bad was based on actions and nuance and not just a simplistic "We are the good guy team" they might need to consider if they aren't actually as wonderful a person as they think they are.
Shit like this always reminds me of how a big watershed moment for my baby leftist journey was finally coming to the understanding that these words have meanings that get warped like a fun house mirror in the U.S.
I just casually referred to Stalin as a fascist once in front of a non Anglo and they called me out for it. They weren’t even an overly ideological person they had just grown up in a non Anglo education system and to their ear calling Stalin a fascist was factually incorrect and sounds kinda idiotic to most non western ears. The self awareness this created was the start of a lot of of layers peeling in retrospect.
They were absolutely correct! Obviously! Whatever criticism you may have of Stalin, and I think we all have them, he was not a fucking fascist! Stalin could easily be one of the most pivotal figures in the DEFEAT of fascism in Europe and yet liberalism and propaganda and the myopic political lens that Americans are given to interpret the world drains all texture and greyness from history and leaves you with this shambling nonsense narrative where everyone who was opposed to the U.S. global hegemony post WW2 in ANY capacity is either a “fascist” or a footnote in the history books because whatever shot they had at the wheel was usurped by the State department.
All this is to say never stop bullying and always remember to remind anglos that the western narrative of history is far from universally accepted and full of gaping holes.
Breaking people out of national chauvinism and into internationalism is in my opinion the key trigger moment between sympathising with some left ideas and becoming a true actual leftist. It is the key that inoculates a person against "the tankies are evil" bullshit and finally rips them out of the hands of liberal propaganda. Once people make that transition into wanting a truly international perspective, learning things at the international level, viewing things from the position of truly seeking international socialism and so on... It is where people finally rid themselves of brainworms that have sometimes been built up for many decades.
Somewhere along that transition from national to international people undergo a personal decision of "I have a huge amount to learn" and go on that learning journey. That personal decision to actually learn is where they discard many things they thought they already knew, built up from billionaire media and propaganda.
I will keep on saying this over and over again here. The biggest thing we should be doing is pushing people to stop being nationalists and to become internationalists. Once they do this they become so much easier for us to engage with.
Sankara's constant reminder is great but I still don't quite know what I should be focusing on to break through this. It's like... What creates an internationalist? What stops someone from only caring about what's within their own borders? If we figure it out we make this all much easier on ourselves.
Helping the person realising that the international approach makes a lot more sense and is much better at explaining their lives?
So many topics now, if not basically all of them, are international in nature. Their origin, explanation and development is international in nature. Understanding why the economy is shit, why inflation, why war, why your national politics are dependant on international pressures , why ecological topics all require international understanding, etc etc. To me, the realisation that the international point of view was just better and easier to explain and understand the world forced me to learn because I wanted explanations, and on important topics (less aesthetic or cultural ones) the lazy reactionary narratives aren't enough because they break down, don't fit or don't provide good solutions.
Also, interacting with the rest of the world. Talking with non-westerners about politics has always been enlightening and better, in my case. Like, at work, all the colleagues I talk politics with all the time are immigrants in some way, they have an outside look on my country and once I start talking about geopolitics and how insane the westerners are they open up and the conversations are incredibly interesting. The western colleagues sitting next to us at the coffee break always learn a lot, they see people who know what they are talking about, confidently, they see colleagues who are usually superficially shy and not too talkative (gotta be careful what you talk about as an immigrant to westerners) open up and share things about their lives and they realize there is an entire world out there they know nothing about.
I think the majority of people can be reached in some way, the difficult ones are people such as the ones on reddit or Lemmy, they are not casually reactionary, they have been deeply propagandised and have internalised those things, they defend them, they identify culturally and personally with them so its much harder.
I saw one in here recently who hopefully had a bit of an epiphany moment. They were defending the US's actions with a "doesn't everyone just want their country to be strong?" kind of rhetoric. But they didn't seem to be a conscious national chauvinist, they just seemed to assume that's what everyone was and didn't even know there were other options.
I hope they've been lurking and learning since then.
We should physically tell people to come lurk. Get people into a culture of visiting daily, learning. This was a successful tactic employed by the chan sites and it worked, "lurk more" turned into people learning site culture and adhering to it.
