Bulletins and News Discussion for February 19th to February 25th, 2023 - The Shadow of Suharto - COTW: Indonesia

I would say the prime contradiction for communists of today is that communists primarily exist online and not in material reality, caveat this is an American perspective. Darn near everyone can say they have a member of their family or workplace that's a Qanon crank, a russia-gate Bluanon crank, etc. yet any one of us would be a unicorn witnessing another unicorn when it comes to knowing other communists. Sure it's becoming slightly more common, at least among millennial and younger generations, but the gaping wound of McCarthyism that has severed the linking of descending generations to their ideological forbearers has wrecked the American communist movement so badly that it took one of the last American social democrats with a public presence acting as the pilot light of new deal progressives to respark the communist and left movements in the U.S.

The best move I would say, besides the usual spiel about organizing, is to exist as publically as you're comfortable and able to, be patient and polite when talking to others, and understand that you are a representative of your ideology in addition to the fact that you are most likely the first representative of your ideology that damn near everyone you'll meet has ever met. So whatever community you're a part of, take part it as a fellow member of your community. And lastly remember that you don't have to be perfect, just be human.

in other words, you know how Hakim usually behaves? As best as you can, be like Hakim.

Always remember what Marx said: “What the fuck is bluesky”

The people who block you instantly are not soft lib. They are cryptofascists. They will sieg heil the fuhrer if that is the only thing keeping the ebil tankies at bay.

So the question is under the climate that is being produced do MLs get more done by hiding their MLness so as not to trigger this insta-block behaviour?

No you just don't go to Lib hives where they fled to escape any intellectual dissonance at all. These people are hopeless.

Both are useful depending on your audience. It's not just one or the other being intrinsically better.

Also keep in mind that you're probably not gonna hear from the people that your posts are working on but you'll definitely see the people that block you

If we should be learning anything from the history and present-day tactics of the global south, it's that you don't defeat the hegemon by attacking its security apparatus directly. It's designed to frustrate you. What you do instead is attack or convert the vulnerable fringes. Over time it will starve itself by overextension.

Bluesky is full of comfortable libs. Let them be comfortable while they still can. They will isolate themselves when the alienated lower classes don't find any solace there and unsub for greener pastures (from what I've heard on the fedi, it's very white). You won't shape the world inside the walls but you can wait for them to rust and for the servants of the upper castes to come outside to join you.

Recently there was a burst of new mastodon subscribers because the CEO of tumblr personally insulted the entire trans community. Tiktok hosts a lot of minority and indigenous users who appear to get more reach there than on other platforms. There are mass media reports that young people are fleeing from the big platforms to use groupchats instead.

Building a stronger presence on the fediverse is much more doable, but hexbear has been hesitant about it in order to protect its own users (probably a second instance is needed with less ingroup focus). Users from a strong fediverse will naturally have groupchats, and leftist groupchat members are naturally going to try and get their friends on their side.

If you want to build a niche on the algorithm itself, appeal to the poor. Appeal to the oppressed. Don't worship heroes but use their words and actions to illustrate that you care about the oppressed. Don't show off armies and sovietwave music, talk about how they fed the hungry and cured the sick. Talk about the human-centric aspects of brutalism. Talk about the lives of average people in them and how they differed from our preconceptions. Talk about the pitfalls of individualist thinking and hustle culture. Have an honest conversation about depression, low wages, stress about finding your next meal. Talk about orgs aiming to solve these problems.

Support AES and historical socialist countries, sure. But if that is at the forefront of what you talk about, you'll look like a shill and not someone who's trying to help people. We know we're not nazis, but if our heads are stuck in glorifying a glorious past, we'll look like them to everyone else.

I think it depends on how you're being blocked. Are you being blocked because of your tweets or because of your name/avatar? Are people manually blocking you or are you being autoblocked through third-party apps like how Twitter has ways of mass blocking people via third-party apps? It all depends on Bluesky blocking culture.

In general, I think you have to choose between saying demsoc stuff with commie aesthetics or saying commie stuff with demsoc aesthetics. "Demsoc stuff with commie aesthetics" gets more instablocks while "commie stuff with demsoc aesthetics" makes people's accusations of "tankies being duplicitous in their views" be true. Neither choices are particularly good although I would probably pick the first option.

Well I have the 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇮🇱 🇺🇦 flag combo on my name on twitter and I shit on all four of these countries on the daily.

I have been calling for this site to tone down its support for AES and most people here don’t like it. Fair enough, and that’s why Hexbear will remain a niche site.

But on other platforms, saying anything outright like that is just going to make people think you’re crazy. Even saying something as innocuous as “the DPRK isn’t as bad as being depicted on the media”.

Sometimes I feel like people don’t understand how they come across to normal people when talking and praising AES. From their perspective, you might as well be someone who believe in crazy Alex Jones’s conspiracies.