I get the impression that 95% of the people here are some flavour of ML.

    • ConstipationNation [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Some common takes are not related to ML/Anarchist split, but are unpopular with anarchists (Vaush hate, Breadtube hate, not voting, anti-electoralism, anti-harm-reductionism, shitting on AOC, etc.)

      I lean towards anarchism myself, and most of the anarchist stuff I've read has been pretty anti-electoralism and anti-social democracy, so I don't get why reddit anarchists have gotten so liberal.

      • AbolishAmerikkka [he/him]
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        3
        ·
        4 years ago

        It’s a long term op. Started when the CIA saw how useful anarchists could be when some went to rojava (which was based) but the CIA could see how they could drag the ideological space over a bit until color revolution didn’t seem that different to your average anarchist. It’s a fucking op.

              • SteveHasBunker [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                He said he’s not a communist, but have never said anything anti-USSR or more broadly anti-communist.

                Guy seems to focus on Germany issues and debunking crap histories of WWII, he’s doesn’t seem interested in much beyond that.

              • ssjmarx [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                4 years ago

                In his 1000 subscriber Q&A he answers this question, here's what he says in that video:

                "It's not that I'm such a big fan of the SPD in the 20s and 30s, they weren't really the good guys either in a lot of cases, It's just that I'm a fan of history and like the idea of people coming together to fight for democracy against the forces that try to destroy it."

                i dunno if he's said anything more recently, I just remembered this but I haven't been subscribed to him in a while.

              • ssjmarx [he/him]
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                edit-2
                4 years ago

                Three Arrows is good, lots of debunking Holocaust denial / Wehrmacht apologia from a modern German perspective.

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              BadEmpanada is not quite breadtube but he does good vids and he posts here too (or at least he used to post in the old sub, idk if he migrated).

          • read_freire [they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            something something master's tools something master's house

            matrix room replacement for the discord when

          • JuneFall [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            Contra

            I think that she was a bit more left than now, that she did want to express multi faceted views, was much closer (timeline and relational) to the university and academic debates and thus tried to present a bit of leftism with a fun take. That said, she wasn't openly advocating for any explicit revolutionary stream.

            Now Contra got money from the videos, which changed her relation to society, she has a lot of input from viewers all over the spectrum, which also skews her views. It might be that she hides her power level, but I doubt it.

        • ConstipationNation [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Well that's a shame. I remember when Breadtube started, the goal behind it was to push back on all the right-wing propaganda on youtube and try to radicalize people. It seems like instead of radicalizing people it's just de-radicalized people who were already on the left.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            It's not deradicalised people who were already on the left. It's just that people making these vids are just radlibs, and they don't know enough about anything. Almost none of them belong to any kind of larger structure, to an organisation or something, or have participated in serious organising and unionising etc. A leftist who has never tried any of that stuff, has never come in contact with serious people who are attempting that, who has never been part of collective struggle etc and thinks they are qualified to talk about stuff after just reading the wiki page about Rojava or even worse, watching vids by other libs who stan democrat slay kweens, is not a leftist.

            They're all either utopians, laser-focused on idpol, secretly reactionary or just complete ultras. And that is predictable. It is also predictable that if they continue being as individualistic as they are, if they continue being absent from any serious organising, and if they continue having their audience enforce their echo chamber, chances are they will all end up reactionary.

      • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Anarchists are the canonical anti-electoralists so the whole trend of online "anarchists" telling people to vote for Biden is extremely weird. A real anarchist would call Lenin a lib for justifying bourgeois electoral participation under any pretext at all.

        (disclaimer: not an anarchist, but I have known of anarchism since a while before 2016)

      • read_freire [they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        yeah that seems more like shit that's unpopular with succdems than anything else

          • ssjmarx [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            reactionary co-opting Marxist-Leninist or Maoist terminology

            TFW Russian nationalists use Stalin imagery :stalin-shining:

          • read_freire [they/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            tbh it was inevitable the second Koch got back from germany and decided to go cryptofash with the trojan horse of liberty

            didn't even know who vaush was til I got on here and I was pretty active on the sub before it got banned

            conversely, I've got an anarchist friend who joined the dsa on the opposite end of things because they're the most active leftists in their area besides some vanguardist MLs with a particularly shitty idea of what that means

              • read_freire [they/them]
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                edit-2
                4 years ago

                I had an automod rule that deleted any post or comment with his name in it lmao

                genius

                full LARP

                Door-to-door canvassing to spread disinfo to suppress the primary vote seems more like they got compromised by bad actors than anything else. Tbh the biggest larpers I've met IRL are bougie kids that are into the soviet aesthetic and have no discernable politics.

                Did go to a Castro-themed columbus day party thrown by some ansyns once, and that was pretty sweet. Thought it was a larp til I learned the hosts were red card carriers

              • KiaKaha [he/him]
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                1
                ·
                4 years ago

                That’s because I had an automod rule set up that deleted any post or comment with his name in it lmao

                Suddenly it makes sense how Vaush came out of nowhere.

                We need an automod here.

      • skollontai [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Re: China struggle sessions, I've gotten into a few of them here, taking the "Adrian Zenz may be a grifter, China might not be committing a literal genocide, but they're still doing Islamophobic racial profiling on a mass scale, that's grotesque, and it's sad you can't admit it" position. I often end up with a better ratio than my interlocuters. I think the people in the "I will defend China forever, always" camp are very loud but don't have nearly as much support among the userbase as they claim.

        • Veegie2600 [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          This is a good take. China seems to be handling radical islamism x1000 better and more humanely than places like the U.S, france, etc., but that isnt saying much.

        • Skinhn [they/them,any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          While I think this is fair, I think there's a level of critical support required, or even a degree of critical neutrality - at absolute worst someone might argue China is as bad as western imperial countries, but most of us don't live in China but those western countries.

      • DivineChaos100 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        These are all really damn good points that I hadn’t considered previously. We’re obviously not going to budge on some of those aspects as a site (no left anti-communism, no cia propaganda, neutrality on china), but the trying to educate anarchists thing really stands out to me as somewhere we could improve. There’s a bullshit “aNaRcHiSts jUsT dOnT kNoW tHeYrE MLs yEt” trope that I think is toxic.

        Criticising Leninism is not left anti communism tho and a lot of users act like it was and some prominent users are def only here to push their agenda on others.

        And it really is a turn off when i am being "lectured" on my own country's history by westerners for example because i dared to question the party line.

    • Pezevenk [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Anarchists are supposed to be the ones who really hate voting but online American leftists are a bit confused.