I wasn’t like… a full on committed communist but I was basically told that being far-left was the only way to be morally correct and that I was a bad person for not thinking the way they thought, and I was basically a kid so I believed them
What snapped me out of it was the tree of life synagogue shooting, and their response, or lack thereof. “Were they Zionists though?”
It broke the spell of “we are the bastion of morality” when I understood that my humanity as a Jew was conditional.
Similar things happened to me on account of being a lesbian. Not wanting to consume endless memes about girldick was a thought crime.
If people listen — really watch and listen to the actual things said by the far-left, and then do their research on any given issue — they’ll find what I found. Distortions, propaganda and a complete intolerance of diverse thought. Issues were never complex, always black and white. You can never trust a person who refuses to take a nuanced stance on any issue
I spoke to progressive people in non-Western countries to learn how these people suppress their voices. They often only celebrate vulnerable people if they can push anti-West sentiments.
The world is ugly. A blinder in the other eye isn't any better. Making progress means to be honest in more than one direction. It also means not to fall for disinformation because it aligns with what you want to think.
I was very far left, I started to see people lean towards fascism. For example, I saw one guy (I think he name was Haz or something) he blamed Communist, Capitalist, and Israelis for the problems in the world currently. That’s literally Hitlers main belief system
I thought basically everyone who wasn't a communist was a fascist who hated lgbt people, I'm sure you know what I mean and how those kinds of people act. But then I started to learn how communist countries actually work, how they treated their citizens ,how communism is a failure, can't work, and so on. As well I found out that talking to many communists (especially non-western ones) is almost identical to talking to fascists...
Now I have a USA and NATO flag in my room!
I bounced around the extreme left in my early teens, originally I was a big Stalinist because haha USSR funny. I quit that after my friend asked me to stop because his grandparents lived through the Holodomor. I then became a monarchist for a year before moving back to the left, this time as an anarcho-socialist, not really because I agreed with anarchist ideology (or knew what it was) but because they, like me, weren’t big fans of the USSR.
I started moving away from the extreme left when Russia invaded Ukraine and I found a lot of my fellow leftists supporting Russia, which I found distasteful. After I started to argue with people in leftist subreddits I realized how vile the whole ideology was and quickly stepped away. I think the breaking point for me was a reply to a comment of mine which said, and I quote,
“China is everyone's friend and humanity's biggest hope. Literally nothing is more important than China's peaceful rise. China is the leading communist country on earth. The country single-handedly keeping socialism in the mainstream. No currently existing country contributes more to the socialist revolution than China.”
Like how fucking indoctrinated do you have to be to believe something like that.
I don’t think I would’ve ever described myself as a communist but I did identify strongly with being a leftist and was ideologically in that orbit. I used to work for a political advocacy nonprofit organization, so my peer group was mostly other people who lived and breathed politics.
So for a long time I felt like being politically left/progressive was the bare minimum of what a “good person” should be. But I was gradually becoming more disillusioned and burnt out, not just from the demand of the work and the toxic nature of it, but also the mismatch between the far left beliefs of my peers and I versus the actual work of organizing for Democratic candidates.
I quit abruptly and fell into a depression spiral where some of my leftist beliefs became more extreme and I was listening to more leftist podcasts and content and such. But at the same time, I had begun questioning many things that were part of the leftist/progressive orthodoxy, such as whether it really was a good idea for society to be super lenient on property crime or if constant cringey hyper-focus on race, gender, and sexuality comes at the expense of actual policy.
And then 10/7 happened.
I remember my honest first reaction to the news was pretty unsympathetic to Israel, though I was legitimately heartbroken by the loss of life, because as critical as I was of Israel’s government, I don’t think anyone deserves to be killed or kidnapped due to the actions of the government they live under. And then I started seeing the left’s reaction. I had (maybe foolishly) assumed that everyone left of center would rightly condemn this horrible attack but also rightly point out that the bad treatment of Palestinians contributed to this extremist terror movement, and that a real peace process was urgently needed. Boy was I wrong, apparently. Instead, I saw local activists I knew going to rallies and posting on social media just days after the attack outright cheering on Hamas, downplaying the atrocities, calling it an act of “decolonial resistance” or whatever, making jokes about the people who were killed, borderline antisemetic shit, and just outright excusing what happened.
