this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Now I am not going to take the anti homeless side here but you did claim they were lying about living in LA for not using a local term for train.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm not the one that made this post but it would track with the general reddit-like nature of their other comments. It sounds like a very common thing I hear from reactionaries IRL that are clearly made-up or are hyperfixating on a hypothetical or outlier incident instead of just understanding that is not a failure of trains. Like the whole context was "sometimes trains aren't good actually because I saw a mentally unwell person I have no proof is actually homeless." Not all unhoused people look like the caricature most people have in their head, and not everyone that does drugs in public on a train is actually unhoused, though the latter is certainly a more reasonable assumption to make. The combinations of all these characteristics of this person it was clear they were engaging in bad faith at best, and outright lying at worst. I am not making a judgement either way but it is a specific sort of reactionary thinking that is encountered all too often in online communist spaces, and so it's no surprise when people have short patience with this sort of thing.

If you've seen it enough you tend to get a sense for this time of debatebro and it's rare that it's a simple well-meaning misunderstanding because if it were it is very easy to have some humility. It's the getting all offended by people laughing at something that is a textbook reactionary response, in a place where bullying libs and reactionaries is a pillar of its community culture. Furthermore going around other instances and complaining about said community sort of makes you fair game and I would not call it brigading, especially in a "what are instances you hate" thread, wherein the User compared us to right wingers. Which is itself a very tired very old trope known as "horseshoe theory". And last but not least there is the term Tankie which is most often used to imply people on the imperial periphery or global south seeking national liberation are following a problematic ideology (because often the word gets used to refer to anyone left of Bernie Sanders on foreign policy a "tankie), which has deeply white supremacist or western chauvinist connotations.

So in short, does it really matter whether they live in LA or not? They certainly have a colonizer's mindset with regard to their local community even if they claim to be for "paying for more social services." That is like the core reason why social democracy and liberalism are derided as fascism lite by most communists.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You sure got a lot of context out of “they certainly don’t hate them enough to chase them away when they are smoking meth on the train”. I don't think that was a great thing to say (not that it is not an issue and needs to be addressed) but instead of even trying some level of communication or rebuttal it seems like everyone just went full "reactionary" on them.

There is no "sense for this time of debatebro" or ability to see enough text to pull from that one sentence a sentence of endless fascism (or whatever problematic box). They have every right to get upset and go around other instances, because yours banned them. I have not seen a lot of humility here from anyone involved but what gets me is that some people think they get all the rights but others don't.

Yes it does matter whether they live in LA or not as in one case they could be relating an actual experience they had and the other would be them spinning a web. In once case you could do some good and engage and for the other prove they where wrong and acting in bad faith.

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

Thank you for being a voice of reason MooPoo. I apologize if my original comment came off as callous and insensitive. I heavily sympathize with the plight of the homeless and my only problem is with those who can be a danger to themselves or others, especially in an enclosed area like a train. TBH I sympathize with ideologies that are beyond left of the American Overton window since I'm quite familiar with what Western countries have done to suppress them. Thanks for pointing out how they were the ones being reactionary without so much as giving a warning before the ban.

Nakoichi, I don't expect you to unban me from your community but I hope we can at least understand each other enough to not see us as enemies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're still sort of dodging the crux of the issue, you continue to place blame on the oppressed rather than engage with our comments and begin to grasp why the ultimate onus of responsibility lies on the oppressing classes. Let's not get too derailed here (pun intended) from the original context: Your comments were a critique of public transit, followed by trying to back up that critique with a personal anecdote of a time you felt threatened by a homeless person. The responses to this barely surface level take that indicated influence by a deluge of reactionary propaganda were not out of line to make uncharitable assumptions about you, since we have had a large influx of bad faith arguments along these lines since federating.

I am not the one that banned you, and you're right it's not even in my power since I am not a mod of c/urbanism, but it should be a point of self reflection on why that is the route you took instead of being indignant about it. You're the one that came into our instance and you might not understand what our rules fully entail or what reactionary behavior is but that's not really our fault, I gave you a detailed breakdown of the reasons folks that post like this get banned so quickly and you might read it if you care as much as you appear to.

Hell you can still post on Hexbear if you aren't site banned but you might try to start by asking good faith questions without preloading them with personal grievances. Or you can ask me, I'm pretty patient when I have reason to believe the inquirer is acting in good faith.

That said just be aware that civility is often reserved for people that have proven the latter so given prior engagement, just don't expect people not to dunk on you for an exceptionally bad take. Ignorance is not always a good excuse.