this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
162 points (91.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27461 readers
1533 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I saw a post that talked about racism towards people and when I talked about it the response I got was very heated and a person even called lemmy.world a community of 'hitlerites'

I have been around for a week or so and this is my first time seeing such explicit vulgar reaction towards another community, is this a one-off or should I block hexbear?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I really don't think they are a left-unity instance considering that they get very upset and unpleasant to talk to if you don't support authoritarianism or their alternative "facts."

Like I'm cool with all sorts of different leftist viewpoints and I think it's necessary that we support each other, but I draw the line at authoritarianism and rewriting history.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I don't really understand what you're getting at here, you're being very vague. I'm a Marxist, I enjoy my time there, I don't really think I can say I share your same views on it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 34 minutes ago (1 children)

When the instance I'm on was still federated with hexbear I did go and check them out to see what they had to say and with my own two eyes I saw people there denying the tiananmen square massacre and claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation. Not to mention that when visiting other instances, such as the one I'm on, many would be extremely rude, which is why they got defederated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

Hexbear's stance, and most Marxists in general, on Tian'anmen is that hundreds of protestors and PLA officers were killed in Beijing that day as the PLA advanced towards the square, but that the square itself was evacuated peacrfully, which matches leaked US cables and the CPC's official stance on what it calls the "June 4th incident". This is a rejection of the commonly reported story of 10,000 people being killed on the square itself, which originated from a British diplomat's cable. Said diplomat was later confirmed to have evacuated well before.

I reiterate, Hexbear's stance isn't that the massacre didn't happen, but that Western nations intentionally sensationalize the quantity of deaths and the character of the events. This is also why Western Nations don't frequently report on the South Korean Gwang-Ju massacre that occured around the same era, where the South Korean millitary murdered thousands of High School and College students protesting against Chun Do-Hwan's dictatorship. All of what I said is backed up by the Wikipedia page for Tian'anmen Square Protests and Massacre, such as Alan Donald revising his estimate from 10,000 to the low thousands yet BBC continuing to report the 10,000 figure:

In a disputed cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British Ambassador Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the State Council of China, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died,[237] claims which were repeated in a speech by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke,[238] but which is an estimated number much higher than other sources provided.[239][240] After the declassification, former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out that Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths, a number closer to, but still much higher than, other estimates.[241]

As for the DPRK, I'd have to see what you mean as an example. The common consensus is that the DPRK has a well-documented "defector storytelling industry" where defectors are paid for outlandish stories, and due to their unverifiability gets passed on as truth. A good documentary on this subject is Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul. Therefore, really, very little can be trusted on the subject.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Anarchists are explicitly welcome, so authoritarianism is definitely not a requirement. And what "alternative facts"?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 42 minutes ago (1 children)

Things like the denial of the tiananmen square massacre or claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation, both of which I have seen with my own two eyes on hexbear.

While I am not an anarchist, generally I am cool with them. Who I am not cool with are Marxist-Leninists, which are authoritarian.

From the wikipedia article on Marxist-Leninists:

In the words of historians Silvio Pons and Robert Service, elections are "generally not competitive, with voters having no choice or only a strictly limited choice". Generally, when alternative candidates have been allowed to stand for election, they have not been allowed to promote very different political views.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 minutes ago* (last edited 5 minutes ago)

The people of the soviet union, at least as far as Pat Sloan experienced in ~1937, had the most limited choice: any person

  I have, while working in the Soviet Union, participated in an election. I, too, had a right to vote, as I was a working member of the community, and nationality and citizenship is no bar to electoral rights. The procedure was extremely simple. A general meeting of all the workers in our organization was called by the trade union committee, candidates were discussed, and a vote was taken by show of hands. Anybody present had the right to propose a candidate, and the one who was elected was not personally a member of the Party. In considering the claims of the candidates their past activities were discussed, they themselves had to answer questions as to their qualifications, anybody could express an opinion, for or against them, and the basis of all the discussion was: What justification had the candidates to represent their comrades on the local Soviet?
  As far as the elections in the villages were concerned, these took place at open village meetings, all peasants of voting age, other than those who employed labour, having the right to vote and to stand for election. As in the towns, any organization or individual could put forward candidates, anyone could ask the candidate questions, and anybody could support or oppose the candidature. It is usual for the Communist Party to put forward a candidate, trade unions and other organizations can also do so, and there is nothing to prevent the Party’s candidate from not being elected, if he has not sufficient prestige among the voters.

https://comlib.encryptionin.space/lib/html/soviet-democracy/soviet-democracy_files/chapter13.xhtml (EPUB)