I don’t just mean outrage or regular rage, I mean shock that someone was to the left of “legal weed and free college but only for those that operate a successful business for 3 years in a disadvantaged community” top-cop takes.

I think federating took them by surprise, looking back. For about a week, those smug liberals were at a loss to even fathom what Hexbears were saying, and could only chant bullshit about how we’re Russian/Chinese bots.

Sure they still do that but they’ve slightly adapted to Hexbear presence.

    • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      the media are bad and duplicitous and lie all the time to make money for their capitalist owners. except about Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, China, Stalin and the DPRK, I still believe all those lies because I’m a good kid and so is America

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        the media are bad and duplicitous and lie all the time to make money for their capitalist owners. except about Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, China, Stalin and the DPRK, I still believe all those lies because I’m a good kid and so is America

        They are first and foremost, nationalists. It’s unsurprising that they accept and go along with everything when they are told “this is good for america”. As nationalists they simply bat for their team.

        We have to make them stop being nationalists first in order to get that to stop happening. Then the rest opens up.

        • Farman [any]@hexbear.net
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          This is a good ovservation. It seems to me that historically the rise of liberalism is paralel to the rise of the nation state. This may be a historical accident or may be because merchant capital and financial capital beneft from a strong state and viceversa. One would expect that as capital becomes international the libs would become less nationalistic. But there is still a large block that would semengly go against their own material interests starting stuff with china for example.

          • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Nationalism is a competing ideological framework to class consciousness. Get people to identify with their “nation” instead of with their class and you can get them to fight and die in your wars for you instead of turning around and pointing the guns at you, the capitalist. Nationalism essentially won out in Europe over class consciousness when it came to WW1 and even the social democrats and socialists of most of those countries embraced it and supported their countries in that war EXCEPT for in Russia where the people embraced class consciousness and communists came to power.

            • Farman [any]@hexbear.net
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              Yes of course. But there are many ways for the elites to repress the other clases, and this includes atacking class conciousnes. They can send people to die for god, gold and the local lord. And this has been the norm through history. The nation state is 500 years old or so. And most of that time it was limited to a small periferal area of the world.

              At an ideological level, we know the main actors of history are classes. While facists and some libs think its the state.

              My question is wether the nationalism in lib ideology is an accident of history. That the nation state arose do to geografical conditions that were only tangentially related to the rise of capitalism.

              The alternative is that bourgeoise capitalism and the modern nation state in particular are linked in a more fundamental way.

          • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            The state itself rose as part of the need for the ruling class to have violent suppression against the classes it exploits. The nation state on the other hand is partially an accident of geography due to most people not travelling far(or having the means to), and liberalism today takes advantage of this as a tool of racial conflict dividing the working class but I think it’s most likely that this was simply a useful tool for adopting a hostile stance to indigenous populations. They’re “barbarians” therefore it is ok for us to kill them all and take their land. Very useful for colonialism.

            Master race and untermenschen nazi ideas come from the ruling class justifying their right to rule as “betters”, and likely evolved as various capitalist families sought to adapt the divine right of kings to bourgeoise rule. In particular it rose during an era of far greater class conflict than we have currently today so they had a lot of cause to try and provide reasons for their rule as socialist sentiment boomed.

            One would expect that as capital becomes international the libs would become less nationalistic.

            American nationalism serves as a useful tool as it’s essentially the leader of the capitalist empire. If you view capitalism primarily as the imperial core(european+american global north or “international community”) exploiting the periphery (global south) with the US as the leading force of this empire then the usefulness of this nationalism kind of explains itself.

            If we break the american soft-left libs out of a national mindset and into a global one where they no longer view themselves as citizens of america but instead as citizens of the world we will find ourselves a lot more allies.

            • Farman [any]@hexbear.net
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              Good post. Thank you for yoir toughtful response. It is very clear the state in general arose as a tool for the ruling class. I like the idea that ideological justifications such as divine rigths of kings gain importance as a funcion of class conflict. Im thinking of primitive temple states in sumeria that requiered the regular kidnaping of statless people to mantain a labor force. Or other teocratic goverments.