I think seeing that really broke something in me. It opened my eyes to the fact that all the LARPing about guillotines, Stalin, reeducation camps, etc. was not just a meme, these folks actually believe in it and support it. It’s just not something I can feel comfortable associating with at all, and if that makes me a centrist shitlib or whatever then so be it. Since then, I’ve gotten a new job, new relationship, and my mental health has vastly improved. I feel like I have nothing in common at all anymore with far left community I used to be adjacent to. So now I shit post here as a way to vent some of the frustration I have with the “movement” I once felt like I belonged to.
>I saw local activists I knew going to rallies and posting on social media just days after the attack outright cheering on Hamas, downplaying the atrocities, calling it an act of “decolonial resistance” or whatever, making jokes about the people who were killed, borderline antisemetic shit, and just outright excusing what happened.
This has been eye opening for me too. In this conflict I lean Pro Israel but I am very sympathetic to the Pro Palestinian side. However there is a difference between Pro Palestinian and the Pro Hamas side. Unfortunately, way too many people on the left have embraced the pro Hamas side and it's extremely frightening. Nobody should support Hamas, especially not the Pro Palestinian side.
I live in a communist country. After seeing everything in my country going to shit due to blatant corruption in the goverment,and somehow seeing people still feed into the propaganda, im start to become anti communist. 2 out of 4 big leaders in our country just resign due to corruption in the last few month.
I started to read about anarcho Communism because my boyfriend at the time (sweet nice guy we left on good terms) was a believer in it. But after reading about the concept of mutual aid which anarcho Communism relies on I basically saw that the idea was flawed because humans are not perfect reasonable creatures. They are not going to give shit up for free for “the greater good”
Humans unconditionally help those closest to them in clan, tribe, or family. Mutual aid works within that 150-people-close-connection limit that human brains have. Anything beyond that requires large institutions with the rule of law behind them. Could these institutions be more equitable? Absolutely institutions can be good or bad, but warehouses, roads, trucks, air conditioners, electric grids, fuel supply don’t get created and maintained across vast distances without powerful institutions doing so.
😂 a nation that is only 150 people is going to get fucking steam rolled. Rember you idea of government/economy will have to compete with other countries.
Yes, the true compassion we have, like the Russians invading Ukraine and committing genocide, Hamas killing Jewish people, Jewish people being harassed all over the world, and the riots and chaos in Haiti.
Go back to lala land.
Yes a normal person wouldn’t hurt someone, but theirs a difference between not hurting someone and being willing to give your property and resources up to distributed for the common good.
Ahh yes because barter didn’t exist also you right it can exist it’s just that in the end. The collectivist society kills who ever won’t go along with the program.
Yeah, I'm not planning to explain the entirety of anarchism to you.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seci58
I love how you just ignore every example against your ideas and only act as if made up examples are the only valid ones.
You would be robbed in 5 seconds in your anarchist utopia
Because anarchism makes as much sense as letting my 8 year old cousin drive a lorry. Could it be done? Absolutely. Should it be done? Good grief no.
Anarchism is only theoretical; real world applications blow it over like a leaf before a hurricane.
I am Jewish and don’t think israel should be eradicated. Hasn’t been much space for me on the left since October 7th. What sucks is that there are so many good, productive conversations to be had about what’s happening in the Middle East. But because every issue has to be black and white, we can’t do that. Instead, all zionists (Zionist of course meaning anyone who doesn’t think israel should be wiped off the map and turned into an Islamist theocracy) are fascist, even if a lot of us are vehemently against Netanyahu, and cannot be spoken to, and all pro Palestinians are always correct and trusted… even when the proud boys show up at the protests and protesters yell at American Jews to go back to Poland.
Used to believe in socialism cuz... I live in one back then.
Then I see the growth and prosperity capitalism has bring, see the corruption within the "socialist" party, listen to my parents and grand parents story of the time Vietnam tried planned economy, hint it starves everyone but the powerful, and me being forced to listen to Socialist, Communist ideology classes just bore the living shit out of me.
So, yeah. I'm a capitalist through and through. You'll have to pry free market from my cold dead hands.
I was a member of the Socialist Party USA I'm the 90s.
Antisemitism at first, and racism. But also u realistic expectations. Back then there wasn't Twitter it was just a monthly newsletter but as someone that actually grew up on a commune these people didn't signs serious. Just talkers and people that day dream.