Obviously for them it worked in getting people to adhere to nonsense ideas and behave in awful ways. But the same principle can be put to use for good instead. Personally I'd like to see something like a "7day liberal challenge", where we challenge liberals to visit the site 7 days in a row consistently to "test their views" and surely, if their views are solid they will not waiver. For most people I think they'll shift significantly on a lot of things through this, and many might become active users.
Channer culture has become a staple of the internet because they use such successful tactics for getting people to adopt the behaviour.
I think you're absolutely onto something here.
Great idea. I've taken to telling a few people to come over and see what we're like, that we're willing to answer questions, etc.
You know… I don't know if it was the tipping point. That's hard to say. But this was a major tipping point for me: knowing that all those great welfare programs in any liberal democracy would have to be funded by hyper-exploiting the global south… that shook some of the last remnants of liberalism out of me.
It's unacceptable. That conclusion only leaves revolution and the need for a coherent theory that has been shown to work. Marxism is the theory and, to put it simply, either we all get free or none of us do. Makes it a lot easier to empathise not only with other people but also with the socialist struggle in other places. It's more of a bridge than a stepping stone to class consciousness.
There are likely a lot of people susceptible to this view as it's common in the west to e.g. tell kids not to waste food because there are starving people in poorer countries. It doesn't fully make sense even as a kid. It's well-meaning but ultimately it's a liberal performance. It means that many, many people are hardwired to think about the damage caused by their consumption (or lack of it, here). All they need is a radical analysis to see why liberalism can't solve the problem that they already accept and want to fix.
Not an easy task, still. In pedagogical terms, revolutionaries need to identify this and other 'threshold concepts'. Then make them visible and comprehensible for potential comrades.
American high school books usually have a segment about "authoritarianism" which is basically just there to say Hitler and Stalin were the same.
I usually just dismiss these goofballs by replying with "Tell me you don't have a functioning definition of fascism without telling me" and maybe I'll challenge them to define fascism in their own words without looking it up.
If, by some miracle, they start invoking the trash-tier Umberto Eco definition of fascism then you have two clear routes:
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You demonstrate how the US comfortably fits this definition, point by point
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You draw upon a Marxist analysis of fascism which centres the importance of materialist analysis of fascism, such as from the works of Georgi Dimitrov
What makes you think Eco's definition is trash tier? Ur-fascism is a decent essay that gets frequently misinterpreted.
Because it only considers fascism from an aesthetic and cultural angle without any regards to the material basis of it and the conditions that fascism arises from.
It's a hazy definition that describes the psychology of fascism more than it describes the phenomenon of fascism itself, and I think—like is the case a most pseudo-radical cultural critique—its analysis can be, and has been, misapplied because there's no solid definition underpinning it.
It's a bit like how if you ask a SocDem for a definition of socialism they'll tell you that it's welfare programs and democracy and restricting corporations and anti-authoritarianism etc.; they'll give you a laundry list of characteristics which fails to form a cohesive analysis that strictly defines their concept, thus leading to them to miss the fact that Bernie was not campaigning on a socialist platform or that AOC/the Nordic countries etc. aren't socialist, and if you challenge them on these matters they'll deny your rebuttal outright because these things just feel socialist to them.
I guess in short, it's a question of vibes vs material analysis.
It's ultimately fairly vague and more of a "vibes check" of fascism than a concrete understanding of how it festers in a country. It doesn't let us stop fascism, it just gives libs ammo to say "(insert enemy country here) ticks 7 of 10 boxes, so they're 70% fascist!"
It is a good starting point to explain to people that fascism does have things you can look out for, but it really shouldn't be someone's only resource for understanding Fascism.
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Hexbear is fascist. They’re pretending to be tankies, but every single post on there is right-wing and bigoted. It’s so damn obvious.
You all have been found out.
Hexbear might actually be one of the most non-bigoted places on the internet. we are militantly against bigotry. no epic logical debates here, you just get smacked in the fucking face by a banhammer if you try that shit here
we are militantly against bigotry
Except for Estonians. The exception that proves the rule.
I'm not sure quite what to think about the Baltics. Obviously fuck their governments, and the numerous institutions pushing Holocaust revisionism and denial and re-writing 20th century history. But blanket-condemning little countries like that, no matter how shitty their government is, feels different from blanket condemning the US or UK. They're under the NATO umbrella but despite being little pissant countries with fash governments they're not exerting hegemonic power and are at most expendable speed bumps for Imperialism. I can't imagine it's fun or say being a dissident in the Baltics. hell, I don't even think it's legal, is it? Yeah, looks like they've got some blanket laws they use to hunt down Communists and, probably, anyone they think is communist
Idk, I gotta think about it.
