this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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I'm guessing you're an anarchist, which I appreciate and so I totally understand why you may not like these instances, but do you ever feel like some of the people criticizing Lemmygrad and Hexbear are Right-wingers themselves?
I fully support Leftist critiques but some of these claims are kind of wild. Someone claiming hexbear is racist? How would it be racist, from a Leftist perspective? It just seems to me like Right-wingers are attacking them with these ridiculous claims to get them to be defederated or at least to get people to stay away and not understand the humor. If someone critiqued them for defending the State when communism should include the dissolution of the State apparatus, the recuperation of initially revolutionary movements by global capitalism, etc. then I'd appreciate the Leftist critiques but it doesn't seem to me to be the case. And it doesn't seem to me like there is any monolithic position at hexbear either. I actually was further pleasantly surprised to see they had an anarchism community and also a Christianity community at hexbear, it doesn't feel to me like they have a hard Stalinist party-line and don't accept differences among the Left.
I do get the feeling they don't like Right-wingers though.
I'm just gonna talk about your first paragraph. No they are not right wingers lmao. I fucking hate that you can't be centrist or democratic socialist without some asshole (not you, you're just asking) saying you're a right winger.
I believe the west has better equality, stability, quality of life, rights, morals, so and and so forth.
And I think we need to greatly expand our social programs.
However if I defend the west then suddenly I'm a right winger? Fuck off with that classification shit. I just don't subscribe to Russia and China somehow being better then the US or the west in any sort of way.
This is why these social movements never get any movement in the US. They're too busy self hating and worshipping facists in the East.
Thanks for your response and I appreciate the thought you put into it. I agree we need to greatly and desperately expand social programs. I also don't think Russia or China are perfect, much less socialist, but I wouldn't say the West—including the US—is categorically and unquestionably better in every sort of way. That being said, the Left does need to be broader in the West and everywhere else, which is why I think I'd rather hold solidarity with Leftists in these instances who I may not fully agree with rather than attacking them alongside Right-wingers and fascists.
And, sorry, but, no offense, a centrist is a Right-winger to me and it proves my point.
My point is I'm only a right winger in a small niche bubble which is completely not the reality of things.
To most of the world I'm a lefty and to actual right wingers they would probably call me a communist (and sure incorrectly but not my point).
Right winger means maga idiot to most of the ppl in the US not democrat who wants to greatly expand our social programs and nets.
Fair enough. I do think there is a popular misunderstanding among the general public about political theory as well as political labels so maybe you shouldn't take that as justification for anything, but I can admit there is gatekeeping and puritanism that happens among the Left in terms of letting people into particular parties/collectives but also in terms of labels in general.
In my opinion, the baseline is that any actual Leftist wants the abolition of Capitalism. If you don't support the abolition of private property as capital, then you are not a Leftist.
Centrists and Democratic Socialists have not been great examples of Leftists to me so I assume anyone who unironically identifies as such is more aligned with the center-Right (i.e., supports the existence of Capitalism but with reforms).