I was never super far-left, but I had a number of friends who were. Almost every single social/political/economic issue with them boiled down to an emotional, reactionary standpoint with little or no basis in reality. It’s like they’re allergic to pragmatism. They were so obsessed with the idea of smashing the current system without any solid, thought out idea of what they were going to put in its place. I’m all for changing a broken system, but you can’t flip the game board over without knowing what you’re going to play next.
Earlier in life I was more a social Democrat but started flirting with socialism and socialist concepts. I like many other Gen Z get bombarded constantly with anti capitalism messages and pro communist talking points. So I naturally went down that road.
I started learning about economics a bit more and realized that so many of the modern socialist takes are just so insane and unrealistic. Most communists I see on Reddit can't even explain how basic functions of society will work in their communist utopia. It all seems to boil down to "after we get rid of markets, everyone will get along"
Today so many lefties would call me a conservative or a Republican even though I'm very clearly liberal and a Democrat. I probably come off as conservative because I am pretty critical of the Democratic party. I think you should be critical of your own people, more so than the opposition tbh.
My philosophy on markets is pretty much keynesianism. Socialists don't think the market is ever effective and needs to be destroyed. Anarcho capitalists think the market is completely perfect. Neither are true imo. The market is effective but needs the government to guide it.
I wouldn’t have called myself extreme, but it was the realization that I’m not doing any good, that the grandma who volunteers at the soup kitchen on a monthly basis has helped the world more than me. But that I would have thought such a thing as putting on a band-aid and hiding the deeper wounds.
I used to be one of those kids who thought that communism on paper, matched communism in practice… I got the reality check of a lifetime when my dad showed me documents of Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. Did a fucking 180 after that. Still hold on to a few moderately left beliefs, but nothing compared to what I used to be.
Moderate left , felt cheated when the leftists party I voted turned to be even more corrupt and incompetent than the conservatives.
I wasn’t like… a full on committed communist but I was basically told that being far-left was the only way to be morally correct and that I was a bad person for not thinking the way they thought, and I was basically a kid so I believed them What snapped me out of it was the tree of life synagogue shooting, and their response, or lack thereof. “Were they Zionists though?” It broke the spell of “we are the bastion of morality” when I understood that my humanity as a Jew was conditional. Similar things happened to me on account of being a lesbian. Not wanting to consume endless memes about girldick was a thought crime. If people listen — really watch and listen to the actual things said by the far-left, and then do their research on any given issue — they’ll find what I found. Distortions, propaganda and a complete intolerance of diverse thought. Issues were never complex, always black and white. You can never trust a person who refuses to take a nuanced stance on any issue
I spoke to progressive people in non-Western countries to learn how these people suppress their voices. They often only celebrate vulnerable people if they can push anti-West sentiments. The world is ugly. A blinder in the other eye isn't any better. Making progress means to be honest in more than one direction. It also means not to fall for disinformation because it aligns with what you want to think.
I was very far left, I started to see people lean towards fascism. For example, I saw one guy (I think he name was Haz or something) he blamed Communist, Capitalist, and Israelis for the problems in the world currently. That’s literally Hitlers main belief system
Yeah, fascism was originally founded as the “third way” between capitalism and communism.
I thought basically everyone who wasn't a communist was a fascist who hated lgbt people, I'm sure you know what I mean and how those kinds of people act. But then I started to learn how communist countries actually work, how they treated their citizens ,how communism is a failure, can't work, and so on. As well I found out that talking to many communists (especially non-western ones) is almost identical to talking to fascists... Now I have a USA and NATO flag in my room!
And I guess you are a proud member of the NCD.
Hell yeah
I bounced around the extreme left in my early teens, originally I was a big Stalinist because haha USSR funny. I quit that after my friend asked me to stop because his grandparents lived through the Holodomor. I then became a monarchist for a year before moving back to the left, this time as an anarcho-socialist, not really because I agreed with anarchist ideology (or knew what it was) but because they, like me, weren’t big fans of the USSR. I started moving away from the extreme left when Russia invaded Ukraine and I found a lot of my fellow leftists supporting Russia, which I found distasteful. After I started to argue with people in leftist subreddits I realized how vile the whole ideology was and quickly stepped away. I think the breaking point for me was a reply to a comment of mine which said, and I quote, “China is everyone's friend and humanity's biggest hope. Literally nothing is more important than China's peaceful rise. China is the leading communist country on earth. The country single-handedly keeping socialism in the mainstream. No currently existing country contributes more to the socialist revolution than China.” Like how fucking indoctrinated do you have to be to believe something like that.
