• BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Anarchists naively telling on themselves is good for us

    It’s more them going inside these organizations and outing their fash roots.

    it doesn’t make said anarchists hopeful candidates to develop politically in a better direction

    You can’t change your view without a different perspective. The keyboard commando anarchists who live on the computer, never actually meet anyone in person, never show up at protests or organize with peers, and simply regurgitate the same twelve anarchist memes dating back to the Spanish Civil War are the ones who won’t develop. The anarchists who try to do Real Anarchy by taking direct action are the ones who are primed to either convert or at least do a little good for others in their stubborness.

    while make anarchists do make that step forward, most do not

    The anarchists who make the jump stop being anarchists and start being the Secret Other Thing (costanza-maoist). So it’s something of a selection bias.

    But - at least in America - we all start out as something much closer to the fashist core approved by the state. Libertarians, Progressives, Greens, and Anarchists are people who have at least stretched outside the ideological zone that liberals and conservatives permit. You’re not going to find a ton of people who are Marxists out of the gate because you’re not going to find a bunch of Marxism in elementary education and social circles. People have to get there somehow. Anarchy is farther along the road than most people get. Give them a chance to keep growing.

    • Jabril [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      I disagree. I’m not online in spaces to deal with keyboard commando anarchists, all my experience is from anarchists on the ground involved with organizing in my community. They will dox a tankie before they do anything to actually challenge capitalism and no exposure to differing perspectives is going to change their minds. They are, like soc dems, volunteer sheep dogs of liberalism who exist to lead newly developing leftists away from Marxism. Anarchists will often suppress materialist thought in organizing spaces and police these spaces in a way to divert energy into useless BS until the momentum dies down and nothing happens. I know quite a few anarchists who became Marxists and the common denominator is that they didn’t identity as anarchists for more than a year or two before the reality of organizing in anarchist spaces made it obvious that they needed to look further for answers. Anyone who is an anarchist after their baby leftist phase is basically a volunteer cop in my eyes. I used to be more big tent about it but I have seen anarchists wreck a dozen different organizing arenas in my community, almost all of which were white people fucking up a movement that had the biggest impact on colonized communities. I have seen white anarchists enable fascists and cops, try to dox Muslim organizers, push out Black organizers and more. I have a lot of criticisms of Marxists too but I’ve never seen them do the type of stuff that I’ve seen anarchists do to comrades and movements.

      • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        They will dox a tankie before they do anything to actually challenge capitalism and no exposure to differing perspectives is going to change their minds.

        Maybe we’re just in different communities, but I’ve never seen anyone “dox” a fellow volunteer.

        If you’re at an in-person meet up, I’m not sure what that’s even supposed to look like.

        Anyone who is an anarchist after their baby leftist phase is basically a volunteer cop in my eyes. I used to be more big tent about it but I have seen anarchists wreck a dozen different organizing arenas in my community, almost all of which were white people fucking up a movement that had the biggest impact on colonized communities.

        That’s a long history of organizing to see as many groups get wrecked. I’ve had a lot of hurdles with my neighborhood - people with free time, costs of supplies, building trust, staying organized as a group.

        Squabbles between communists and anarchists are the least part of it.

        • Jabril [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          When I say doxing I mean things like taking pictures of people, sending them to group chats, cop jacketing, spreading rumors or talking shit about them to other people in these coalitions and orgs, inoculating people against them, posting about them on social media and so on. Using the term as a catch all for wrecker behavior targeted particularly at marxists because they are marxists

          • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            This is eerily similar to my experience with trying to organize with anarchists.

            Half of them are “cool”.

            The other half…they think they’re doing a heckin praxis by “outing” tankies and “authoritarians” because they don’t follow the state department line on Russia or China.

            I never identified myself as a Marxist, and at several points they revealed their plans to scapegoat the only openly Marxist members of the group if shit went down with cops. I stopped organizing IRL because of this because my city doesn’t really have any good Marxist orgs or much leftist organizing in general.

            Just a bunch of internet poisoned white kids thinking they’re heroes doing anti-fascist praxis by trying to get good comrades (who are just trying to feed people and take care of the homeless) arrested by actual fascists. I think their hearts are in the right place and they want to do the right thing, but have their brains so broken by Western media that they’re in effect more dangerous than the average lib or chud because their idealism is so strong.

            • Jabril [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              yep exactly. as just people to run into at a bar or something most of them are fine, even charming and fun, but for any revolutionary activity I think working with them is an opsec nightmare which will absolutely lead to people like us being thrown under the bus.

    • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      The keyboard commando anarchists who live on the computer, never actually meet anyone in person, never show up at protests or organize with peers, and simply regurgitate the same twelve anarchist memes dating back to the Spanish Civil War are the ones who won’t develop.

      I hear this line on HexBear constantly but it’s been my experience that plenty of online weirdos do indeed show up at actual organizing events quite often, and usually bring their online weirdness with them. Idk how many Guy Fawkes mask clad dudes with cardboard signs referencing obscure lefty Reddit memes I’ve seen at marches.

      • BashfulBob [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        Idk how many Guy Fawkes mask clad dudes with cardboard signs referencing obscure lefty Reddit memes I’ve seen at marches.

        There’s always one or two, but rarely more than that in a crowd of hundreds or thousands.

        If this is all it takes to topple an organization, I’ve got to question what the organizers are doing

        • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          I’ve seen dozens, and they show up at meetings too and start drama. There’s also often fiction between more ML inclined people trying to form a more centralized organized group and anarchist types who want to keep everything decentralized and horizontal. This shit happens for reasons it’s not just all online bullshit.