To be clear, my comment was a joke about the lemm.ee admin saying we think Estonians are subhuman earlier this week.
I still wanna know what was up with that. I honestly haven't had a single thought in my head about Estonia since I skipped a lecture to go see Encino Man in the 90's.
I'm reminded of Estonia all the time because I'm perpetually surprised at it's low population (1.3 million).
Yeah. The idea of a country that's the size of a medium suburb having any role in global geopolitics is funny. Like yeah, guys, that's great that you're in NATO. By the way Dallas, Phoenix, and San Anton are all going to join too, and they're going to have more clout than you by a silly margin.
The weirdest thing about the baltics is how they love to act as rabid dogs for nato/US
but in the event of an actual war between nato and russia the only purpose they serve is to give the ghouls in DC and the pentagon a couple extra minutes to get to the bunkerI ran in to 1 (one) Baltic resident who was somehow convinced that their military would be a significant obstacle for Russia in the event of a war and I suspect that nationalism might have been involved in clouding their judgement. I honestly doubt NATO would even respond to a Russian invasion in the little fringe countries if they weren't already interested in a hot war.
You have no idea the restraint it took for me not to post the "Estonians are slop-eating Hungarians" tweet at the lem.ee admin during that whole debacle
Eh. The Baltics are very small countries with... what's the nice way to say this... Fascist collaborationist governments that have worked hard to control the narrative, erase the crimes of the 30s and 40s, and create a questionable view of 20th century history. It's like any other country - Shitheads, none shitheads, and regular people in between. The official government line and the views of many citizens are hard right-wing, holocaust denial, and support for Nazi collaborators. You're going to run in to a lot of fash and fash-adjacent assholes.
Edited bc I realized I've been saying Balkans instead of Baltics all day.
I think you mean Baltic.
Just gonna also throw out that a ton of the world's stateless people live in the Baltic countries because they denied ethnic minorities citizenship after the fall of the USSR unlike every other former Soviet country. IIRC Lithuania isn't involved in that at least, I think just Estonia and Latvia.
I believe most countries have signed an agreement never to create a stateless person due to how vulnerable they are to abuse.
That's a why, for example, the
claims that Shamina Begum was a Bangladeshi citizen when they revoked her citizenship.I remember that. That was really fucked. Political exiles in the democracy loving freedom of speech west? Hardly surprising but very against the marketing. I still don't entirely understand what their purpose is with that. Is it a way to reinforce anti-immigrant rhetoric in preparation for some kind of V for Vendetta more fascist Britain thing?
Forces the Kurds and/or Bangladesh to deal with a
terrorist so the Queen doesn't have to pay the costs of imprisoning her
Yeah it's pretty bad. You could conceivably have had parents born in the country and been born in the country yourself and still be denied citizenship in 1991 because they refused to recognise anything Soviet
the fact they think so many trans people are out and about fascists is fucking wild. plus they talk about blahaj being ran by trans people, which is true, but also ignore that the trans community on lemmy is largely here, and for very obvious reasons
10% trans users on lemmygrad + 30% from hexbear, assuming we have no crossover (and I don't think we have much) means 40% of our combined user base is trans (or 20 idk), WAY above world averages and way above what most instances can boast.
Compared to the lemmyverse as a whole however I'm not sure of the proportion our two instances represent, we'd have to look at active users on all relevant websites
Still waiting for blahaj to finally run a demos survey btw.
… that’s not how percentages work
lemmygrad seems to be trans-friendly, and hexbear certainly is, but you can’t just add percentages together to get the total percentage
Two imaginary groups, one with 100 people and one with 1000. The group with 100 has 50 trans people (50%). The group with 1000 people has 500 trans people (also 50%). By your method, they would be 100% trans in total. In reality, the total would be that 550 out of 1100 are trans, again 50%.
Second round: one group is 50/100 (50%) trans and the other is 50/1000 (5%) trans. Does that mean they are 55% trans cumulatively? No, they are 9.091% trans.
idk the numbers for our instances but I imagine that it's around 25%.
I like his method more.
We can finally complete the gay agenda by adding together groups of 100% trans people until we achieve a 100,000% group, then adding that group to the rest of humanity.
