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Which we should see as an excellent radicalization and growth opportunity!

It can be exhausting explaining ourselves again and again, always met with the same accusations and assumptions born from the mythos spun by our enemies.

However, we must remember these people are people, and many people change their minds given enough information, delivered with firm respect. For every belligerent person who appears like they wouldn't change their mind for anything, there are 10 people quietly lurking who are more on-the-fence. Even those who regurgitate insults and contempt may change their mind when the stars align!

These people are not our enemies, they are victims to the greatest campaign of dishonesty in human history! It is our duty to draw out the poison and deliver the medicine!

I know many comrades here have very difficult lives and do not have the patience or energy to deal with such people. Please do not exhaust yourself interacting with liberals, and allow comrades with more energy to deal with them.

Radicalizing online is not the end-all be-all, but at this point in the psychological war for those within the Anglosphere, every victory is invaluable!!!

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[-] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 78 points 1 year ago

While you were away, reddit made a big fuckup by charging a fortune to use their APIs, killing third party apps. This caused many redditors to jump ship to other platforms, and lemmy was the biggest alternative.

Hence all the libs.

[-] kig_v2@lemmygrad.ml 63 points 1 year ago

I heard about that, I should have figured the consequence.

Well, it's like old GenZedong days, only we can't get quarantined 😈😈😈😈

[-] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 63 points 1 year ago

Hexbear is also federated now, so we have r/chapotraphouse veterans here now too.

[-] HornyOnMain@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago

rat-salute we're back in the posting trenches once again

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 1 year ago

lol libs on from lemmy.ee and lemmy.world are having a complete meltdown over that, for a while they were big enough to run around and brigade things they didn't like and all of a sudden the floodgate opened on the left 😂

[-] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 36 points 1 year ago

While you were away, reddit made a big fuckup by charging a fortune to use their APIs, killing third party apps. This caused many redditors to jump ship to other platforms, and lemmy was the biggest alternative.

Hence all the libs.

So many federated libs have a "fuck you, got mine" attitude and outright brag about throwing money at their corporate masters, so why did they leave Reddit in the first place?

[-] LaBellaLotta@hexbear.net 67 points 1 year ago

Gotta say I was expecting some friction with ya’ll at lemmygrad after Federation (because we are all libs on hexbear) but so far you folks rock and I have been very pleased to see your high quality posts on my feed.

Loving to see posts like this. Can’t remember the Sankara quote but ya’ll know it. Cannot get tired of explaining ourselves because when the people understand us they will side with us.

Loving having new comrades in the posting trenches with us.

[-] SpaceDogs@lemmygrad.ml 59 points 1 year ago
[-] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hey this is about me!

I probably don't know the right words to use and I don't know my history or theory and couldn't hold my own in a real debate but I sure am learning a lot from you all when I find your posts on All and your comments all over the place.

Realizing that, I don't exactly know where I fall politically. Previously I would say I am left, but seeing conversations I realize that I don't even know where Left-land is. At the moment I don't see myself agreeing with a lot of stuff posted by hexbear/lemmygrad users, but I'm open to learn, and, more importantly, have a fuller understanding of your perspective(s).

Coming from Reddit I'm not used to the incredibly in-depth dialectic with a non-/anti-Western point of view, nor the intense levels of trolling/sarcasm/dunking that you all seem to love so much. So it's hard to navigate conversations sometimes, and figure out what is a joke and what is serious. And even if I personally don't engage in the conversation, usually someone with a similar mindset to me will do so, and I appreciate it when you folks take the time to soften your words/message to ~~actually~~ (edit to cross out judgy word) explain your position.

Additionally I hope we can see and treat each other as individuals and not our instance names when traversing the fediverse (honestly this is more about non-hexbear/lemmygrad users, but felt I should say it anyway). It certainly is a shame that some instances choose to defed you. I hope mine doesn't, but I'm prepared to move if mine gets overly censor-y, though my understanding is that sdf is unlikely to do so.

Anyway, keep it up, there are absolutely people out there lurking and reading what you all write, and occasionally learning something.