              As for the nation state as a geografic accident. Thats what i ment if it is an acvident of history. Western europeans wer unable to form large states mostly because of their periferal position in eurasia. And since liberalism and developed in europe they just happen to develop together.

              But this new state differs from previous states. There has been a trend in increasing organisation, tax base and scope of the state during the early modern era. The ancient regime be it the roman empire or grat han or more feudalistic polities rarely got a tax base of over 5%.

              One exame may be tbe rise of europen trade in the indian ocean in the modern era. At that time the europeans still lacked a technological advantage. But their merchant companies were backed by the power of nation states allowing them to take more risks and corner certain markets. While the local traders originally more numerous were private concerns that did not have the cohesion of a single company.

              It would also appear that certain aspects of liberalism arose once the industry of violence became separate from economic production. In a fedal system a landlord controls production because he holds the land by force of arms. It is not so for the bourgoise. That is why a strong state with a tigther mo opoly on violence becomes a concern.

              Maybe this is not posible if your polity is over a certain geografical size. Maybe its not so coincidental.

              As for modern libs. I was thinking that eventually a strong staye would become its own economic interest affecting the interests of capital. And we sort of see them calling for deregulation and international arbitrage tribunals and so on. Specially in the clinton years. But i guess they never trurly became internationalized.

              But wat you said makes sense. Capital still has a lot of its interests tied to the political structure of empire. They become more nasionalistic now that there are international contenders.

    • JuneFall [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      Honestly I am not that left. I just want an internationalist world order in which the means of productions are under shared democratic rational control of the working class to enable survival on the world, sustainable eco systems and the realm of freedom which enables us to work little and enjoy being humans for the sake of being human. That isn’t that much.

  • AlicePraxis [any]@hexbear.net
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    what’s funny are the ones who think we’re right-wing because they’ve never heard anyone criticize liberals from the left before

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    I had to make a new main account on a different instance so I could maintain access to HexBear communities. I am so thrilled to finally be interacting with a community of actual leftists! Drag me further to the left daddies✊

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    Liberals either think or want to think they have a monopoly on being “the left wing party”. They also don’t want to think too hard, and are at their heart capitalist, which means they prefer a prescribed identity that requires no effort on their part.

    One of the more interesting takes I’ve ever heard on Trillbillies podcast was that the Democratic Party is mostly a lifestyle brand at this point. One that’s designed to make the member look good, virtuous and just, but not requiring any participation. They have just enough stolen accolades that were really hard fought movements from grassroots organizing to point at so they can say “we"re the good guys”.

    Well thought out and well read political leftists pose a threat to their cultural hegemony and therefore undermine their manufactured righteousness. If enough people got wind that the DNC and their voters are basically a paper tiger in the face of a fascist takeover, they will lose their cushy, do nothing lifestyles. They will either have to help us, or join the fash.

    The real sad part is that it’s mostly done for treats, and even those will get taken away as soon as the austerity a lot of us are already facing really kicks in.

    Can’t wait to be blamed for “taking grillman 's grill and steaks”.

    • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      They will either have to help us, or join the fash.

      And they’ve all decided since we were rude to them by saying they weren’t as far left as morally possible that we’re mean so they deff aren’t siding with us.

    • epicspongee [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      One of the things that pushed me into leftism about seven years ago was the realization that there even WAS something to the left of me.

      Yeah the same is true for me being anti-car. When I first heard of European congestion taxes when I was car-brained I was like “that is literally insane, how are you going to restrict poor people’s right to get into the city”. But after learning about other forms of transit and the fact that it’s affordable and cheap and objectively better than private vehicles, I realized that just realizing that other transit options exist makes me move further ‘left’ lol.

    • rubpoll [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      I always dreamed of a united human race like in Star Trek or Mass Effect. I remember wishing there was an Anthem for mankind, and then I heard the lyrics to The Internationale…and found a Richard Wolff video explaining what Socialism actually is.

      The Harry Potter limits of liberalism jpeg helped a lot too.

      I realized in the space of a week that I was a Socialist, not a Liberal. I didn’t just want some people liberated, I want everybody liberated. A united human race, unshackled by nationalism or racism or sexism or economic inequality.