Just jumping in to confirm for passersby that Lemmygrad is very much trans-friendly.
Cannot help with the math.
10% trans users on lemmygrad + 30% from hexbear, assuming we have no crossover (and I don't think we have much) means 40% of our combined user base is trans, WAY above world averages and way above what most instances can boast.
🤓 um, ackshually, it would be 20%, because sample percentages are averaged into each other when added, not counting for the actual numerical difference between the instances' userbases
there there. It's okay. We can probably find some memes stupid enough to cure you of maths.
You didn't weight your averages! Such a lightweight. 🤓
I believe you, but i honestly can’t find anything fascist on their front page right now
No evidence, just vibes
Response 1 to that:
"I believe you, but i honestly can't find anything fascist on their front page right now"
Lol maybe they shouldn't believe a claim that has no evidence!
Response to that:
"Give it time. You'll stumble across a pro-Putin post eventually."
Since when do leftists support a capitalist like Putin? This is what late-stage Russia Derangement Syndrome looks like.
It's also a motte and bailey fallacy that the internet debate experts are mysteriously refraining from jumping on. "All posts are fascist" != "if you browse long enough you will eventually see a fascist post".
So mad I can't post my mspaint graphic over there now
? It seems like wreckers are tolerated on that instance, and I can't imagine that a real human thinks hexbear is far-right.
Damn. This liberal computer is smart! It's got us all figured out, comrades! We'd better scarper! Which, to the Russianmobile!
Is this an actual bot? You got me if so.
If not: USA does bad thing
But they do bad thing
USA bad thing is worse
USA tries to be good
USA kills millions and destabilizes the world
You wouldn't vote for harm reduction
"Harm reduction"
Conservative bad
Oh here we go, it's the most important election again, right?
Putin's puppet
Ukraine should surrender the two pieces of land so they can stop fighting
Not how it works
I wouldn't go to bat for a place that has no interest in helping a socialist project. It's not my war
Incrementslism
We're incrementing away with shit like abortion restrictions
Conservatives
It happened with democratic majority
Not supermajority
Lucy and the football
If you voted for them-
"If you voted for them 🙄"
All Putin's talking points, see, Hexbear be like
See, not a single leftward consession. Do you think it was brunch losers who canvased for Biden? Professional losers
I hate you
Dumb lib
that's not how it works line in regards to the Donbas leaving Ukraine really gets to me. They use it constantly whenever you you bring up what is the most likely outcome of that war. How do they think it works?
They genuinely refuse to acknowledge reality in that respect, here's a quote from some lib in another thread:
Ukraine is absolutely willing to talk about peace, thing is Russia has to leave the country first.
"Pro-Putin" to them just means not being ok with the west sacrificing every last man women and child in Ukraine for profit. Because Putin Bad Man.
It's pretty wild watching some people go around in circles from "We need to end the war!" "So there should be a negotiated peace?" "No, you tankie fuck, we need to crush Putler!" "So... you want to keep throwing Ukrainians in to the grinder until you run out?" "No, we need to end the war!" "So, there should be a negotiated peace?" and on and on from there until they become frustrated by your inability to understand that if they just manifest it hard enough Putler will run out of missiles and the Russian army will collapse and Ukraine will counter offense or some bs like that.
To paraphrase a Daily Show quote: “You’ve confused a negotiated settlement with always getting everything you want"
I don't know how they think this war is going to end. Anything other than a complete Russian capitulation will seem unacceptably morally compromised appeasement.
Based on absolutely no solid information I assume that Ukraine has to collapse at some point. I didn't get the impression they were doing very well, and news reports say they've been struggling to feed their guns for a long time. NATO is already losing interest and a trickle of a few tanks a year from now it's going to change the course of the war.
Their favorite argument is "the war would end if Putler just gave up and pulled his troops out"
And it's just... Yeah sure, that would be fine I guess, but there's like a zero percent chance of that happening. So if you actually want this shit to end you have to come up with a realistic solution. It's almost as if the world doesn't work on thoughts and prayers.
This is also incredibly naive.
A strongly militarised contingent of ultranationalist groups has been in a state of war against Eastern Ukraine. They're more powerful than before, they have the backing of the state, and they've got a taste for blood.