Stuff like this is why I loved the internet so much long ago (near 30 years, wow) and I'm really happy to see it hasn't gone anywhere, I just lost track of it.

Cheers!

[-] Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, if nothing else, I hope liberals are learning how to actually phrase questions in a good faith manner. As a former liberal myself, so many of my questions in the beginning were phrased in such an anglocentric way that just assumed Western ideals as the default and it put everyone else on the defensive. So of course I got dunked on or people assumed I was trolling. Really, I was just ignorant af.

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 1 year ago

Me too, but it did help me learn. Though I would imagine some might double down due to the insult, learning that some ideas people in the west just take for granted have their roots in anglocentrism and white supremacy does help some people really reflect on everything they've just assumed about the world for most of their life.

[-] Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I recently hung out with friends that I hadnt seen in a while and they were saying some of the most ignorant, chauvanistic shit. Really nice people who consider themselves progressive. They just lack the information to understand why a thought of theirs is just a racist regurgitation that they picked up from a source they can't even remember. They can't remember the context of how those beliefs entered their worldview.

It was a startling reminder of just how big the task is of educating people out of a colonizers mindset. We can't get tired of it.

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

When I first found my way to this corner of the internet and leftism in general, I was attracted at first by the truly caring priorities of leftism, taking care of people, not turning people into useful cogs.

I was put off by all the talk of communism, the USSR, etc, but the more I interacted and spoke with people and read about what I was hearing, the more I realized I was taught to fear these topics, that I was conditioned to believe some things were right, natural, and obvious, and others were evil, unnatural, and sinister

I kept looking into things, reading about what sounded like it couldn't be true (USA's activities meddling in every other nation, especially the ones trying to be socialist, was a big one, but also how they treated their own people like when they actually bombed a black neighborhood because they were becoming too affluent by relying on each other)

Really, just keep doing what you're doing. The thing about leftists is we're correct, so I'm not worried about winning you over this second. As far as I'm concerned, now that you're realizing that maybe there's more to this whole "leftism" thing than youve been lead to believe, I know you're going to figure it out eventually.

Godspeed comrade o7 o7 o7

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[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 55 points 1 year ago

I completely agree with that. I find the trick is recognizing whether a person disagrees, but wants to have a genuine discussion to understand where you're coming from or just trolling. I think we can give people the benefit of the doubt, but as the discussion progresses it's important to watch for signs such as the person ignoring or misrepresenting the points you're making, talking past you, using tropes, etc. At that point it's best to just leave a note pointing that out for people reading the thread and disengage.

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[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 49 points 1 year ago

Good point. I've probably been too short and snarky with them.

It's just frustrating to explain something only for them to deliberately ignore your argument in favour of pretending you just said something "uncivil" so they can dismiss you. Especially if American politics is involved (or Trump or Putin, my god, it's like their brains just short circuit when someone mentions "Orange man."

A primer on how to deal with libs would be extremely helpful. I can talk to people in person fine, but I just have no clue how to reach Americans, it's like their national pastimes are arrogance and ignorance.

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[-] SaniFlush@hexbear.net 45 points 1 year ago

Hmm, I have another take on it.

Nobody wants to think they were "lied to", even if it's true. Westerners default to thinking of themselves as the main character of the story, and swallowing the idea of having been fooled is difficult, nearly impossible. You can't be a victim, can you? That doesn't fit the narrative arc at all.

Come at it from the other angle. Even those people deep in the shit pit of reaction can still FEEL when an atrocity is wrong, even if they twist it into blaming it on minorities or whatever. The right wing runs entirely on feeling, it's literally all they have. The other side of their knife is taking blame away from the self- it's never their own fault, and they never have to sacrifice anything. The other edge of their knife is the dulling and nullification of feeling.

When someone you know- someone shamelessly liberal- agrees with you that an atrocity is indeed wrong, embrace them and build on it. Not "No, but", but instead "Yes, and"! They're feeling something, and the people profiting from their suffering would prefer if they dull that feeling. Instead, link the feeling to facts- "Here is why the bad thing is indeed bad"- and turn that feeling into praxis- "You can fix it!".

