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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: January 12th, 2024

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  • Well, I’ve heard that he at least encourages people to go on beyond him and read things or organize IRL, so I think that’s already a marked differentiator from the Democrats, who just encourage you to vote for them, and they’ll have all the answers. I see people like him as like the state under communism. Useful up to a point, and then they can do something else. Until that time, critical support to leftist streamers and class traitors lol.

    But, since my only personal experience is with people who have come from Hasan and I haven’t really listened to him much myself, it makes it hard to agree or disagree, so I’ll leave it there.

    But I will say, your writing is a pleasure to read 😂




  • For reference, I don’t watch him much at all so you probably know the specifics of his flaws better than me. However, I know people who have who weren’t leftist before, and I appreciate that he’s brought them into the tent and that he says things that they haven’t heard other people say before. We still have tons of room for other people more left of him or more knowledgeable of theory than he is, but he’s still a great intro to the leftist pipeline, or maybe a mid-point after like Jon Stewart or Jon Oliver, and I won’t begrudge him that role. It’s someone else’s job to step up and be that next step. I won’t blame Hasan that someone isn’t more popular and more knowledgeable on theory. Maybe it’s not his specialty, and that’s fine.

    Like for me, I started going left with Bernie, and now consider myself more left than him, but I still appreciate the role Sanders had in my life. Now, he’s never going to say any theory and he’s always going to shepherd people back into the capitalist system of the Democratic party. But, I won’t hate him because he didn’t travel left with me, I just shrug and say he did his job, and I appreciate his contributions. In other words, I don’t think the world is better without his existing. Or taking the example of Lenin, he popped up during a sizable, albeit partly exiled, socialist movement in Russia, but still, he built on their work, their philosophies, their organizing, their clubs, with their students, their newspapers, etc. He surpassed many of them in terms of turning theory into action, argued with some vehemently, but it’s not like they didn’t contribute to the movement in the long run.

    Hasan doesn’t need to make that last step to power imo. He’s doing his job where he is, helping ease some people out of the red scare mentality of the most propagandized nation on earth. Let’s be honest, even if he couldn’t lead some movement after making 60% of the country believe in socialism, it would be a lot easier for someone else to do so with that support. And that starts with entertainment and culture. Was it Gramsci who had the theory on the structure and super structure that effect each other? I think that’s definitely true. There’s a reason the US is willing to give movies free money for propaganda or let them use their vehicles. It enforces the cultural hegemony that will have to be broken, or at least chipped away.

    People feel something is wrong, sure, but that can lead them to fascism as much as Marxism. And they’re not going to read those books you mentioned because people are terrified to read those books or hear those ideas in the US, yet entertainment provides an acceptable way to be exposed to those ideas. People are identifying the wrong solutions or sources of those problems all the time, that’s why Trump was elected.

    I don’t think all the push back is all parasocial, i just think some is that you’re under valuing the power of culture and entertainment. The right has a pipeline that’s working pretty damn well to slowly convert people from neocons to fascism, and it often starts with talking about their entertainment or being in the guise of entertainment itself (like with comedians, like Rogan, Crowder, etc). There’s no reason the left can’t have a similar path made up of multiple creators and media personalities, each on a step along the path. I think some are just critical of Hasan because he’s the only one right now and no one else is picking up the slack, but I don’t think that’s his fault.


  • There’s no alternative to Hasan right now in the left online space. Look at the top streamers on election day. They’re all right-wing except for him. We’re going to have to start with people like him, AOC, or Bernie if we want to move the needle in this country. Organizing 20 people in your local communist book club doesn’t matter if your movement is constantly demonized in the media and never grows. I don’t think some in the left seem to understand how important propaganda is, and yes, even online. Even Lenin worked on newspapers.

    Not saying he’s anything close to Lenin, but no one else is in the position to step up right now. It’s going to take someone with enough money to not have to rely on mainstream media companies to say the shit he does, and the aesthetic to reach the Gen Z people and normies all the other guys are reaching. Other people can’t afford to be kicked out of the DNC for talking to Palestine protestors like he was. Right now the only people I can think of on the left with any outreach are a couple niche podcasters and academics doing a couple YouTube vids.



  • They didn’t sprout from nothing. Even from the beginning, they were being interfered with by capitalist and anti-revolutionary forces who started out with all the money and resources, like the white army or the black hundreds, not to mention being neighbors with reactionary imperialist countries, like Germany, and coming from authoritarian countries, like Tsarist Russia, where those ruling elements (old regime nobles, business interests, rich landowners, generals, etc) still existed and were in power or at least a place to sabotage the effort.


  • People are blind to the current propaganda, too. Just look at how many articles demonize China every day, which has never bombed a country, while ignoring other authoritarian countries and their imperialism that bomb countries every day (like Saudi Arabia or Turkey). Meanwhile, we need to turn to sources like Al Jazeera to find out what’s happening in Israel with our own government money. Just look at how freaked out the country got to Bernie Sanders and how the capitalist class (including the media) closed ranks to stop him. Look at how the US treats Cuba and Biden still signed a law against them. Until Russia’s war, the most sanctioned countries were all communist (Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela) while other authoritarian countries got a pass. But nobody notices. The propaganda has never stopped.






  • WanderingVentra@lemm.eetoFediverse@lemmy.worldI really want to like Lemmy
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    22 days ago

    Ya I don’t mind and I think it’s because this place reminds me a lot of old forums or old reddit. I really miss some of my old forums and the community that would be built there.

    . The smaller feel also encourages contributing over lurking, because every individual’s comment can actually get read, unlike the huge megathreads of reddit.



  • Two of the developers are scary communist tankies. And no, I don’t think software can be right wing or left wing. Maybe if it’s centralized, like X, but the developers of Lemmy can’t interfere with Lemmy servers they don’t admin, and it’s open source (lots of other people contribute to the Lemmy source code at this point and so would be able to spot things added in).

    Personally, I think the right way to advertise other competitors on the fediverse isnt to fear monger about the developers, but to say what features the alternatives have that might be good. Also, it is nice to have competitors, so also just to advertise based on the availability of alternative options, since it is nice to have those just in case.