I got kicked off my favorite trans discord for defending the USSR
It wasn't a hostile discussion or anything, i didn't even go full "the kulaks deserved it" (although the mod that single-handedly banned me did go full "the kulaks did not deserve it"). I just laid out plainly and calmly that revolutions are inherently authoritarian, that Luxemburg said "the revolution will be as violent as the ruling class makes it necessary" and that there's one Trotzki quote i 100% agree with: "If the October Revolution hadn't succeeded, the world would have known a Russian word for fascism 10 years before Mussolini's March on Rome". Basically the whole "Jakarta Method" train of thought laid out clearly and without calling anybody names.
Note that this was on an explicitly left-leaning server that does not allow cops and troops to join. Also after several days of another poster starting destructive, aggressive bad faith arguments in the politics channel until a number of users went "disengage" on her and the channel had to be frozen until recently, when she immediately started being hostile and arguing in bad faith again, which got her not one, but two warnings from the same mod without further consequences. Meanwhile, when i defend AES without attacking anybody, that's apparently too much for her to handle. No advance warning, no "sis, you're talking to me as a mod here", not even a notification that i got banned.
The best part is that according to screenshots a friend just sent me, she's now completely going off about "authoritarians". The nerve some people have.
Sorry for posting pointless internet drama here, i just needed to vent.
this was on an explicitly left-leaning server that does not allow cops and troops to join
she's now completely going off about "authoritarians"
I think my newest take is that anti-authoritarianism is not left-leaning, it shares the aesthetics of the left but should be seen as a unique ideology in and of itself that ultimately serves the status quo. Efforts should be made to distinguish it as a unique ideology and define it firmly away from the left.
In application anti-authoritarianism opposes all revolution and all construction of anything post-revolution. It opposes authority use within the existing state but it also opposes authority use to end the existing state and in doing so it upholds it and takes a position against any and all people that seek real change.
Whenever I bring up commie shit in real life, people are generally just really surprised because they haven't ever heard those ideas or perspectives before. Sure they argue sometimes, but they can't just kick you out of a place.
Online though? You get the boot real fast. None of these people would have the guts to treat you that way in real life.
I feel like the kind of shit marginalized people go through in the imperial core tends to be inherently radicalizing in an anti-capitalist direction without necessarily being radicalizing in a pro-communist and anti-west direction.
That makes a lot of sense considering even the most marginalized people in the imperial core have the privilege of not having to worry about bombs being dropped on their homes, CIA backed coups deposing their democratically elected leaders, nor the general all encompassing horror of imperial resource extraction. The result is that western marginalized and privileged citizens alike will both readily accept the never ending deluge of atrocity propaganda against AES emanating out of essentially all western media outlets.
If you believed in literally everything the CIA said about AES, how would you feel about countries like the USSR or PRC? At that point, the red fascist rhetoric actually makes sense. How many fascists should you allow to sit at your table? 0. It's insidious, and it has broken the brains of too many otherwise decent people. For that reason I try not to judge people like your discord moderator (other than for unironically being a discord moderator) too harshly for things like this.
I don't think people within the imperial core in general will soften up on AES until real communist organizations can build up local mutual aid networks to support the most precarious of us in their communities. Ideally they'd provide necessary social services running parallel to the rotting remains of the social safety nets once maintained by western governments until the fall of the USSR. That would lend to us the necessary position of public trust to displace the misinformation put out by corporate media by providing relevant education on communism, specifically AES, where the public education system has purposefully failed. Deliberate agitation on this front is very necessary in that there is no horrible experience one can endure in the imperial core that would result in intuitively figuring out we need to organize society in a similar way to AES countries.
A few months ago I was excluded from an anarchist server for defending the USSR.
Sucks for the libs that those turned out to be... since then I'm now on a regional anarchist server, an intentional community server, and a permaculture server where my presence is appreciated.
There always seems to be a political bias against communists, especially in this new phase of the red scare, and mods will find any pretext to ban communists because they've been so heavily indoctrinated against communism.
Once things have cooled off, I would consider messaging that mod and pointing out that you didn't attack anyone, you just defended your political position, and you were banned without warning although the person who was slinging personal insults got multiple warnings and was treated with kid gloves. I personally wouldn't want to be invited back but I would put a little bit of a barb in the end of my message by saying that the mods actions not only were an expression of authoritarianism by silencing dissenting voices on the left but that their actions are a tacit approval of the tyranny of a political orthodoxy that permits slinging personal insults so long as the person has the "correct" political beliefs. Then I'd say that they are a parody of anti-authoritarianism and they'll probably justify their actions and inaction to themselves because the spooky tankie is pointing out uncomfortable truths which is further evidence of how they cannot be permitted into these spaces (because otherwise you'd be forced to confront your own cognitive dissonance - the horror!)
Note that doing so will not earn you any friends. But sometimes people like this need to be called to account and, perhaps over time, cracks will start to form in their anti-communist indoctrination.
i think this is the biggest weakness of online "community." i know for a lot of people in a lot of situations it's all that's available, but a single egomaniac shouldn't be able to unilaterally cut you off from your friends.
Fucking labor aristocrats. They know they're on the side of imperialism even if they don't admit it, and that's why they purge anyone who opposes the subjugation and enslavement of the global south.
I was banned from Keffals discord for saying that Kim Jong Un isn't starving the people of North Korea for fun and laughs. Obvs not the same, but reminded me nonetheless
One of the wake-up calls that got me to quit Reddit forever was powermods that banned people for even suggesting socialism as an alternative, usually with some bloviating about how under gommunizm vulvulzula, LGBTQIA+ were discriminated against which totally doesn't ever ever happen under the system they were stanning for.
thats pretty shit, they never hear of trans solidarity? and do they not understand that the communist movements in those countries are still the biggest proponents of lgbt rights and are the only groups that are organized enough to achieve them?
there are many people in the communist party in russia that have advocated for lgbt rights, including Oleg Mikhailov and Alexey Kornienko, for example. and in czechia my communist representative was the one that pushed and passed czechias current lgbt laws. he lamented to me that it didnt go far enough and that the liberals in the social democrat party were watering it down. but you would never see this information on western news, if you google oleg and alexey, its just basic wikipedia articles. if you search them on russian social media, there is a huge uproar against 'grooming communists' who simply dont want gay and trans people to be shit on by all of society, including calls to ban the CPRF
God that fuckin blows. I hang out occasionally on a trans discord I found through a friend that's mostly advertised on tumblr. It's explicitly ml though, which keeps away this kind of shit. I can link you in dm's if you want. The server is explicitly for transfem communists.
I have trouble letting shit go when I see it online but more and more I've gotten used to simply picking my battles when I see shit that Id isagree with that I know I'll get written off as a tankie if I speak up about. I'm active in a few servers and none are really satisfying to me. The one with a mostly ML admin team has... other problems and the rest are either just like the server you describe ("left leaning" but filled with "anti-authoritarian" brain worms) or worse are outright liberal. I just avoid politics altogether, or only discuss the stuff we agree on. I value the social engagement too much I guess.