What I have learned:

  • Russia has already won the Ukraine war
  • Which NATO started
  • A lot of people in the West think that Ukraine should surrender
  • Also Ukraine was the world’s main provider of CSAM
  • Also Ukraine is exploited by the West but if they can unite with Russia then their economy and everything else will finally be alright

It’s literally like a bizarro world and everyone is over there agreeing with it. I’m genuinely confused by, who even are these people (what is the mixture of Russian bots / Russian-aligned ordinary people / confused Westerners / some other explanation.)

  • iarigby@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I would LOVE to find a non deranged communist forum but like I said on another comment, I have yet to encounter one which does not make me vomit all over the screen after I see them celebrating bloodshed in Ukraine and masturbating to the idea of an independent sovereign nation being crushed by brutal, authoritarian, and savage state.

    It’s heartbreaking that people seeking an ideology with genuinely noble intentions turn into such violent loons. On hexbear (and co) I think they are genuinely mostly from the west but try so hard to stick it to US imperialism that they literally end up supporting a significantly more horrifying empire. I sometimes think that they deserve to have been born into Soviet Union or present Russia but I genuinely cannot bring myself to wish such horror on a human being. Their thoroughly typed and carefully cherry picked facts vs what the victims of these regimes went through have the same vibe as Tucker’s recent montage/comments about trip to Russia.

    Most propaganda is grain sized, very subtle and so well masked that most people swallow without noticing it. It is structured so vaguely and discreetly that others who smell it are not able to produce hard enough evidence.

    And with enough time we get the stereotypical tankie communities - gullible teenagers, bitter adults that are so blinded by search of an alternative that by endless reading they somehow achieve ignorance and betray fundamental human values, and some Russians having the time of their life having their disgusting views and evil atrocities welcomed, accepted, and spread for free.

    They do not allow discussions, but the Russian propaganda that gets spread on other servers or social media cost them nothing emotionally while all of us who have to argue back need to resurface feelings that we suffer under Russia’s terrorism, after inheriting the generational trauma from parents born into Soviet Union.

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I agree, they simply put all the blame on the West for the world’s problems no matter what it is and to be fair I often agree with those statements.

      It’s just purely idiotic to support another country going the same thing and denying facts such as Russia invaded Ukraine.

      I’m a socialist, somewhat left of a standard social democrat in the EU, but fuck, these guys are giving the whole ideology a bad name. There are still some recent movements that are good such as solarpunk, degrowth, minimalism, third spaces and tool libraries. I hope the Gen Z and Alpha get in on those so they can vote out our generation of rampant consumerism and privatisation.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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      6 months ago

      slrpnk.net seems to have some genuine socialist / communist ideology without the tankie flavor. They have a couple of users who I think are pretty effective “and that’s why Emma Goldman would be okay with letting Trump come to power!” shills, but for the most part it’s just the good stuff. IMO.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        Slrpnk.net leans anarchist, and historically there has always been a vocal subset of anarchists who advocate abstaining from electoral politics on principle. The upcoming US presidential election is the perfect storm for this stance to thrive and still it is a minority position even among the most anarchist instance on Lemmy, so I’m pretty happy with the diversity of opinion expressed there. I think it’s important we hear those minority voices and a bit unfair to call them shills.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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          5 months ago

          Oh no, I wasn’t talking about the general “don’t vote” contingent on slrpnk – that seems fine; just like you’re saying, it seems authentically arrived at. I was just saying that there are a couple of users there that seem to have a particular and very specific focus on this exact election and specifically on not voting in this election, and not much interest in anarchism beyond its application to parts that would be generally applicable to someone who was trying to engineer a result for Trump in the election.

          I mean, what the hell, no one needs my permission to say whatever they feel like saying. But to the extent that my opinion on it matters, I don’t think slrpnk overall or its general “fuck the system and yes that includes the voting system” vibe that it has are indicative of anything shill related, no.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I know we’ve had our run ins about this but it’s really about this election because Biden is doing egregious stuff. It’s not this election for no reason. And the shills that are just trying to make people never want to vote again are getting a ton of ammunition.

            • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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              5 months ago

              Have we had run-ins?

