One of the biggest topics of these days is that of mods in lemmy.ml banning and censoring people because they’re Tankies. This has had a rather sizeable discussion of people agreeing and even arguing for defederating ml. I’m sure a lot of people are arguing from good intentions, but there’s also bad faith actors among them, as I will try to show in this post. The original post was based on the moderation history of the ml instance so I respond in a similar fashion.

I browsed through the discussion for a while, and stumbled upon a comment of someone who had created an instance in response, namely de_ml@lemmy.blahaj.zone The original post in about the moderation in ml has to do with the Tiananmen Square Massacre, so I decided to make a few posts in this new instance about other historical facts which are less discussed, but that we should remember too, namely the Bengal Famine and the US support of fascism in Spain.

Initially these posts were well received and had some upvoted, but after a while I got a notification that one of them had been banned. To my surprise, I looked at the mod log of the instance and found this. So, both posts being about historical atrocities committed by capitalist countries were either banned or locked, and I had been banned from the community altogether for the reason “commie?”

I checked through the admin’s history of comments and found this.

Is this admin, who censors posts that talk about historical grievances committed by capitalism, who pins “fuck Tankies” to the instance, really a person without an agenda trying to protect a community from a supposed malignant moderation, or is it someone with an agenda trying to call everyone to the left of centrism a Tankie?

We should, in my opinion, be careful with accusing and polarising one of the biggest communities in Lemmy away, which is full of non-political content, and really examine what’s going on and what agenda there is behind it.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.mlEnglish
    61·
    5 months ago

    I genuinely want to believe you, but my attitude towards western leftists has radically changed after the full scale invasion. That being said I actually hold pretty strong anti-oligarch views that are not taken well by the vast majority of Americans (lived in north america for 10 years, travelled extensively). Great place, great country, lots to see, but it’s extremely corrupt and people are heavily brainwashed by oligarch word salad and overly focused on the PR component of various widgets/services/companies. But the reactions I saw (not everyone in the US, Sanders has a pretty sober take on russia) made western leftism a bridge too far for me.

    I’ve discussed Varoufakis in a reply to your other post. One other example would be Corbyn and his supporters; they pretty much de facto support russian imperialist (they make vague statements that imply otherwise, but it’s a ruse). Many German leftists are also largely aligned with russian imperialist goals.

    There is also the issue that I don’t just oppose the russian government. Based on my personal experiences living in russia for 10 years and seeing how my former friends reacted in 2014 (and 2008 for that matter) and a wide range of sociological research, I have come to the conclusion that:

    • At the very least a strong majority (~65%) of russians are genocidal imperialists. As per research, preference falsification is largely overstate by polemicists and is not a significant issue. The real question is whether genocidal imperialists constitute an overwhelming majority or a very strong majority.
    • Russia is not going to change (based on the statements and actions of the allegedly “liberal” opposition and extensive knowledge of russian history). Putin is going to die in 15 years and someone else similar or worse will take his place. The russians will never do anything to change this dynamic. They had a unique chance with the relatively peaceful breakup of the USSR and we saw what they did. At any rate, I am not going to risk my life entertaining foolish fantasies.

    I will end this post with quote from a Ukrainian solider who died in the summer of 2022 (it’s commonly misattributed to the former Ukrainian ambassador to Kazakhstan):

    The more russians we kill today, the fewer russians will have to be killed by our children

    • volodya_ilich@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      32·
      5 months ago

      I’ve read through both your replies, and I want to say that thank you for your detailed perspective, it’s good to hear, and I generally agree with the overall sentiment while I disagree with a few things. Right now I don’t have the time to answer both in detail, so I will answer you when I find some time later today or tomorrow, with a better thought out answer. A lot of food for thought in your comments anyway, you have quite a bit of insight on the whole thing and it’s a pleasure to read well-thought, well-structured comments like yours, so already thank you for that.

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.mlEnglish
        31·
        5 months ago

        Thanks for taking the time to read.

        All good man.

        I probably come off as a bit categorical, but I have my reasons for this. A lot of the foreign policy positions of western leftists make me question whether they are sincere (or even in their right minds) when it comes to social/economic issues; where I am somewhat more in alignment (w.r.t. corruption, oligarchs and the need for radicalism in resolving the aforementioned points) with them.

        Cheers!