Ask Lemmy

What are people on the left doing.

You also have to remember that there isn't just some single entity of "left". And I don't mean only the ideological divides even, I mean there's tons of different cultures with different political cultures in them. What even "being left" means is wildly different if you compare USA or some random nation elsewhere.

This platform is mostly USAians yes, but not only. Do you mean american leftist unity? Because looking for some sort of general left unity is a lot more complicated than unity inside a single political system

This is a lefty space

Is it? Which lefties? People dogpile on the ML creators all day, every day. Personally, I'm mostly okay with the M and hate the L from my understanding of each. But they still decided to let us all hang out here.

I want change, but I'm nearing 50 and not in great physical shape. There's only so much revolution I can do. I try to educate the public on things I think are important and to try to get them to internalize value in the things that they might want to protect for future generations. Fundraising, logistics, and mobilizing aren't my strengths. I don't know many people that could do that stuff really well. Lots of us are here because we're fairly introverted and are here having these conversations anonymously with strangers. If being revolutionary was easy, we'd either be in a lot less (or a lot more) turmoil than we're in now. Most of us can't make it our whole "thing."

We could and should be doing more to speak to what kind of voices we will or won't tolerate here in the communties though. I'm getting some heat for defending the big game hunter even though I don't agree with what he stood for, but I feel people were pushing a lot of internalized anger at the system onto this random guy who seemingly did nothing ethically wrong. I could have shut up and moved on, but this is a topic I feel I understand more than the average person here and was willing to call them out on their indecent behavior even if it means they're going to hate me or think less of me now. There's plenty of people they could wish harm upon and while I'm not the type to join in, there's a number of people I could name where I wouldn't be sad if they were gone, but this guy seemed fair innocuous in the grand scheme.

Lemmy is far from the last chance we have. Three years ago, 95% of us didn't have this, but we still tried to do our thing somewhere else. Piefed in providing great opportunity for those that still want to interact with Lemmy without some of the baggage. And more apps and forums will continue to pop up. You can always start an old school forum as well with myBB or what have you. That may be a better style of platform for something like what you want to see anyway since it's more specific, but at the same time, it narrows the audience potential greatly. While I don't necessarily support or condemn what cowbee, for example, promotes, I think the way they can appear in tangentially related posts and have a prepared means to unobtrusively yet powerfully share their beliefs to potentially receptive people is a solid example for others looking to do something similar. Keep looking around, see what works and what doesn't, and keep going for what you believe. You can do it here, somewhere else, all of the above, whatever. Be passionate and be helpful and receptive and you will get people to listen to you. It may not be to the extent you want very often, but we gotta take the wins we can get. Stay strong, and try to stay positive.

Maybe I watch too many movies, but the more politically active I plan to be, the more my online presence will fall in line with the "cute pic" people. The internet is for cat pics, surveillance, and shouting into the void. Real change needs to happen outside now.