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 1 year ago

The problem is that a lot of libs don't recognise real atrocities (especially if committed by the US) while imagining all the "bad guy countries" commit a dozen atrocities every morning before breakfast.

I'm just not sure how we can build on that without just confirming their worldview that the bad guy countries are the only ones doing bad things.

[-] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 1 year ago

Doesn't even have to be atrocities. Try policies. Privatisation of healthcare? Decaying and propagandization of school education? Crumbling infrastructure? The list goes on

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[-] ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 1 year ago

Huh? I Wonder what happened in 1942? Probably nothing, the USSR was probably developing exactly as planned…

[-] Bobby_DROP_TABLES@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

I wonder what happened in 1942?

Gee, maybe it had something to do with that year being the height of WWII?

[-] ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml 28 points 1 year ago

Never heard of it, I bet the USSR wasn’t affected by it tho /s

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[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

nah that's not it.

Probably the year when Stalin got his big spoon

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[-] Rasm635u@lemmygrad.ml 40 points 1 year ago

I have absolutely zero patience for anti-communism

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[-] HiddenLayer5@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seriously tho what's the difference between a Soviet gulag and a Western prison? Any society that still has crime requires correctional facilities, the USSR is no different. Why do libs insist on Soviet ones being called gulags? If you want to criticize their prison system just call it that. I know it's a Russian word but we're speaking English here which already has a word for prisons, and to me the Soviet system really does not seem different or unique enough to warrant its own word as a proper noun. (I-it's not just to make the Soviet system seem more evil by distancing it from their own Western prison systems right? I-it's not that right?)

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[-] duderium@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago

These people are not our enemies

That’s where I disagree. Liberals fund the police and the military, which is the main reason much of the world is enslaved and unable to fight climate change. So long as anyone is making excuses for this shit, they are most certainly the enemy of history. That being said, people can change. I know that because I did.

[-] kig_v2@lemmygrad.ml 33 points 1 year ago

Liberalism as an entity is absolutely our enemy. I just mean individual liberals.

I believe this war will continue to heat up, and I just prefer to convert enemies in order to lessen their ranks, while we still can.

I have never regretted extending humanity and compassion to my enemies, and trying instead to see them as a victim of brainwashing, which they are.

[-] Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Right. Liberalism is the enemy. But if someone isn't a member of the state, active agent of fascism or a capitalist then we should see them as temporarily embarrassed comrades.

[-] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Don't forget, brainwashing is a co-opted term, and you're using the co-opted version. Brain washing is literally the act of washing the brain from impurities and toxins. This is what you are describing as your preferred course of action, which is also the strategy of Mao and the PLA. They captured KMT soldiers and they washed their brains clean of anti-communist lies and showed them the truth. Once their brains were cleaned, the KMT soldiers saw that the correct course of action was joining the PLA.

Our rhetorical opponents are not brain washed, they are brain dirtied. They need to cleanse their minds of false beliefs, and our role in the process is to help them find and eliminate those false beliefs.

[-] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago

yeah the term brain wash is definitely too culturally maligned to be worth attempting to rehabilitate

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

The people are not our enemy. They have been hoodwinked by the enemy in order to work against their own self-interest.

While they are in this state of mind, they will oppose us, but the empty promises of their capitalist masters will eventually force them to realise that their only path forward is with us.

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[-] NumaNuma@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 1 year ago

However, we must remember these people are people

Correction: these people are proletariat. We have the same enemy. Mostly, the only difference between us and them is that we're a little better at identifying the enemy than they are.

[-] Commiejones@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago

Thanks for this. I saw a Lib get smashed pretty hard over on hexbear yesterday. They certainly didn't word their initial comment nicely but there were genuine questions that pointed to a lack of understanding. A few of the responses were just agro and started fights with the lib. A few of the replies were good faith answers to which the lib replied nicely.

It might feel frustrating but we need to start nice even when dealing with someone who starts in an aggressive tone. If they don't respond to calm reasoning then its fair to bring the hammer down and in some cases that is what they need.

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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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