A story as old as federated social media, in 3 parts

It's not a problem with anarchists in general, I think, but that the kind of anarchists who put themselves into positions of power are generally... not the ones you want in power. Regardless of ideology, power, even the smallest, pettiest kind, tends to attract a certain kind of person more often, on average.

This is almost the exact opposite of an anarchist understanding of power.

The point of anarchist critiques of the state is that the structure and systems themselves corrupt and constrain people into acting in ways that are authoritarian and harmful.

So, even if you put a good person, and yes, even an anarchist into an authoritarian system, it will inevitably result in an abuse of power and violence towards oppressed people.

This is exactly why anarchists generally don’t put forth candidates or actively campaign or support political parties in the existing system. Because embedding a different, even better person into a corrupt system will only lead to further corruption.

I actually think that, ironically, this is a perfect validation of anarchist theory. Lemmy is a platform that was built by and for authoritarians (initially capitalists as Reddit, then only slightly modified by authoritarian leftists on Lemmy). The structure of moderation with mods and admins able to unilaterally take action and the difficulty of organized resistance inevitably leads to abuses, which is what this community is about.

I’m still waiting for the social media platform that has better infrastructure for distributed power among users rather than the chosen few.

Eh. I'm an anarchist and find that sort of mid behavior reprehensible and completely contrary to anarchic philosophy. Anarchism is about not having rulers or hierarchical structures. It's not about not having rules because those are important for a collaborative society.

I'd also say that anti-electoralists are generally either ethically compromised or completely ignorant. I have found no sign of accelerationism, which anti-electoralism is mathematically indistinguishable from, ever having a positive effect. So, they want to sacrifice people (but not themselves) and increase suffering for a chance at a condition that they think will allow for their utopia, despite a lack of any evidence to suggest it would actually work.

Most often though, you have bad faith actors like that mod infiltrating and destroying spaces for anarchism, either intentionally or as acceptable collateral damage in their mission to sow discord.

I think there's a difference between anarchists and "anarchists." I read about Kropotkin and the first kind, and, if nothing else, his horror and opposition to the early Soviet state as a way of achieving economic justice, and how accurately he was able to diagnose how and why it would go wrong, puts him as pretty forward-thinking in my book.

I think OPP is neither of those things, and just wants Trump to get elected and is wearing a little plastic anarchist-mask to get it done. Somewhere deep in the forest you can find he and I talking about it.

The part of your statement where you say:

So if any libs were advocating for both things and had their comments removed then I think there’s maybe a bit of PTB involved in those cases.

I can agree with, except for the part where you said “maybe a bit of.”

Ok, fair enough from your perspective. From my perspective, it is still entirely consistent with anarchism to outright reject calls to participate in a 2-party democracy by voting though. While personally, I see no harm in doing both things (voting + direct action) and wouldn't remove comments advocating for such, another anarchist might see one thing as taking away from the impetus for the other, which is why I qualified my remark.

Using your mod powers to decide who is allowed and not allowed to speak is not very anarchist of you, @mambabasa@slrpnk.net

But this comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism vs libertarianism/free speech and really isn't a valid criticism.

So my comment would be removed because according to the mod I provide “ideological cover for evil”, by not supporting Jill Stein, even though my rationale conforms with anarchist ideals?

so you can see by pushing back on advocacy for the ruling hegemony, they are being anarchists

It is key. Anarchist theory is supposed to prove that hierarchy is not necessary. Proving that a group of people can manage themselves without one is the point.

I also added in the last sentence in order to include this. Multual aid is a leftist theory. Maybe the misunderstanding stems from this, as I didn't intend it to mean "that's the only point of anarchy", so my bad. I still think it is important though.

The core message is good - democracy is not a one-day affair, and we should be more involved. But glossing over "Well yes Trump is worse" in an election against literal fascism with a "BOTH SIDES BAD", accusations of tokenism, an incredibly tone-deaf call to action to a pressed-upon American public, and a side of American diabolism for good measure? Eugh.

From what I see, Greta was sufficiently vague on this either way. In that case, going to an anarchist space to argue for electoralism using this vagueness as a starting point seems to be sufficient reason for removal. The removed comment from the OP was not even correcting people misrepresenting Greta's words, it was about starting an argument with someone suggesting 3rd parties (a support which I think also doesn't belong in an anarchist space, but whatever) with the usual 2-party electoralist talking points

Is this really what we are going to be? I don't recall the community every banning people left and right for comments like these. I myself made similar arguments before, where is my ban and comment removal? OP here did not post anything in bad faith, they didn't come to troll, nobody complained and there also wasn't a flood of the community. There was a total of 17 comments, 7 were removed, and 5 are just the mod getting into fights with people, and the post was locked after that. This is something you support?

Speaking of the mod, they are aggressive and insulting in every comment they make, almost every post is "don't vote for Harris", and this has been flooding the local instance for some time now (11 posts "don't vote for Harris" in 2 days last week). There is absolutely nothing constructive in this whole story, just one person making as much noise as possible without adding anything constructive and then banning people who make good faith counter-arguments. I thought this was one mod out of control, but if you support all of this, if this is what the slrpnk anarchist community is, I have to say that I am profoundly disappointed in this instance. I can only hope that the majority of slrpnk.net would condemn this whole story, they just aren't aware.

You are letting people into your space to use it for political propaganda, because they are making a pretty thin and implausible claim to being on your team. I don't think this person is on your team. For about two weeks, they have been posting constantly about Kamala Harris and the Democrats. They can't keep their story straight as to whether they know who Jill Stein is. They constantly accuse anyone who dissents from their viewpoint of various wild strawman horrible things, repeatedly, and even after repeated clarifications.

Regardless of whether you agree with me on that or how you feel about the original issue, they're representing the anarchist community in an incredibly poor light. I think you should take some time to look over all the comments here. There's a group of people who are perfectly open to anarchism, reading and learning about it, and talking about moderation, having differences of opinion but working them out like normal humans. Then there's one person cursing at everyone and accusing them of all kinds of weird imaginary crimes, wanting to kill Palestinians on purpose with that as the only possible explanation for their statements, along with "evilism."

Are you really wanting to give this person a position of authority, to represent your community? I think that some of these political bad actors have developed the skill of putting on the right tribal affiliation so they'll get cover from genuine members of the community, even though when looked at in an objective light, they are clearly acting in toxic ways, and their motivation is pretty obviously related to the election, nothing to do with anything beyond the electoral.

You're free to grant authority in your community to whoever you want, but I don't think this person is showing any kind of good judgement or good faith, or showing your community in a positive light.

Lesser evilism is bannable because it's still supporting evil. If you support the lesser evil, you're supposed to be ashamed at your choice, not provide ideological cover for evil. Choosing to provide ideological cover for evil is a bannable offence.

Providing ideological cover for genocide and promoting anti-anarchism is worth more than what you got, which is just a slap on the wrist. But please, tell me why anarchists should tolerate anti-anarchism, liberalism, and ideological cover for genocide in their space. I'm sure it's enlightening.

I'm going to make a bold prediction that the person you're talking to is never going to address this in a coherent way.

Curiouser and curiouser.

They said "pram," of course they're British

thatsthejoke.jpg

You’re getting the classic hexbear/.Ml brigade experience.

We also have elections between two identical candidates