Practically every main stream internet service I can think about that I have used is littered with fascist or imperialist comments. Anytime I push back against it, I have to contend with a wave of reactionaries jumping down my throat.
Sometimes I wonder what’s the point. As in, should I just back off and not say anything? It doesn’t seem like saying anything makes a difference anyway.
I dunno, I guess I’m teetering on the edge of despair a bit. Fascism isn’t fringe on the internet anymore, from what I can see. It makes me worry for the near future.
Fill disclosure: my friend thinks I’m just too online.
The ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class, said Marx and Engels in The German Ideology.
The internet is bourgeois and the bourgeois know they’re in trouble. They’re turning to fascism and the internet is just one tool to that end. When you get jumped by loads of replies, assume you’re taking to bots. It’s not worth trying to persuade them, but as others have said, you have a wider audience that just your interlocutor.
Challenge people but stay safe, don’t bicker, and don’t let liberals or fascists spin you in circles. They’re good at that. Keep educating yourself so that you can make the points you want to make and avoid falling into opponents’ traps.
A lot of mainstream things are filled with borderline fascist views, I agree. Fitness memes, news, sports, influencers, you name it.
But I feel like you can easily create a bubble where this isn’t the case. On instagram I mostly follow local businesses, bars, museums, etc. Next to that I follow some leftist influencers, the union I’m part of, my marxist party and friends.
I set up my reddit to be just my interests: hiking, gardening, cycling, swoletariat, home decoration, drawing, art, nature and some communist shit.
On YouTube I only watch left wing people or non-political channels.
I rarely see people like Andrew Tate, MTG, or local fascists and I’m doing fine within my bubble. I deal with enough politcal shit through party work and I don’t want to take that home through my social media.
Also
Fill disclosure: my friend thinks I’m just too online.
This may very well be a good point. While online marxist influence is key to building our movement, it is important to actually go out and touch grass every once in a while lol. I talk to all sorts of people from everywhere on the political spectrum and I rarely meet actual fascists in real life. Most people are all right and are just trying to get by without causing any trouble. They may not always agree with my marxist views but in general, everyone wants a better life for themselves and the people around them. It’s our duty to inform them about our cause and how they can help to achieve a better world. I have found that many people will listen to our ideas once we dive further into them.
I really like your perspectives. How much time do you dedicate to real-life activism e.g. how much time per week?
Depends on the week. I spent at least four hours a week at one of our party’s free healthcare clinics where I do consult for people that have problems with their energy bills.
This week was busy because we have a protest planned in our city against the rising right wing influence next Tuesday. It took some time planning.
When there are strikes or protests nearby we try to get involved as much as possible. Calling party members to check their opinions or to ask them if they are participating. Organizing teams to visit the picket lines, etc.
Then I have meetings for my youth group to discuss plans for the next weeks and eventually we have to execute those plans as well.
I think I can easily fill 20 hours a week with party work and it’s oftentimes more. It’s basically an extra job at this point.
I spend 10-15 hours myself, altho I commute to meets. lately been doing online stuff for our virtual organizing but i hope we can increase our capacity… our weekly actions are limited by our smaller, recently formed membership
Every action is one towards a better world. Keep up the work, comrade.
this is helpful but it’s kinda hard to avoid when they send recruitment fliers to your doorstep. if i walked down the street with the proletarian banner i’d get shot
You’re in the imperial core (presumably). Don’t punish yourself for not being able to grow anything on dry ground. No one expects that of you.
Don’t let liberal, individualist cultural conditioning tell you you’re failing if you’re not some kind of main character messiah.
Pick your opportunities. Make yourself known to people and they will come to you when they’re ready. Reality is a powerful ally.
Damn. Thank you for this. Lots of other excellent responses on this thread too, but this one really hit home.
its such a relief when you can see your comrades and laugh/hate all this bs together as a functional, living and inspiring cadre
there are a lot of people who won’t take this anymore, they just may be in a similar situation, or have yet to discover theory and praxis
Excellent point
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That John Green dude is peak insufferable liberal. He made something about the China balloon and given his knowledge I expected him to say people freaking out were being silly. No, he goes full on anti-communist fear mongering saying Chinese weather balloons are scarier than aliens.
