Just saying. How’re yall doing, by the way?
Not from midwest.social, but I did happen upon that thread that blew up. Is it ok if I ask some questions? I’d like to better understand the hexbear instance, so I understand how to consume the content that shows up in my feed. Before I go on, please note that I definitely do not mind seeing content from hexbear and you guys commenting on other instances. My instance is not planning on de-federating (AFAIK) and I am completely fine with that. I lean left myself.
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Users on other instances say you guys are “tankies”, and from what I understand, that’s essentially the authoritarian version of the left; instead of being the more moderate-ish(?) leftists/communists. Which one do you guys identify under?
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I see a lot of shitposts and edgy humor, which is fine; so I initially thought the instance was more of a shitposting community rather than a serious one advocating communism. Or is it?
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Many comments I see from other instances are mainly complaining of you guys being the former (tankies) on the first bullet, saying you are basically just like the far-right, just on the opposite side. The other complaint is that all they see when they engage with you guys are memes and shitpost gifs, and that it doesn’t contribute to the conversation. I know that’s not everything, as I do see serious discussions on my feed from time to time, but is the shitposting and trolling done on purpose to antagonize other instances?
I’m happy to be educated/enlightened. Thank you!
Edit: I’m getting a ton of well thought-out responses and I need time to process them before I can respond. Thanks again! And please feel free to continue commenting if you have something more to say.
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We are officially a left-unity community. Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists etc. all welcome, but we don’t tolerate right-wing/liberal ideology that contributes to the suffering of the exploited workers of the world.
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It’s more so a place for leftists to hang out and chat and spread news/content. A bit of both ig.
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The people calling us tankies and nazis simultaneously are mostly doing so out of a disingenuous liberal attempt to position anybody to the left of them as being on the right of them, while they are the truly enlightened ones. The shitposting is only ever a response to people who are being disingenuous with their arguments and refusing to have genuine discourse.
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Tankie has become a pretty useless word especially over the last 4 or 5 years.
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Originally it meant people who supported the USSR in suppressing an attempted revolution in Hungary (which by the way was largely supported by Hungarian fascists who were literally fighting alongside the Nazis only 11 years prior, it was complicated)
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Then it meant generally people who think socialist states should maintain their structure using violence when they see it as necessary to not collapse. As if every other type of state doesn’t obviously do that
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Then it started to just mean “marxist-leninists”
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Then pretty recently it got misused even harder, until it split and started to mean three things:
- classic definition #2 up above
- anyone to the left of me! (Most common now)
- those weird “patsoc” grifters and/or fans of how capitalist Russia hates gay people (this is the stupidest version of all)
It’s mainly “anyone to the left of me” which is just the word “woke” but for liberals.
Give it 2 or 3 years, and republicans will be calling Joe Biden a tankie.
One thing I never can really grasp my head around is the framing of the Hungarian uprising or tiananmen square protests. There were much larger acts of state violence committed at the same time elsewhere. Like the French killing a million Algerians or the us proping up iraq in the Iran iraq war while they genocide kurds and launched chemical weapons at Iranian cities. There has to be some dissonance or just ignorance there. It’s the emphasis vs lies propaganda at its finest.
Parenti’s “non-falsifiable orthodoxy” statement explains it. It really is just reflexive, deeply ingrained, and completely unexamined anti-communism. It’s not a real event to most of them, it’s an article of religious faith that proves the righteousness of their anti-communist beliefs. Trying to tell them “no one died in the square, about 300 people including unarmed pla soldiers died in fighting between the pla and insurgents several blocks away” is like telling someone that the tears leaking from the virgin mary are a rusted out sewer pipe. You’re not revealing the truth, or educating them. You’re attacking their religious convictions that form part of the foundation of how their world works, and they react accordingly by shutting down and denying.
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