If Putin pulled out tomorrow, the idea that they'd just demobilise and that they're wouldn't be any reprisal actions against the people in the Donbas region is just... unfathomably ignorant of recent history and the conditions in the Ukraine.
Imo there's zero chance that if Putin pulled out that we'd see an end to the war. It would simply morph back into a civil war situation again.
Oh yeah, I agree 100%
I was just dumbing it down to illustrate how completely lost in fantasy these people are.
They'd be totally fine with that though. The media wouldn't tell them to care about it, so they wouldn't, just like they didn't in the 8 years before the SMO started.
They only care if the designated "villain of the week" is doing a bad thing, otherwise it might as well not exist to libs.
Their favorite argument is "the war would end if Putler just gave up and pulled his troops out"
And it's just... Yeah sure, that would be fine I guess, but there's like a zero percent chance of that happening.
And what's the probability of a state just giving up territory?
Pretty high.
They were negotiating a peacedeal that was so close Boris Johnson had to go immediately to Ukraine and stop Zelensky.Now tell me: If large parts of a country is occupied, and those parts have voted for separation from said country, and the country is unable to continue fighting, what do you think will happen?
It's brain-melting that these people who care so deeply about the lives of Ukrainians and their right to self determination will about-face the moment that you raise the issue of the state of civil war in Eastern Ukraine was in since 2014 and the right to self-determination for people in the Donbas region.
They'll literally go out of their way to call you an apologist for Putin and shit. Like, bruh, Ukrainians have been dying for nearly a decade now and you only started giving a shit about it when the media told you to, and even then it's only a curated, selective concern for the lives of Ukrainians.
Free Hong Kong! Free Tibet!
Free Hawaii!Free Puerto Rico!!Free Donetsk and Lugansk!Not to mention that war with Russia could have easily been avoided if at any point in those 8 years of Ukraine killing civilians, it had lived up to the promise it made in Minsk and Minsk II of just giving the eastern regions autonomy and a vote on self-determination. That was always the only major demand from Russia.
Yeah, the sheer hypocrisy of the position is just disgusting. Hell, I doubt most of them even knew anything about Ukraine before this war started, except for maybe some vague "Russia stole Crimea, that bad."
Libs were still calling it "the Ukraine" up until a week after the invasion
Anything about Ukraine that isn't sucking off Zelensky and calling Russians disgusting orcs is considered "Pro-Putin."
but every single post on there is right-wing and bigoted. It’s so damn obvious.
Damn Hexbears being bigoted against People of NATO.
I really don't get how people can't understand that it's possible for a person to support something and also admit it's flaws. Like, people are really out here not understanding dialectical thinking. It IS possible for something to be two things at once.
It IS possible for something to be two things at once
ackshually that would be doublethink, as documented in george orwell's seminal work of nonfiction '1984'
Hexbear is fascist. They’re pretending to be tankies, but every single post on there is right-wing and bigoted. It’s so damn obvious.
I thought the entire point of libs screeching "tankie" was to conflate principled communists and fascists as being the same thing.
I believe you, but i honestly can’t find anything fascist on their front page right now
Some of them are close to figuring it out.
god this makes me want to make an account and pull a bit where I just innocently ask for sources ad nauseum.
Egads! There’s no evidence for my claims! Whatever, it must be true anyway. Slava Zelenski
lol, no evidence necessary, just append, "It's so damn obvious" to the end of every assertion.
I was gonna quote this same post lol
I cannot believe people type this shit out and post it.
Yeah that didn't make sense to me either. Is tankie good to them now? These people are driving themselves insane.
Them: "hexbear is a tankie echo chamber"
Hexbear: Federates to specifically not be an echo chamber
Them: "hexbear is federating just to fuck shit up"
"During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative." -Michael Parenti
Thought terminating cliches on the right - "Tankie!" "Putler!" "Genocide Denier!"
"Thought has terminated" cliche on the left - This guy in 1986 succinctly explained why nothing you say will ever get through the reinforced liberal brain-pan
I thought lemmy.ca defederated from hexbear, why do they care about this lol. You're living rent-free in their heads.
One good thing this federation-stir has done is make the liberals on lemmy realize they're not actually the majority and there's a whole world out there. They really thought that if they blocked lemmygrad they were not going to see communist stuff anymore and as we all know, if I can't see it then it doesn't exist, and then bam, hexbear appears in their rear-view mirror.
why do they care about this lol
It's a comm dedicated to fediverse lore and drama.