Gotta send a petition to https://cma.gov.cn asking them to put ‘scarier than aliens’ as a bumper sticker on their weather balloons.
This is why I support China’s “golden firewall” or whatever they call it. Imagine being somewhere where going online and calling for genocide has actual repercussions.
That could be considered true if you were saying that like 5-10 years ago. Fascist discourse became very mainstream, especially because of 4chan. But in recent years, we’ve been seeing the opposite trend, Marxism is becoming more and more mainstream.
Sometimes I wonder what’s the point. As in, should I just back off and not say anything? It doesn’t seem like saying anything makes a difference anyway.
You should definitely criticize fascists publicly, because not all readers are fascists, and they can be convinced, however, it depends where you do that. I’d say if you wished to push communist discourse in 4chan or some Twitch streams it would be useless, but on social media, such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc., it makes more sense. You should never try to convince fascists, you are only debating a fascist because others will see it.
Fascism is also on the rise, unfortunately. It’s become natural in some spaces, so to give up criticizing is to let it rise further. It’s easier for fascists because fascist discourse is promoted by bourgeois means of communication, from TV to internet social media, but self-defeat only makes it stronger, so yes, there is a point indeed in criticizing these people.
Agreed, don’t try to convince the most hardcore reactionaries or those who act in bad faith, just expose their flaws to the undecided. Here’s a relevant Sarte quote: “ Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
The secret is that everybody is already a fascist, they know they are if by another name. The US is already full fascist and everybody who does not denounce their government unequivocally is a fascist. I mean no hyperbole. They literally all know. Nobody doesn’t know. I could name the cops the prisons the wars, the concentration camps.
Those “mainstream” internet servers are all owned by usa. Whoever controls the server has full control over the website. They can show different things to different people. They can make posts not appear, show others an edited version, make tools generate comments, write whichever numbers they feel like into the like counter.
So if you don’t want the server to ai-generate a bunch of nafos for you you must make sure the server is not tied to usa.
Majority of Internet being in the west = very Liberal = fascists waiting patiently = target acquired (orientalism + transphobia) = liberals slowly lose masks
“Majority of internet being in the west” I think most of it’s in China, protected from our western crap by the great firewall, of course.
Yes yes, my bad, i meant to say the Internet used by most other countries
Yes and it is maturing. There are some marxism and leftist too but I don’t think it is maturing into anything worthwhile. I fear it will be more useful for reactionaries in the long run because all it does is justify more imperialism. People are too caught up in their abstract normative aspirations and with partisan struggle.
Meanwhile sections of the bourgeoisie (especially big oil) are out manuvering everyone and are in position to walk all over Biden and overthrow finance leaders that are mildly tenitive about investment into fossil fuels. Oil representatives have a road ahead of them that makes it simple to galvanize a reactionary base. The greenwashers have always been full of shit and oil is using it to their advantage.
Reminder that the internet just like every other aspect of life exists outside the Anglosphere. This obviously does not mean that every non-anglo internet space is antifascist but there is more to the world than what Twitter and Reddit make it appear.
Literal vampire Peter Theil has a dark enlightenment philosophy that functions similarly to dialectical materialism, but embraces inequality. He is a smart power broker that runs the state surveillance apparatus of Palintir. Ghouls like him are rewarded by the capitalist system. and they are able to provide funding to all kinds of influencers to promote imperialism, racism, white supremacy, transphobia sexism, and all of the other kinds of stuff that just treats people like shit for arbitrary reasons that they have no control over. This is what they’ll do to keep their unjust positions of power.
Funnily enough it is super expensive to maintain this superstructure and people that do the superstructural work have to actively sensor their platforms. What kind of losers really get angry about trans people if they don’t know any trans people while real problems of living in america caused by the bourgeoisie state taking back all of the freedoms won by the labor movement?
I believe it’s a backlash to the leap in online leftist discourse over the last 6 years. On top of the AstroTurfing and censorship, of course.
As for being “too online”: If you’re organizing a workplace online that’s great, otherwise you should be organizing it offline.
Anglophone internet is terrible, lusophone and hispanophone internet is where it’s at.
isn’t easy fight against indoctrination…and there’s a lot of indoctrination