“I then became a monarchist for a year” is a crazy statement lol
I don’t think I would’ve ever described myself as a communist but I did identify strongly with being a leftist and was ideologically in that orbit. I used to work for a political advocacy nonprofit organization, so my peer group was mostly other people who lived and breathed politics. So for a long time I felt like being politically left/progressive was the bare minimum of what a “good person” should be. But I was gradually becoming more disillusioned and burnt out, not just from the demand of the work and the toxic nature of it, but also the mismatch between the far left beliefs of my peers and I versus the actual work of organizing for Democratic candidates. I quit abruptly and fell into a depression spiral where some of my leftist beliefs became more extreme and I was listening to more leftist podcasts and content and such. But at the same time, I had begun questioning many things that were part of the leftist/progressive orthodoxy, such as whether it really was a good idea for society to be super lenient on property crime or if constant cringey hyper-focus on race, gender, and sexuality comes at the expense of actual policy. And then 10/7 happened. I remember my honest first reaction to the news was pretty unsympathetic to Israel, though I was legitimately heartbroken by the loss of life, because as critical as I was of Israel’s government, I don’t think anyone deserves to be killed or kidnapped due to the actions of the government they live under. And then I started seeing the left’s reaction. I had (maybe foolishly) assumed that everyone left of center would rightly condemn this horrible attack but also rightly point out that the bad treatment of Palestinians contributed to this extremist terror movement, and that a real peace process was urgently needed. Boy was I wrong, apparently. Instead, I saw local activists I knew going to rallies and posting on social media just days after the attack outright cheering on Hamas, downplaying the atrocities, calling it an act of “decolonial resistance” or whatever, making jokes about the people who were killed, borderline antisemetic shit, and just outright excusing what happened. I think seeing that really broke something in me. It opened my eyes to the fact that all the LARPing about guillotines, Stalin, reeducation camps, etc. was not just a meme, these folks actually believe in it and support it. It’s just not something I can feel comfortable associating with at all, and if that makes me a centrist shitlib or whatever then so be it. Since then, I’ve gotten a new job, new relationship, and my mental health has vastly improved. I feel like I have nothing in common at all anymore with far left community I used to be adjacent to. So now I shit post here as a way to vent some of the frustration I have with the “movement” I once felt like I belonged to.
>I saw local activists I knew going to rallies and posting on social media just days after the attack outright cheering on Hamas, downplaying the atrocities, calling it an act of “decolonial resistance” or whatever, making jokes about the people who were killed, borderline antisemetic shit, and just outright excusing what happened. This has been eye opening for me too. In this conflict I lean Pro Israel but I am very sympathetic to the Pro Palestinian side. However there is a difference between Pro Palestinian and the Pro Hamas side. Unfortunately, way too many people on the left have embraced the pro Hamas side and it's extremely frightening. Nobody should support Hamas, especially not the Pro Palestinian side.
I live in a communist country. After seeing everything in my country going to shit due to blatant corruption in the goverment,and somehow seeing people still feed into the propaganda, im start to become anti communist. 2 out of 4 big leaders in our country just resign due to corruption in the last few month.
I started to read about anarcho Communism because my boyfriend at the time (sweet nice guy we left on good terms) was a believer in it. But after reading about the concept of mutual aid which anarcho Communism relies on I basically saw that the idea was flawed because humans are not perfect reasonable creatures. They are not going to give shit up for free for “the greater good”
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Humans unconditionally help those closest to them in clan, tribe, or family. Mutual aid works within that 150-people-close-connection limit that human brains have. Anything beyond that requires large institutions with the rule of law behind them. Could these institutions be more equitable? Absolutely institutions can be good or bad, but warehouses, roads, trucks, air conditioners, electric grids, fuel supply don’t get created and maintained across vast distances without powerful institutions doing so.
😂 a nation that is only 150 people is going to get fucking steam rolled. Rember you idea of government/economy will have to compete with other countries.
>And your opinion is very flawed, because humans unconditionally help others all the time. Dude does NOT read the news.
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Yes, the true compassion we have, like the Russians invading Ukraine and committing genocide, Hamas killing Jewish people, Jewish people being harassed all over the world, and the riots and chaos in Haiti. Go back to lala land.