It's weird, it's like they want to be in their ivory towers looking at The Poors living their lives on the outside. If you don't allow criticism you have no business opening up the "discussion" about a topic. It's not even a discussion, it's just them confirming what they already believe safe behind their high fences.
You're living rent-free in their heads.
Being the chief tenants organization in social media platforms we're not even on is kinda our thing.
I enjoyed this. It's extremely difficult to understand and feels somewhat like the internet equivalent of poking your fingers through someone's brain made up of a mess of overlapping thoughts.
Next time I'm going to ease up on the blurring to make the small text easier to read, but a meme just doesn't feel like a meme if it's not at least a little blurry and pixelated.
I feel like it actually adds to the deep web vibe if the text gets really really small but still high definition
holy fucking shit
Yup, don’t know how that’s not obvious to everyone at this point. They just shit on anything western/American to be contrarians. China is good cuz MURICA bad. I’m not a fan of imperialistic western behavior either but that doesn’t make China a positive influence on the world stage.
I really thought more liberals-leaning-left had become more aware after 2020. I guess if you can't abide the anti-capitalist perspective, it's quite impossible to fight against the propaganda currents.
shitting on the global hegemonic imperialist power into which the exploited labor of billions feeds is "contrarian". of course.
I’m not a fan of imperialistic western behavior either
oh no, they better not follow it up with a b--
but
lmfao.
doesn’t make China a positive influence on the world stage
I'm a little confused by what metric China isn't a positive influence on the world stage. sure, call them 1985 george ornell aminal farm authoritaritarians all you want inside their country, continue to make social credit score jokes like a dipshit, whatever, but China hasn't declared war on a country in decades and they've actively pumped one trillion dollars into infrastructure projects in developing countries, forgiving debts as often as not. meanwhile, the US pumps trillions of dollars into murdering civilians into several of those same countries.
they’ve actively pumped one trillion dollars into infrastructure projects in developing countries
I think it's important to point out it's not the dogshit kind of infrastructure that Western dogs build, only building railroads from mines directly to ports to more easily steal the Global South's resources, China's actually helping build infrastructure that interconnects these countries economies so they can actually develop.
sure, call them 1985 george ornell aminal farm authoritaritarians all you want inside their country, continue to make social credit score jokes like a dipshit, whatever, but ...
I get your point but this isn't a consistent expectation. They're unserious people who haven't got a coherent outlook on countries like China, they accept an aggregate of headlines and reddit comments or tweets they come across. MSM doesn't portray China as a force for good on the foreign scene, in fact it uses vagueries to scaremonger, so it's natural that somebody who's fallen for CCP genocide, opression whatever narratives won't look into the facts of the matter and see the good the PRC does.
Yeah, but they do it while being, you know..."Not a western ally"
Iraqi who saw the US turn their family, friends, and neighbors into bloody puddles and their homes into rubble: You know what, I'm thinking the US is kinda bad.
Hexbears: I have solidarity for this person.
Lemmy.shitlib: CONTRARIAN
China is good cuz
MURICA bad.they do good things for the worldFixed that in case any lurkers weren't clear
They started to, then the US began spending billions on anti-China propaganda in around 2018, so they've swung back to believing everything bad the US says about China is automatically true.
The narcissism is strong here. Everything in the world revolves around them. We federated just to trick them. They are the main character of the universe and we are out to get them. Everything is about them.
Going into conversations with the staunch belief that you are correct and that evidence is ad hoc. You can either convert to my way of thinking or be foolish.
Nuance that changed my mind could never change theirs when it's spoken from my mouth. It's actually deeply frustrating for me and makes me feel like I'm not being listened to no matter how much I try to validate them until the anger is pushed down in my mind. The incuriosity that they might be wrong, the ignorance that the world may not be as it seems to you, or the lack of awareness of what a persuasive argument looks like makes me want to detach from a person. I try with active listening to be able to see other points of view so when I don't get it in return it sucks. It just so happens that's also how libs talk to lefties on some "Bernie is my abusive grandpa" shit.
Going into conversations with the staunch belief that you are correct and that evidence is ad hoc. You can either convert to my way of thinking or be foolish.
Fantastic way to sum up their thought process. I've rambled inanely about it in the past, but there it is, just in two sentences. They refuse to consider that their position is an incorrect one. I wish I knew how to get people out of that mindset, because people like that are the prime target for grifters and con artists.
