Leftist Infighting: A community dedicated to allowing leftists to vent their frustrations

If you’re really out here like “wuhhhh no one else is dealing with it so why should I”, if you’re really out here like “it’s a style choice at this point”, if you’re really out here like “but i need to see faces for 2% of my interactions in a day how dare you interfere with my liberty”, then how the FUCK am I supposed to trust that when the pigs are goosestepping down the street with M4s at port ready over their chests, that when there’s Humvees convoying down the streets of my hood, that when the Second Night of Long Knives happens, that ANY of you’d have the discipline to be of ANY FUCKING USE?

I felt, and still feel, very much the same way. The covid pandemic, which never ended no matter what propaganda says and in many ways is only getting worse and harder to even try to mitigate, demonstrated just how selfish far too many people really are, people that couldn't handle fucking inconveniences in their daily routines that nonetheless present themselves as the future's comrades in a conflict that would be far more fucking inconvenient than masking and social distancing while gobbling treats at a bar/whatever.

To date, the single worst post I've ever seen on Hexbear, the one that did the most overall damage, that drove away numerous people that I still haven't seen since because of the toxic assholish bullying that the poster and likely alts performed afterward, was a post titled "you need to go out" by "RonJeremyCorbyn" and seconded by numerous dubious probably-alt accounts. It had a slimy opener about "loving you all" that then went and called people "shut-ins" if they weren't going out on New Years to "kiss strangers" and otherwise be boomer-tier plague rats all for the sake of "normalcy" that would supposedly "stop embarrasing leftism."

That shit went on for days afterward, probably from that piece of shit's alt accounts. I still miss some of the people that were bullied off the site, and I still utterly loathe that piece of shit for that post.

Hexbear isn't exempt from treat hogs that have superficial leftist beliefs but also a whole lot of "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOO" selfish asshole attitude beneath that that goes off from even the suggestion of personal inconvenience for the sake of others. Such attitude has material consequences and can and will do actual harm to others in the offline world.

I don't think the current anti-mask "back to normal" sentiment is in any way "western". It's very much global outside Japan (and maybe a few other countries). Not many ppl worry about covid anymore and unless there is state willingness and proper enforcement of masks that isn't going to change.

Uphold Amerikan Pharaoh thought.

The Western left, such as it is, has really shown their liberalism when it comes to COVID. What should have been a time for us to shine was dominated by a small liberal anti-mask sentiment, then a larger liberal anti-anti-mask reaction, and finally liberal normalization and a much higher anti-mask sentiment. We should be 100% top of caring for community, organizing in community, calling out liberal hypernormalization and building from it.

Instead, we have mostly seen opportunism. COVID-cautious folks (which is to say, correct folks) a minority in orgs, sometimes listened to at first. Orgs trying to say that wearing masks alienates you from the proletariat (lmao). And then people who are understandably tired of being the odd one out using this as justification to be massively inconsiderate, even dangerous.

There is still plenty to organize around, though the lightning strike moment has passed for now. Paxlovid is $1400 for the uninsured in the US. There's currently a wave. There's a new, seemingly better vaccine and we could organize around access to it. There are locales trying to ban masks in order to crack down on Palestinian solidarity protests. Public health aside, normalizing masks is good for our ability to safely carry out actions. It's not out of the cards for lightning to strike again and give us dual pandemics, as COVID damages immune systems and public health had adapted to a "fuck it" status quo, flirting with bird flu for no reason other than a poultry lobby. Will your org be ready to agitate? Or did it alienate the people with the most knowledge and investment in this topic?

Promote correct positions (COVID-safe) and reject dominant liberalism (nornalization), especially in our own spaces!

Honestly, after having six people agree with someone telling me they're "indifferent to what happens to me" and completely misinterpret what I said into standing up for anti-maskers, I feel you. Kind of realization to put energy and feel a kinship with people who don't feel the same.

Lurking on hexbear might be the better option for now, I guess.

Even if we set aside the question of efficacy of masking in a society where few others do (and it is still efficacious to you and people you regularly interact with), any so-called communist who doesn't mask is a communist who is utterly failing at even the bare minimum of solidarity with their immunocompromised comrades. Do you consider yourself someone who is mindful and compassionate of other working people in your community? Then you should be masking.

I mostly recall posts qualifying as "anti-mask" coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like "I give up", not something anti-science or the like. I understand some stuff got heated and removed though, so if there were posts going into detailed anti-mask stuff, I don't think I saw it. A lot of what I was there for to reply to people (that I can recall) was trying to commiserate and relate to people on reasoning they're dealing with and how hard it is dealing with the pressures of other people and the system as a whole, trying to be conscientious in spite of that. Some of us dealt with, or still deal with, family members who refuse to take it seriously now, or for some people, family members who never took it seriously. On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do. It can make a person feel helpless and demoralized. That was one of the sentiments I saw there and I know it well in certain forms myself.

What a shit-show that thread was. For some strange reason, the warped mind runs sickeningly deep in every corner of the culture of the west. The inherent need for blood in exchange for justice that was designed through every facet of our media, our art, our relationships with each other in an fierce individualism that demands "justification" for why a person themselves should change or adjust to the conditions around them.

A design to slaughter Native-Americans, to separate the sick, the poor, the different. To make a culture where even if there is no divide, to create one. It's something that we all must fight every day. I wanted to ask, are you leaving? I appreciated your posts.