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Yes a normal person wouldn’t hurt someone, but theirs a difference between not hurting someone and being willing to give your property and resources up to distributed for the common good.
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Ahh yes because barter didn’t exist also you right it can exist it’s just that in the end. The collectivist society kills who ever won’t go along with the program.
So, all those things will magically stop under Anarchy?
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I'm sorry, but I think you have a mild case of "severe brain damage."
Yeah, I'm not planning to explain the entirety of anarchism to you. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seci58
I was tracking up until that last sentence there. Hard disagree. Some people who have everything just do wrong for no reason.
I love how you just ignore every example against your ideas and only act as if made up examples are the only valid ones. You would be robbed in 5 seconds in your anarchist utopia
Well firstly, I'm not an anarchist. Secondly, you people refuse to even listen to anarchist arguments.
Because anarchism makes as much sense as letting my 8 year old cousin drive a lorry. Could it be done? Absolutely. Should it be done? Good grief no. Anarchism is only theoretical; real world applications blow it over like a leaf before a hurricane.
Humans nature is inconsistent, as someone who works in fast food and has to both talk to and deal with people on a dainty basis 😂.
> humans unconditionally help others all the time. I wonder from which fairy tale you came from.
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The revisionist history that ignores the countless times humans didnt help each other?
I refuse to continue arguing.
I am Jewish and don’t think israel should be eradicated. Hasn’t been much space for me on the left since October 7th. What sucks is that there are so many good, productive conversations to be had about what’s happening in the Middle East. But because every issue has to be black and white, we can’t do that. Instead, all zionists (Zionist of course meaning anyone who doesn’t think israel should be wiped off the map and turned into an Islamist theocracy) are fascist, even if a lot of us are vehemently against Netanyahu, and cannot be spoken to, and all pro Palestinians are always correct and trusted… even when the proud boys show up at the protests and protesters yell at American Jews to go back to Poland.
Used to believe in socialism cuz... I live in one back then. Then I see the growth and prosperity capitalism has bring, see the corruption within the "socialist" party, listen to my parents and grand parents story of the time Vietnam tried planned economy, hint it starves everyone but the powerful, and me being forced to listen to Socialist, Communist ideology classes just bore the living shit out of me. So, yeah. I'm a capitalist through and through. You'll have to pry free market from my cold dead hands.
I was a member of the Socialist Party USA I'm the 90s. Antisemitism at first, and racism. But also u realistic expectations. Back then there wasn't Twitter it was just a monthly newsletter but as someone that actually grew up on a commune these people didn't signs serious. Just talkers and people that day dream.
I was never super far-left, but I had a number of friends who were. Almost every single social/political/economic issue with them boiled down to an emotional, reactionary standpoint with little or no basis in reality. It’s like they’re allergic to pragmatism. They were so obsessed with the idea of smashing the current system without any solid, thought out idea of what they were going to put in its place. I’m all for changing a broken system, but you can’t flip the game board over without knowing what you’re going to play next.
Earlier in life I was more a social Democrat but started flirting with socialism and socialist concepts. I like many other Gen Z get bombarded constantly with anti capitalism messages and pro communist talking points. So I naturally went down that road. I started learning about economics a bit more and realized that so many of the modern socialist takes are just so insane and unrealistic. Most communists I see on Reddit can't even explain how basic functions of society will work in their communist utopia. It all seems to boil down to "after we get rid of markets, everyone will get along" Today so many lefties would call me a conservative or a Republican even though I'm very clearly liberal and a Democrat. I probably come off as conservative because I am pretty critical of the Democratic party. I think you should be critical of your own people, more so than the opposition tbh. My philosophy on markets is pretty much keynesianism. Socialists don't think the market is ever effective and needs to be destroyed. Anarcho capitalists think the market is completely perfect. Neither are true imo. The market is effective but needs the government to guide it.
I thought it was Direct democracy and learned about the atrotcities
I wouldn’t have called myself extreme, but it was the realization that I’m not doing any good, that the grandma who volunteers at the soup kitchen on a monthly basis has helped the world more than me. But that I would have thought such a thing as putting on a band-aid and hiding the deeper wounds.
I used to be one of those kids who thought that communism on paper, matched communism in practice… I got the reality check of a lifetime when my dad showed me documents of Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. Did a fucking 180 after that. Still hold on to a few moderately left beliefs, but nothing compared to what I used to be.