I’ve felt this way for a while. The lack of ideological diversity is what creates the illusion of “left unity” over here. One example:
Imagine if we had a sizeable chunk of people who are anti-Dengist. Then nearly every post about China, every use of Xi emotes, would be filled with replies criticising China, Xi, and the OP.
And you couldn’t call all these people libs and just ban them because there are a lot of leftists, from Maoists to anarchists to ultras to even non-Dengist MLs who genuinely oppose the modern Chinese state based on their ideological convictions.
And if the mods banned them, that would be pure bias, and could lead to an exodus of those other leftist users, which would mean we are not actually left-unity.
But if the mods didn’t, then it would be a severe restriction on the kinds of content that can be posted on the “main” communities. You couldn’t say things like “China is moving towards socialism or that it is in the primary stage of socialist construction” because these are controversial opinions not held by other leftists. Allowing these, would mean allowing the opposites, which would mean a war in the replies every time you post something like this.
As an example, see what happened with vegan posting. In this “left unity” Hexbear, anarchists would have to confine their controversial opinions to the anarchist comm, MLs to the ML comm etc.
Right now, we have an extremely small minority of people who are against the majority opinion in some way. And those people are tolerated in their dissent as long as they frame it in very careful ways and never outright go against the majority. I mean, we have left unity emotes and anarchist emotes and that’s all cool.
But what happens if there are a 100+ anarchists who start posting and commenting about their analysis/opinion on the USSR? Would that be allowed? Would anarchists, if they existed in sizeable numbers be allowed to not just criticise the Soviet Union in the narrow ways in which is allowed currently but to state the full breadth of their opinions on it from the start? Even more controversial, what if Trots started talking about Stalin? How long would that be tolerated?
Now, I’m not saying the way Hexbear operates is wrong. Maybe left unity is a pipe dream and that there are just too many controversial positions and opposing visions for it to be real. Maybe, if there were other tendencies here, the mods would figure out a way to balance things out. Be calm on main, go wild on specific comms. But I think that is the point - Hexbear’s claim to left unity needs to be properly tested. The users and the mods need to face these challenges and come up with proper solutions that doesn’t end in purges of other communities. We cannot claim to be this big tent when we’ve only been in this tiny sandbox with a handful of small rocks.
this one is pure
there would just be dozens of comments calling them cia funded color revolutionaries if they are even remotely opposed to the CPC even if the thing they were doing was building a community vegetable garden
people will celebrate maoists, trotskysist, anarchists, etc. sometimes, but they will never do it to a group in an anti western country bc immediately they become a cia agent planning to overthrow the government, see discussion of anarchist groups in Russia right now, Trotskyists in Kazakhstan during the gas thing last year, Filipino maoists who say bad against Xi, various underground socialist groups in Iran last year, it is a lot easier for people here to praise Sawant for anti caste laws in Seattle, than to go to bat for Belarusian anarchists who tried to destroy train infrastructure for trains carrying war shipments, the former doesn’t threaten their beliefs the latter does, it’s safe for people to throw a bone to USA anarchists as the USA is their enemy but feels dangerous to give any space to a Chinese anarchist who might somehow undermine China and therefore benefit the US thinking that everything is a zero sum game, you have to pick sides and anything that doesn’t agree with your side is serving the enemy
Well yeah, it's a shame we live in a world where the sole dominant superpower is also virulently anti-communist and anti-socialist, and has directly contributed to millions of leftists being killed.
It definitely is a shame, and I also think people should have a slightly less heavy trigger finger on calling everything CIA and engaging in zero sum black and white thinking especially in an internet forum that has the auspices of being open minded within the left, not everything that happens can be framed in terms of pro west or anti west, it’s not dialectical thinking. And it’s gonna grate on people when they constantly have to hear Anarchists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc. are actually reactionaries serving the west bc they have the “wrong” take on something.
Maybe lemmygrad will be a healthy outlet for people who would be better off in ML only genzedong type spaces, because there’s frankly no reason to be here instead of there, if someone is not open to differing tendencies, they would probably enjoy that more anyways
Well there’s historical precedent for MLs to be wary of left anti-communists using lefty rhetoric to get a wedge in the door and then once the door is open the reactionaries seize power. Happened in Poland, in Chile & almost happened in Syria.
Hyperbolic