New tagline just dropped.

    • Tech_Issus [comrade/them, he/him]
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      2 years ago

      “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

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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        02 years ago

        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

  • Meh [comrade/them]
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    02 years ago

    I know that we have instances that we play nice with, but all the turbulence of the past week, while funny, makes me think that the entire concept of federation is flawed.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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      02 years ago

      We’re getting on well with Lemmygrad and I think we’re doing okay with Lemmy.ml

      There’s a profound difference in world view between what we’re doing and most of the rest of the world. There aren’t a lot of hard line left anglophones running around, and the ones who are usually aren’t extradordinarily online assholes. Our culture was going to class enormously with the average liberal Democrat voter and most of their ideological fellow travellers.

      I think federation is a good idea, but you need each instance to be very roughly speaking similar languages and having similar views about the world, at least to to the point where you can have discussions without immediately flame wars breaking out. That’s a hard sell between hard line leftists and libs right now because we’ve got a pretty solid theory for why things suck, whereas libs can’t understand why most things suck while still being libs. They have to continue to believe in the institutions and the constitution and the democrats and all that shit, or their woldview collapses. We know that their worldview is bullshit. So it’s hard to have any kind of conversation about any concrete topics before a leftist says “Actually things suck because neoliberalism and democrat leadership” and then a liberal’s head explodes.

      • Meh [comrade/them]
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        02 years ago

        It’s been a disorienting couple of weeks for me as a casual user. I seem to miss a lot of what is going on, but the results of federation seem to have largely resulted in a lot of fighting with other instances before one side gives up and cuts ties. I know the intent is to bring in users who are either already on board or are otherwise open to our politics, but is the way forward to just test against any other version of Lemmy until we have burned through all of them?

        I don’t know that I’m making much sense, but it just seems like a lot of turbulence and all of our collective focus has been towards that and I suppose my concern is what the overall effect on the site’s culture will be. Dunking on libs is fun, but if that’s all it becomes with the collateral of our trans comrades, for example, getting caught in the crossfire, I don’t know if all of this is worth it. Hexbear has been a touchstone to make sure I’m not completely insane in the midst of the most brainwormed shit in the Internet and I would hate for that to get lost somewhere along the way.

        • spectre [he/him]
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          02 years ago

          As a less-casual I’d say that got shouldn’t be too concerned. One thing that federation has made obvious is that we have far more posting power than any of the other instances. They usually have bigger problems with us influencing their culture (to the point of paranoia) than the inverse.

          Nonetheless it’s a big moment in site history, and the drama is probably going to continue for a few more weeks till the dust settles. I don’t think we’ll be hearing about it indefinitely.

          Also, be sure to set your feed to “local” instead of “all” most of the time, and you’ll only see our posts. I only switch over to “all” if I’m bored but I’ve already caught up on Hexbear.

          • combat_brandonism [they/them]
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            12 years ago

            One thing that federation has made obvious is that we have far more posting power than any of the other instances.

            Until the reddit boycott we were the largest and most active Lemmy so the only people this comes as a shock to are those new to Lemmy in the last couple months.

  • Awoo [she/her]
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    02 years ago

    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.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      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!”

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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        02 years ago

        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.

      • Egon [they/them]
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        02 years ago

        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

    • LaBellaLotta [any]
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      02 years ago

      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.

      • Awoo [she/her]
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        02 years ago

        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.

      • ReadFanon [any, any]
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        12 years ago

        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:

        1. You demonstrate how the US comfortably fits this definition, point by point

        2. 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

        • ZapataCadabra [he/him]
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          02 years ago

          What makes you think Eco’s definition is trash tier? Ur-fascism is a decent essay that gets frequently misinterpreted.

          • ReadFanon [any, any]
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            02 years ago

            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.

    • TheModerateTankie [any]
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      02 years ago

      We are fascists for checks notes… not supporting ukrainian nazi militias in their struggle to purge ukraine of the ethnic russians.

  • RedundantClam [they/them]
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    12 years ago

    hero-of-socialist-labor I’ve not been around regularly for the past few weeks but I’m glad that our beautiful posters have been engaging the libs in the posting trenches since the federation.

  • puff [comrade/them]
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    02 years ago

    “The utter lack of LGBT content on hexbear whinograd is quite telling”

    This person has never used Hexbear.

        • 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.

          • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]
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            2 years ago

            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. :(

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]
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          02 years ago

          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.

          • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]
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            02 years ago

            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. trans-heart

            • AcidSmiley [she/her]
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              02 years ago

              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.

  • CriticalResist8 [he/him]
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    02 years ago

    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.

  • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]
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    02 years ago

    Hexbear’s entire point in federating was to fuck shit up.

    no the entire point in federating was to find more furries, damn nincompoop

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
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    02 years ago

    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.

  • VILenin [he/him]M
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    02 years ago

    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.

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
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      02 years ago

      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.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
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      02 years ago

      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.