      … and then I started to realize how many other people I admired had been Socialists, like MLK and Einstein, and then I started to realize how much we’ve been deliberately lied to about almost everything in the US…

      • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        … and then I started to realize how many other people I admired had been Socialists, like MLK and Einstein, and then I started to realize how much we’ve been deliberately lied to about almost everything in the US…

        basically every time you learn about a historical figure who seems cool, it turns out they founded the US Communist Party or spent 6 months in revolutionary Moscow or aided peasant villages in Mao-era China

    • Juice [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      Left does not equal good, more left does not equal more good. Left and right are rarely useful ways of analysing politics: it really only says something if you are talking about the left or the right broadly or talking about the left and right position to a particular position (and even then I try to avoid.) I know you’re doing a bit and its funny but I’m always surprised by how many people I organize with think this way, and it’s disorienting

    • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      That’s very similar to my experience albeit I was always a little further left than progressive liberalism. I just lacked the theory and vocabulary to articulate my politics. Ironically it was first breadtube, then chapo (the podcast), and finally the subreddit that helped galvanize my preexisting communist leanings.

  • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    Regarding competing ‘echo chambers’, we’ve been inoculated to liberalism because we get exposed to it on a nonstop near-daily basis in our work/social/ whatever lives and come here to gripe about that specicifically, meanwhile these libs have literally never been exposed to opinions to their left because they’re used to living in exclusively fedposting curated spaces.

    also I’m not a bot I’m a vocaloid, gosh commiku

  • LaughingLion [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    i like when i talk to someone who is american and im also american and i come from the point of view that america is the greatest force for evil in the world today and they think somehow that makes me a trump supporter

  • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    Our existence invalidates their entire worldview. Most online libs sense of self is that they are the good, smart people, and the only ones who could ever be opposed to them are the bad, dumb republicans (who for some reason are not irredeemable and we need a strong republican party for some reason shrug-outta-hecks

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    Liberal here, sick to death or how condescending the democrats have become. I had a blast watching them froth at the mouths. It was beautiful.

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    A lot of them encountered the very thing they’ve been conditioned to feel disgust towards, and for a lot of them maybe for the very first time in their lives in a conversational capacity. These are people who are inundated on a near-daily basis with propaganda designed to twist the socialist narrative into one of death and destruction that leads to the inevitable collapse of all civilizations unfortunate enough to let it take root.

    I don’t think that the average liberal is totally apathetic towards everyone but themselves (I think a lot of us have probably identified as such before, be it as a child or long into adulthood,) but their ideas on human rights, social justice, and broader politics are incredibly underdeveloped. When you don’t have a considerable wealth of knowledge or experience to draw on, you’re a reactionary subject to the pull of your own gut feelings and the preconceived notions instilled in you by your peers.

    What I’m getting at is that I think it’s important to realize that a lot of the libs pissing their pants at the sight of evil tankies have absolutely no idea what a tankie is or does, and everything they do know is buried under 10 layers of disinformation. This doesn’t absolve them of their crimes of grand dumbassery, but I think it’s worth considering that a lot of these people would probably agree with much of what we had to say were we to peel back the layers of their programming. Alas, that isn’t often realistic and frankly isn’t solely* our responsibility.

    *edit

    • DADDYCHILL [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      hexbear is definitely to the left of all the sites we federated to, and there has been some shit takes by our feddie comrades that were fun to laugh and dunk on, but i feel like we do have a responsibility to educate the other instances so long as they are willing to be educated. like im not at all against giving the other feds like blajah a second chance if they listen to us and understand why they suck.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        hexbear is definitely to the left of all the sites we federated to

        I don’t think it’s really to the left of lemmygrad, though I wouldn’t say the reverse either

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        I agree. I wouldn’t try to take the dunk culture out of Hexbear, and many people deserve to be dunked on, but sometimes if they don’t seem like a lost cause you gotta just teach them what you can and then leave them something to think on that they can hopefully look back on positively.

        • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          On the other hand I have a lot of sympathy for people who do try to have a good faith discussion and then after a dozen thousand word comments the lib just goes “don’t know why I bothered obviously none of you know how government works”

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      They want praise and validation. They want to feel recognized and respected. They want treats. They want entertainment. They want as much as possible at other people’s expense. That’s all, really.