Doubledee [comrade/them] @ Doubledee @hexbear.net

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3 yr. ago

Oh hey! You never got back to me on whether you felt that the discussion we had exposed some more nuance on the subject of the war in Ukraine, I assumed you must have gone to sleep or something. But I was really enjoying our discussion and was genuinely curious if you felt it had been productive. Maybe you just wanted to argue with other people more, but it seemed like we were making progress.

For what it's worth, I didn't say Russia was justified, I said the war was bad and the US made decisions that lead to this situation. I'd appreciate it if you would represent me fairly. I certainly hope you're representing everyone else fairly too, I didn't really read the other discussions you were having.

Hell yeah!

Forreal your instance might be the one I'm most confused by, you've got like a 50/50 split of chill people who are okay with conversation and people who drop slurs and reply to any attempt at engagement in memes and

I don't want to dogpile and axont already pointed out a pretty good scholar who talks about the subject, but I did want to add for clarity the reason that it's important to have a precise definition: We could look at, say, Victorian Britain, Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire and Suleiman the Magnificent and argue that they were all unquestionably ruled by either a single or a small handful of rulers with no real checks on their power, that they oriented the economy and society around themselves, that they suppressed dissent etc. and conclude, from Webster there, that basically every government except modern American government is fascism. Simply in historical terms that would be an enormous problem, because it collapses all the nuance and distinctions that exist, obviously, between these extremely diverse forms of government.

When people talk about fascism, there's a reason they think of Hitler and Mussolini (who self-described, which makes that a bit easier I guess) even if it's hard to put a finger on exactly what the unifying factors are. Very clearly, Mussolini and Hitler thought their projects were incompatible with communism/socialism, it's why their first steps upon achieving power in their countries were to purge the left and ensure that left resistance couldn't be organized against them. Even if you have critiques of Stalin (I certainly do) I think there are pretty obvious differences between the USSR and the fascist axis that it ended up fighting against, reasons that were ultimately persuasive to Roosevelt and Churchill despite their own misgivings about communism. Everyone at the time understood there was a difference, and we need to be able to distinguish if we're going to talk intelligently about forms of government that western countries don't themselves use.

So in short, I'd say that definition from Webster is too vague to be useful, I'd say there are factors like palingenetic ultranationalism and hostility to the left that seem to be constant in any real fascist regime that should really be a part of a definition of the term. Otherwise 'fascist' just means 'mean' or 'bad' because all of its distinctives are gone.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Liberals don't believe that countries exert influence on other countries around them? You think Joe Biden objects to the concept of spheres of influence? You brought up Kissinger, you don't think US foreign policy is operating under the logic of realpolitik? I'm not sure what the alternative is to believing that countries act to pursue their interests in other countries. That just sounds like a description of the concept of foreign policy.

Could you be more specific?

I think, for example, that most alt-right types oppose the war either because of chauvinistic beliefs about American boys and American blood and treasure being spent on foreigners, or because they would like to work together with Russia to counter China and think a war with them hurts the white struggle against the eastern hordes. No one on hexbear would defend either of those positions.

It needs to be more specific than "both of you are against continuing the war." Just like it wouldn't be fair for me to accuse you of being alt- right because you and them both agree that there weren't WMDs in Iraq and that that invasion was sold on false pretenses. You might both technically agree but it would be missing the point.

Honestly your best bet is probably to do some reading first, unfortunately. A lot of Hexbear dialect is that way because it's tied to concepts that come from books and thinkers we're broadly familiar with.

If you're more into video stuff you could try this guy. I think he's pretty approachable.

Actually if you went into the megathreads and asked most people would probably give you suggestions too. We are fiesty but in my experience we also like to be helpful to people with questions.

In my experience alt right folks are pretty anti China, to the point where that is often the reason they oppose the Ukraine war, as it is dividing the attention of the Christian west from the rising, menacing Tigers that threaten white society.

Hexbears are often skeptical of Adrian Zenz who is usually the source of claims about China. Most that I've seen acknowledge that there are camps (China openly says it is running programs to deradicalize separatists and fundamentalists in the region), but disagree that they are as bad as western media depicts them, and would probably argue that western nations are concern trolling about the issue regardless because it is easy to question whether American foreign policy is motivated by concern for Muslims. Genuinely curious, who is an alt-right guy who doesn't think there are camps in Xinjiang? I've never encountered a pro-Chinese reactionary.

As to Korea I thought MAGA types just memed about Kim Jong Un because Trump sort of got along with him. Hexbears think that the Korean War was bad and that Korea is acting predictably given that a nuclear power is constantly threatening them with annihilation. There are a variety of positions in Hexbear on the DPRK though, and I can't really account for all of them, but I think they arise out of a genuine anti-imperial and anti-war sentiment, and a healthy doze of skepticism of western narratives of a state enemy. I don't think you could say that for the alt right.

Could you provide an example of Hexbears agreeing with the alt-right about something specific? I think a lot of people conflate "disagreeing with the liberal consensus" with "thinking a MAGA thing" when they're really pretty different.

It's alarming how I can tell when I've left Hexbear by the ableism and slurs.

The postal service runs functionally craft unions that don't negotiate together, Rural Carriers bargain separately from City Carriers, who also are separate from the APWU which covers clerks and maintenance folks. There are upsides to this, for Rural Carriers specifically it let them get certain contract items that would be a huge ask to get for other carriers due to the specificity of their job requirements, but it's led to a problem where regular rural carriers are in a pretty unique bargaining position relative to virtually everyone else. Importantly, they're also divided into full time regulars and part time RCAs, which I think creates an engagement problem. When I was an RCA I paid dues, but I rarely interacted with or cared about the union because it was pretty clear pretty quickly that the union was mostly concerned with the regulars who had been there a long time. It was likely to be upwards of 5 years before I became a regular (I knew people who had been working part time for 7 years) and almost all the perks and benefits were negotiated to benefit the regular carriers.

I think over time new regulars are becoming less engaged, especially since there have been recent changes to the craft that undermine a lot of the promises that were ostensibly the reason you waited in line to become a regular in the first place. So the leadership is getting increasingly detached from the actual workforce, and the union is already one of the smaller and weaker ones to begin with.

EDIT: A bigger problem which I probably should have mentioned to begin with is that all postal workers are legally barred from taking a strike. So the unions have something of a more collegial relationship with management than you'd like, because you can only play hardball so far before you run into legal trouble.