chapotraphouse

Heavy Emphasis on Recruitment: (...) Lots of effort goes into social media and marketing, and actions are heavily influenced by how they can serve as a recruitment tool: the flashier the better

Yeah, because that works when you're recruiting via social media. "Nooo don't be effective, don't be appealing, don't function, we need to advertise by posting the entirety of the communist manifesto in the ugliest font possibe otherwise our moral integrity is corrupted!"
Jfc fed shit.

Heavy Emphasis on Recruitment (cont'd): And mask the steady trickle of people leaving

Liberals making normal stuff sound villanous and scary, name a more iconic duo. It's just what you do in any organisation. You recognize the reality that existing as a person means barely anyone will be able to dedicate themselves fully and forever to any single cause. You know what the accusation would have been, had that been the MO of leftists orgs? They'd call it a cult. "Nobody ever leaves! They're exclusive about recruitment! They target specific individuals and sway them over long periods of time!"

Ambulance chasing and co-opting

On top of what you point out, the basic warning here is "beware of groups that go to events that align with their ideology. Especially if the event is a popular one. Beware of groups that go to large social gatherings in order to interact with people and interest them in joining up."

Front Groups and Front Coalitions:

Beware of groups practicing good opsec in a country that is historically hostile to leftist orgs.

Deceptive and Dishonest Practices:

1. If your idea of recruiting people to your anarchist org is to yell at them about Kropotkin and not ask them if they'll help you out with a soup kitchen, then I don't know what to tell you.
2. Literally doing the "Well what if we said you said something you didn't say instead of the thing you did say" argument that libs love so much. "Replace the word 'richest people in the world' with 'jews' and suddenly you sound a bit like a nazi, ever think of that?"

Party Lines in General

Anyone who talks of 'nuance' while advocating for supporting the status quo gets sent to the gulag. Libs love to use 'nuance' as a magical word allowing them any ideological position. It's the "let people enjoy things" of political discourse. Actual 'nuance' is called "critical support".

Centralization:

They are describing every org with any formal or informal hierarchy. I reiterate: Liberals making normal stuff sound villanous and scary, name a more iconic duo

Redirecting Autonomous Efforts into Spaces They Control:

Yeah that's a bad practice in any political org, really almost any effort at all. I've worked a little bit in media and you know what almost always fucks things up? When you pull in a new hire due to their existing work, and then force them to put that work under your control, instead of supporting them in creating something new within your space, while allowing them to retain control of- and continue work with their previous stuff.
What does this have to do with tankies specifically? Are we just describing stupid shit to do when you're a political organisation? How about expanding the list even more then? "Tankies will eat unhealthy food in large amounts, leading to increased risks of cardiac arrest." OOOOOOH see even their nutrition is evil and bad!

Hyper-Focus on Bureaucracy:

As rightly pointed out that's fed shit, but also Tankies are bad because there's one dicatorial leader who decides everything and forces everyone to do everything without any formalised processes for decision making, but tankies are also bad for having formalised processes for decision making and they're also bad because they have decentralised to such an extent that there's a massive inefficient bureaucracy where everyone just constantly opens new comittees and insists on everyone being heard, which slows everything down.

Never-Ending Tasks

Remember when I said the alternative was accussing orgs of being cults? I guess we can have our cake and eat it too!
Also "OOOOH THE SCARY COMMIES WILL MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOU AND THEN YOU WILL MISS THEM WHEN YOU NO LONGER HANG OUT" and "OOOH THE SCARY COMMIES THAT ARE ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN POLITICAL ORGANISING HAVE STUFF TO DO AND IF YOU ARE INVOLVED THEN YOU WILL ALSO HAVE STUFF TO DO OOOOOH SCARY"

Charismatic Leader

https://hexbear.net/comment/5607156

Sheltering Abusers

Again are we just talking about bad things in general? This has nothing to do with tankies, and the fact they don't have the numbers to back it up makes it clear. On top of that many political orgs have a nasty habit of reacting with scepticism at very harmful accusations (see: death of MeToo), but that habit, on the left, in part comes from the decades long work from feds, like this writer, who try to wreck any leftist movement any way they can, so they'll cook up fucked up accusations in order to kneecap any movement.
That doesn't mean these things shouldn't be taken seriously or that it's in any way good that it's a pattern in many organisations, but not acknowledging the reasons for the symptom, means you'll never get rid of the cause.

Lack of Care for Members and Vulnerable People

More "bad things are bad, but inherently a tankie thing somehow." There's nothing about this that's in any way unique to leftist orgs. What is (somewhat) unique to leftist orgs is that they work with vulnerable people and make sure any involvement is alright, something you rarely see elsewhere.

Coercive “Self-Criticism”

Self-crit is good actually, but it's bad when it's done in a bad way. Great insight once again. Eating too much is also bad for you, that's what too much means. "Can be deployed" yeah and my ass "can be" deployed as an emergency seaplane, but it's not meant for it, so using it like that is gonna get a lot of people hurt.
Also more scary language to shape the thoughts to fit the narrative "obedience" OOOOOH WHEN YOU TALK TO PEOPLE AND YOU GET ALONG YOU'RE ACTUALLY BEING BRAINWASHED OOOH SOMEONE ESTABLISHING BOUNDARIES AND ASKING YOU TO RECONSIDER WHY YOU DO CERTAIN THINGS IS ACTUALLY COMMIE BRAINWASHING OOOOH WHEN YOU LEARN THINGS THEN THAT'S MOLDING YOU INTO BEING A MINDLESS COMMIE DRONE OOOOOH

Defending and Glorifying Authoritarian Leaders and Governments:

I thought it was tankies that didn't have any room for nuance, but now we're in a black and white world where whatever the state department says about Xi Jinping is true? Okiedokie. Fantastic nuance. I'm gonna assume any critique of the hasbara ~~propaganda~~ information about hamas is likewise badevil?

Expecting Queer People and People of Color to Assimilate:

More "bad things are bad". "Vanguards may" "this can." I love liberal language! We just throw assertations out willy-nilly. The author of the zine might be a donkey fucker, this can mean that they are subconsciously trying to make you accepting of donkey fucking, which possibly will lead to you supporting animal suppression. Also incidentally this is an inherent trait of the authors political ideology.
Furthermore there is a shitty tendency in some shitty orgs to do these shitty things, but again, where does it stem from? Bigotry? Yes. But also COINTELPRO. There is a reason why LGBTQ demonstrations are used to foster colour revolutions around the world^[To which the obvious solution is to stop oppressing LGBTQ peoples, fuck Iran for this. <- Wow is this nuance? No it's called critical support you goddamned lib.]

Use of “Left Unity” Rhetoric to Demand Inclusion in Spaces

"When you point out how completely asinine my behaviour is, that makes me sad. Now I will split the party (our bookclub consisting of 5 people) because you have a slightly different view on how long Castro's beard was. Well that and because you are pointing out how I, a supposed leftist, am spending all my time critiquing other leftists, especially focusing on those that do actual stuff."
Also it's bad to want to subsume civil rights' movements like those advocating for queer rights', but it's also bad to include them and advocate their cause.

Local Organizers Controlled by a Central Committee

List of things bad orgs do: Are organized. Have lines of supply they dedicate to different causes. ~~Ask~~ order (spooky) local departments to get involved in specific work relevant to their local interests in exchange for getting some of these supplies.
Also you cannot have a big bureaucracy where all decisions are discussed by all members, and you cannot have leaders, and you cannot have dictators, and you cannot have hierarchies, and you cannot do work, and you cannot...