PowerLurker [he/him, they/them]

deleted by creator

hm can’t blame you considering it was spearheaded by one of the site’s most persistently hostile, noxious, emotionally abusive memebers who coordinated harassment campaigns in their sad little discord, whateva happened there?

lmao one of many instances that makes me want to know what kind of dirt Melina had on the mods that they got that level of tolerance and accommodation

I also think the entire way our society is structured makes it hard for people to accept criticism generally. Whether that’s the US epidemic of child abuse, the way our schools are designed, or how precarious our jobs are - one’s nervous system becomes primed to view criticism as a direct threat.

that’s incredibly insightful and i never thought about it exactly like that re: criticism. i think you’re very much onto something here.

no shame, it’s been me as well and takes active effort to avoid/unlearn.

biggest peeve for me is when people’s interest in socialist politics seems to stem more from a desire to be the smartest and/or most morally righteous guy/gal/enby in the room rather than out of a genuine desire for a better world. it’s a tendency that’s existed since the beginning of any kind of socialist movement, but it’s intensely heightened by the nature of the internet. it can also exist alongside a genuine desire for liberation and is a contradiction we all have the capacity to slip into, so is something to always stay vigilant against in ourselves.

tied to the above, but another peeve is lingering individualist idealist/moralistic puritan brainworms in people who have otherwise come to the correct conclusion.

and not exactly a peeve, but something to always keep in mind and which is tied to all of the above: coming to socialist politics on an intellectual level is not the same as coming to terms with how hegemonic all of these hierarchies are in our day-to-day lives, is not the same as coming to terms with all the ways they’ve shaped us, & is not the same as unlearning/decolonizing ourselves of these thoughts and behaviors. the latter is a lifelong process, which is something i have to remind myself of every time i encounter a new blindspot in myself, or a blindspot in a comrade/fellow traveler that surprises me and seems intuitive/obvious to where i’m at in my own political journey, but which isn’t obvious yet to them.

a few things on my end:

-got hyperfixation-level back into tabletop worldbuilding and feel like i’m mostly sorting out some of the main pain points of my setting! (namely, how to fit humanoid fantasy races in a way that doesn’t feel cringe) i may be at the beginning of a hyperfixate-overcommit-burnout process, but i’m enjoying the hyperfixation portion while it lasts. and thanks to my organizing friends and my gf i might actually be getting a game group together for the first time since last decade!

-speaking of which, having a community of comrades/friends and the work we do together helps to keep me grounded and connected to humanity. and while we’re still figuring out what exactly a safe and stable relationship looks like to us, ditto for having a loving partner and the kindness and gentleness and acceptance we work to extend to each other.

-the sheer numbers at the Minneapolis quasi-general strike put a little hope in me. while the demonic hogs in ICE killing our people makes my blood boil and makes me weep, a showcase of the potential of people power & labor power like that makes me hope it’s only the beginning of a new fighting labor movement.

gave the game away on this troll account kinda early, huh

The hard autumn of '24…few alive today dare even mention that bloodbath

This tbh. Without dual power (e.g. a militant organized labor movement) and some kind of vanguard structure, spontaneous movements/uprisings inevitably fizzle out.

The Time of Monsters

as a millennial i feel like i shouldn’t say the term “aura farming” but why tf does lenin farm so much aura and look hard af in like 95% of the pics of him out there??

guess theres a reason hes my GOAT

ravens have more cool factor (brooding loners) but i have a lot more personal affinity for & kinship with the crow (gothy/spooky but ultimately just lil guys who are about community bonds)

i think this just buys into the incorrect incel framing of the actual social phenomenon though, which i get because the powers that be have intentionally made it the default narrative but it’s still flawed analysis.

people aren’t exclusively or necessarily primarily lonely along romantic lines - though like all social bonds, the material conditions for finding a romantic partner have eroded and suck ass and shit is rough out there in that way, no denying that. but i’ve seen data that the number of people who are straight up friendless has gone up 400% since the early 90s, like romantic loneliness is a factor, gender politics are a factor, but it’s a far wider reaching crisis than that.