Honestly I think we could be a little bit more critical in our critical support to AES states but any support for them will be seen as supporting "authoritarianism" by libs. Propaganda runs deep.
Word. It's hard to stay nuanced when you're constantly beating back bad faith crap but the effort needs to be made. Sucks that it takes one sentence to scream "TANKIES" and like eight pages to explain anything real.
And bigoted and racist too, they like to say that one. Because that is what triggers liberals to censor stuff.
Edit: And even when you prove it to them, they still think you’re wrong because “they saw it”.
It would also be easier to be more critical if the USSR hadn't collapsed and we still had 2 major socialist powers instead of having to put all our current hope in China to give socialists worldwide breathing room to organize and actually have our own revolutions
WHY WON'T THEY SAY THE COUNTRY THAT HASN'T EXISTED IN 30 YEARS AND THE COUNTRY THAT HASN'T INVADED ANOTHER COUNTRY SINCE 1979 ARE BAD!?>!>>!!>>!>!?!@#L!@@!K$JL!@{#WKL:RJFwelk;'
because they're evil teenager tankies but don't worry they'll grow out of it one day
Which, really, is so much sillier and more fun than if they'd just admit we're all raging leftist assholes. Maybe they can't comprehend actually being attacked from the left? It's very weird.
I felt like Hexbear didn’t seem enough in defense of AES states. I honestly don’t think people on an online fourm have the qualifications to critique what they are doing to built socialism
Peak liberalism https://lemmy.ca/comment/2366603 "they're fascists! I don't have any proof for this of course, but I just know they are".
"I can find no evidence for this but I believe you"
"The utter lack of LGBT content on hexbear whinograd is quite telling"
This person has never used Hexbear.
LGBT is when you post shitty Reddit memes about being a heccin thigh highs catgirl programmer and nothing else
As a thigh high cat-girl, I really don't appreciate that it's turned us into a stereotype. It's genuinely upsetting. Only my online friends and the folks I'm close to were supposed to know that about me and now it's the first thing anyone assumes.
I just got thigh highs 'cos they're comfy and helpful for keeping warm in the winter. Now everyone assumes I'm some sort of internet catgirl. :(
SAME, thigh high compression socks ftw!
But yeah, like, I AM an Internet cat girl but I don't want people assuming that about me, it feels dirty for some reason
Sorry to be blunt here, but i find rejection of catgirl culture has mysogynist undertones waaaaayyy too often. That goes for anything that's publicly considered to be too girly and i'm not having that. That's not directed at you, but it absolutely is directed at people like ContraPoints who suffers from so much internalised transmysogyny that she can only live out her catgirl side ironically, and it is even moreso directed at r/196 and other cis liberals complaining about the issue because it makes them uncomfortable. Trans girls have a right to be saccharine and cutesy online, many of us need to go through a phase were we violently reject masculinity and that can't always involve becoming a man-hating feminist like it did for me, it can also mean lots of uWu posting and that's ok as well. It's also worth considering that to demand from members of your community not to be a stereotype because it makes us look bad is a form of assimilationism, it is not compatible with approaches aiming for actual queer liberation.
Like i said, i don't intend this as an accusation towards you. I'm just saying that critique of catgirl culture has problematic aspects to it and that i have to reject it when it comes from certain people.
These are all very valid points, thank you.
Assimilationism is bullshit pandering to people who'll still hate us all at the end of the day. So, sorry if my previous comments gave that vibe.
Love my trans comrades, simple as.
Don't get me wrong, i get your point and it's honestly exhausting to chat with these girls if you're like me and don't have a folder full of anime gifs with an entire subfolder dedicated to headpats, i'm just saying that being queer should be about accepting the harmless weirdness of other people.
they seem like a really toxic and unhealthy bunch of people.
extremists who’s only defense to anything they don’t like is attacking others and badmouthing them.
There is a lot of pot, kettle, and "through a lens darkly" going on. It's just that, you know, we're right, while they're killing the planet.
For me, the point was to engage in other communities and talk to others outside of hexbear. I've done that and shared my opinions on things, from Android to homes to formula one to politics. If they disagree with my opinions that's fine, but it was never to "fuck shit up", I've always been genuine in my interactions.
's other novelty account