              IDK, other than his absolutely war-criminal support for Israel I’m not aware of all that much about Biden that is real ammunition. (Not that that’s a minor issue 😢) Pretty much everything else has crumbled into weird half-truths and propaganda when I’ve been poking at it, I think; what were you thinking of when saying he’s doing egregious stuff?

              I also don’t think that refusing to vote for Biden is going to make anything any better. If someone is doing direct action to change things, or an influence campaign to try to push him to the left, that all sounds frickin fantastic. Just committing to not voting doesn’t really make sense to me though – it’s functionally the same as saying you’ll vote for Biden no matter what; i.e. basically no pressure at all to change his policy (but with the added horrifying danger of maybe electing Trump.)

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Oh you’re not horrible or anything. You’ve just been on the other side of some of those conversations. Also as far egregious stuff he just dropped an EO on immigration that’s sure to get the ACLU fired up. Which doesn’t really spark joy in my life.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Oh then they’re getting that entirely wrong. You’re not supposed to check out of the system and never vote. You’re supposed to withhold your vote, that you normally use. Those are numbers they can see and run polling to figure out how to better represent people, (in a good faith system). If you just never engage then you never get represented. And if you never get represented then you’re just watching the country walk away from you.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      r/antiwork was that at one time. Then it got swallowed by the reddit hivemind.

      On Lemmy the thing I keep running into is they’re either tankies or anarchists, nothing in between. And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better it’s not a state we’re ever going to achieve in a good way.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
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        5 months ago

        And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better it’s not a state we’re ever going to achieve in a good way.

        And while anarchy has some great ideas for making our lives better

        it’s not a state we’re ever going to achieve

        anarchy

        not a state we’re ever going to achieve

        Sorry, I know you meant state as in “state of being” and not “political state”, but I found it too funny to pass up.

    • cor@slrpnk.net
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      5 months ago

      you will not find a non-deranged communist forum because: 89% of all users will be shills… the remaining 11% will be beaten down, ridiculed, and/or banned for saying anything not deranged….

      i’ve asked in person, lifelong activist/leftists and they all say the same thing: online forums are so infiltrated and fucked it’s not worth the aggravation.

      i don’t think it’s worth giving up on entirely, but even if you make a no-tankies/ direct russian propaganda repeating, they just pivot to FUD, forum sliding, concern trolling…

      even totally sane, reasonable accounts can be fake just so they can get inside the next level or take over moderation…

    • Jayjader
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      5 months ago

      I came across raddle.me a few months ago and spent a few nights trawling it without finding anything questionable - though I might just be too ignorant of parts of history to pick up where they fail. It’s very anarchist-flavored so while that might not be your preferred brand of communism I think it avoids descending into “deranged”. In any case, their faq/about page should give you a better idea than whatever I could write here.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      I’ve heard horror stories about the USSR but I’ve also heard meh stories where life wasn’t the best but their needs were taken care of- not having luxuries but socialized healthcare and housing so don’t live in fear like I do currently in the US of being one medical hiccup from being in a world of hurt or one interaction with a cop and the legal system from destroying my life. Will my kids say they have this generational trauma too?

      • iarigby@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I can imagine why you think that this reasoning makes sense but these are completely unrelated things. Many people in the US live in deeply brutal psychological and economic distress that resulted from decades of worker hostile reforms. People in social democratic European countries live under capitalism and deal with its issues too but the socialist policies limit the severity to the point where it’s not outright traumatic. In all countries people need to thrive for socialist change and a system that treats humans kinder but this does not mean that we need to in any way tolerate people trying to drag brutal and horrific dictatorships into a positive light

      • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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        5 months ago

        one interaction with a cop and the legal system from destroying my life

        Uhhhhh

        I have bad news for you about the USSR

        Every system has good and bad, and the US is so bad at so many things that most industrialized countries do for their citizens no problem, that I would never be the one to say it doesn’t need radical improvement. And I really do (truly) get what you mean about living in a non-capitalist society and the wonderful things about the system just taking care of you (which it doesn’t in the US). But at the same time, “needs were taken care of” and “don’t live in fear” are two things that are very very far away from what was the stable reality of living in the Soviet Union.