cucumovirus
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Lemmygrad is a more serious site, I agree, and that’s why I use it instead of hexbear. However, I do still think we can improve. I’ve noticed a decline in the frequency of the type of theory discussion posts that I really liked when first coming to lemmygrad, and an increase in low effort posts, probably coinciding with the reddit exodus last year.
One thing I really like here is that certain matters are considered settled in the lemmygrad community. For example, each time a new “is Russia imperialist?” thread pops up, prople quickly link to past threads with excellent answers or post another version of those answers. I just think we could do that sort of thing - debate, come to a conclusion, adopt it as our stance backed by our arguments and proper sources, and present it when asked - with many more topics which still just “hang in the air” somewhat.
In today’s world, socializing online is not some distinct separate thing, it’s an integral part of daily life for basically everyone.
Yes, the western masses benefit from imperialism, but they are also exploited and it’s the communists job to successfully link the struggles against this exploitation with wider anti-imperialist struggles in the Third World.
It is easier to just sit idly in the status quo, but do you find that to be an acceptable level for communists to be at? We’re not talking about the masses in general here, we’re talking about self-identified communist spaces. I want and expect more from them, and a critique of their current errors is a first step to changing them.
Those communits weren’t somehow “at the forefront of organizing” before, and then decided to start publishing articles. They became the forefront of organizing by publishing these articles, having these debates, and putting the things they figured out into practice. This is a centeal thesis of Lenin’s What is to be Done?
Yes, the current western left is not going to form a vanguard tomorrow, conditions will still need to change. But at some point a vanguard will need to be formed by western communists, no one else can do it for us. These barriers aren’t permanent, and they can be overcome. A part of that includes ideological struggle and debate within communist spaces.
It’s not about individual comms, and there is, of course, a place for being silly. The problem is that the “silliness” “spreads” to the entire site. Look at how people are “arguing” against Roderic’s point on the hexbear thread about it, in what’s supposedly a comm for critiquing bad takes. Most of the comments are random jokes, and most of the actual written out ones are blatant lies, strawman arguments, or similar (some of the really bad ones did get removed as far as I can tell). The same exact tactics anti-communists regularly use to shit on AES states or our ideology in general.
The actual origin of it is western anti-intellectualism which we have to overcome in our organizing. Of course hexbear won’t be a vanguard, but we’re not doing our job as communists if don’t fight against these tendencies.
Doesn’t specifically have to be a lemmy instance, but any online communist space could be a serious place where anti-intellectualism is not tolerated, and where discussions with proper sourcing could lead to actual debate where certain issues are actually settled. Instead, now you have most people just yelling out their opinions with no sources, not bothering to actually engage with the counterpoints being made, and any criticism is taken as a personal attack and kts substance is ignored. No actual debate is being held, and any issues that come up stay unresolved and get brought up again and again with the same results.
What communists in the past did in newspapers and journals, we should be doing online.
What he expects is for the western left to take itself more seriously if it’s to have any success at all, and dodging critique by hiding behind “it’s a site for memes” isn’t doing any good to anyone that actually wants change.
Not “expecting too much” from a link aggregation site is like not expecting too much from any western communists. The masses are online and online spaces are not separated from “real” life like that. No one is saying we can’t have any fun, but at the end of the day If we don’t take ourselves seriously why should anyone else take us seriously.
While I do find lemmygrad a bit better than hexbear in regards to this, it also still has an abundance of low effort meme posts and a lack of serious discussion.
The Eurasian nuthatch is my favorite because it often walks down tree trunks, upside down while facing the ground.
And I have to give an honorable mention to Bulwer’s pheasants for obvious reasons.
Photo:
It’s not hypocrisy at all, it’s a consistent position made to advance their imperial interests and white supremacy.
To add onto this, I really like Losurdo’s analysis:
Immediately after World War I — after the defeat of Tsarist Russia — Russia was in danger of being balkanized, of becoming a colony. Here I quote Stalin, who said that the West saw Russia like they saw Central Africa, that they were trying to drag it into war for the sake of Western capitalism and imperialism.
The end of the Cold War, with the West and the United States triumphant, once again put Russia at risk of becoming a colony. Massive privatization was not only a betrayal of the working classes of the Soviet Union and Russia, it was also a betrayal of the Russian nation itself. The West was trying to take over Russia’s massive energy deposits, and the US came very close to acquiring them. Here Yeltsin played the role of “great champion” for the Western colonization effort. Putin is not a communist, that much is clear, but he wants to stop this colonization, and seeks to reassert Russian power over its energy resources.
Therefore, in this context, we can speak of a struggle against a new colonial counter-revolution. We can speak of a struggle between the imperialist and colonialist powers — principally the United States — on the one side, and on the other we have China and the third world. Russia is an integral part of this greater third world, because it was in danger of becoming a colony of the West.