the real solution is to rebuild communal spaces/group activities/communal institutions, deprogram patriarchal conditioning, and to deprogram “us vs them, what can i get out of this person” competitive/transactional thinking about human relationships. this basically amounts to working to dismantle two foundational pillars of societal oppression (capitalism & patriarchy), which amounts to a generations-long mass struggle with no assurance of success. that doesn’t make for a fun takeaway in corporate media thinkpieces, so the discourse gets warped along misogynist incel lines.

Or women drastically lower their standards for the benefit of being shackled to one of these trolls.

Weirdly, the second option is the more workable one in some people’s opinion.

I do agree that this is the conclusion reactionary misogynists tend to come to, yeah.

extremely insightful & under-discussed point!

you’re not wrong but just adding on, discourse around the (very real and mostly gender neutral) loneliness epidemic has been so badly degraded by the incel co-optation that this framing doesn’t even examine that loneliness =/= romantic loneliness (at least, not exclusively). more and more people don’t even have one (1) close personal friend. let alone goddamn community! (which, fittingly, makes it much easier to find both friends and romantic partners).

i did a quick glance at the data once and i think it’s just to co-opt the broader loneliness epidemic (which exists and from what i saw is basically gender neutral) in a way that stokes misogyny rather than pointing people at the correct target (late capitalism hollowing out our social spaces and communal bonds).

there’s nuances beyond that in terms of how it probably does impact different genders differently (through the lens of patriarchal conditioning hurting everyone, but not at all evenly in terms of degree) but i think that core co-optation truly is the gist of it.

definitely one of those two, the pathetic and unfunny meanspiritedness of the bit will lead you to the truth of which one

this site needs to develop a better nose for throwaway accounts that post singlemindedly about the same themes that are just designed to make fun of users here/make fun of common genres of post/that are just struggle bait.

site management demodded the person who got this kind of clearly fake shit pinned earlier this year, that was a good move! showing some real nice signs of improvement there :)

two things are simultaneously true: there is a much larger subset of American troops who radicalize to the left vs ex cops and IDF, and the American left are conditioned to go easy on (or even lionize) their country’s military without the requisite expression of regret, process of vetting, and earning of trust through action that allows former imperialist troops to take roles in socialist movements. Israel is brainwashed and sick to the core through generations of an active process of settler genocide and the subsequent propaganda apparatus around it, and cops are largely pampered, suburban reactionaries.

whereas there is an actual significant subset of ex-military who fit the “impoverished barely adult tricked into service, then chewed up and spat out by the system” talking point that’s often thrown around, even if they aren’t the majority of the US military’s demographic. I think this largely explains the disparity. I also want to say that the radicalized socialist former US troop is still very much a niche, and former American soldiers are much more likely to be reactionary or just plain depoliticized.

that’s all I really care to say on the matter on hexbear dot net. while the banned user’s timing was bad and their word choices were harsh (and I think this site skews more elder gen Z and millennial than literal kids lol), their point was ultimately right that this is an atomized, antisocial place that puts a higher value on taking a posture of maximum righteousness (even on the most inane, niche issues) than on movement building, comradely political education & growth, or on genuine communal care. the above (ultimately pretty mild) degree of contradiction is too much for a space like this - hexbear isn’t uniquely bad or anything, the internet is just tainted enemy territory at its very core that discourages movement building IMO. (i’d also add/clarify, that this issue in particular is not inane or niche)

EDIT: also if I wasn’t clear, none of the middle paragraph applies to Platner, I’m just commenting on a broader recurring struggle session. should’ve been a firm line of “fuck that guy” even before he was outed as a nazi. 4 tours (one with a comically evil private mercenary group) in your late 30s/early 40s is deep commitment to the evils of imperialism.