Tankies aren’t communists, they’re authoritarians with the red aesthetics. They agree with fascists on every valuable part of their worldview, and only disagree on which historical genocidal dictator was totally innocent actually
Let’s not pretend that your politics aren’t inherently authoritarian as well.
Either you support capitalism (or worse), which is grossly authoritarian as it inflicts massive violence not only via warfare but through mass starvation and deprivation, or you support socialism, in which case you have two options:
The violent overthrow of the current system (spoiler alert: that’s a very authoritarian thing to do!)
The gradual reform of the current system, meaning maintaining the status quo for an exceptionally long time as we ever so slowly creep our way to a more just economic system while countless people starve, go homeless, die without healthcare, end up in yet-another war and so on (which is a very authoritarian proposition, just throwing away the lives of the poor in your own country—not to mention those in the developing world—just so you can have a neat and tidy reformist approach that doesn’t rock the boat.)
Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise not through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.
Nah, I didn’t do that. I just pointed out that they are either a supporter of capitalism (or reactionary politics) or they support revolutionary/evolutionary socialism, all of which are inherently authoritarian in their own ways.
The material conditions that give rise to authoritarianism is a different question altogether. I was specific in my choice of words for a reason.
Capitalism was extreme as well when compared to the feudal order. But eventually they fought, they won, and now we get to wake up every day at 6 and drive 45 minutes to work.
“I like capitalism with minor concessions (won by communists) that will continually be rolled back over time.”
Fuck dude, add some god damn spice to your politics. Milk toast is better with chili powder. Maybe read some books and come up with your own opinion via critical thinking too.
Won by communists? Bruh.
My country has climbed the ranks as one of the best countries in terms of HDI, happiness, etc. All the communists ever did was threaten and spy on us.
Pure communism will never happen and will never function.
Humans are human and don’t want equality, we need something to thrive for.
Any concessions capitalists have given the working class in your country are likely due to their fear of a proletariat uprising in your own country because a socialist country was on your doorstep. Turns out when people see that other people are able to seize back the power in their country and don’t have to lick boots they start to think, “huh, maybe we could do that here too.”
This scared the shit out of those in power, so they gave social concessions. After the fall of nearby socialist states, you’ll see those concessions slowly erode as capitalism begins eating its own ass again and they “need” more profits at the expense of your social welfare. If it hasn’t happened yet, just wait until your country can no longer export the levels of exploitation they need for unlimited growth.
Go read a history book and think critically before posting such stupid shit online again. It was the capitalist countries who began shit with the communist countries and that continues to be true to this very day. Ask yourself, how many foreign communist military bases were there? Sure sounds like they were the aggressor compared to capitalists in this regard.
No it’s not, because that literally has never happened. The propaganda of “under communism everyone will eat dry bread and live in grey cubes” is both not rooted in actual examples. In those times and states there were both still a privileged elite and the majority of world superpowers were not only not participating in the sharing of resources, they were actively attacking it either indirectly through political pressure or directly through literally killing people.
If we had actual true global equality everyone would be doing better than you’re probably doing right now.
Do you mean libertarians, or “libertarians” as per Murray Rothbard’s quote:
“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…”
No, because MLs aren’t necessarily tankies. And I do consider tankies a subset of Communists. Just not the very bright subset.
“Tankie” means someone who’s more interested in following a communist team rather then a communist ideal. Even if the team leader is just a grifter.
If you acknowledge the short comings of certain states that don’t really follow the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”, you’re not a tankie.
Anarchists follow their team too; they’re opposed to any state whatsoever, no matter what the character of that state is and no matter the achievements of that state. Their team is the abolition of the state and anything that works towards that goal, no matter who it comes from, is considered by anarchists to be anarchist(ic). By this definition they would be tankies too.
How do you define “democratic?” Would North Korea be democratic if there were two candidates instead, where they fought in a pretend culture war, but one of them really just deferred to the other if they won? North Korea has different parties too, you know.
Because anyone can call anything what they want. Is the Patriot Act very patriotic? Call something what it isn’t and mock people who call it out. It’s a form of double talk.
I would not. They’re trying to erase the cultures of any non-Han Chinese and suppressing any lgbt groups. How does that support the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” creed?
LGBT rights in China are admittedly at a frustratingly slow speed. Other comrades more familiar than I am with Chinese politics have suggested that the democratic centralism means that as they do advance, it will be collectively, and without a conservative backlash as we see in the US
Reducing all the nuance of Marxism, socialism, and communism to
“from each according to his ability to each according to his need”
is problematic.
It’s not going to lead to much explanation and it ignores the hundreds of thousands of other words that Marxists have written.
This is in addition to the problem that “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” is the goal of communism and you’re arguing with someone who (rightly) says communism hasn’t been reached.
This is like really basic geopolitics my dude, China is a thoroughly capitalist economy by any definition that isn’t being massaged specifically to exclude them.
… is this supposed to be some sort of gotcha? Did I commit a whoopsie by using the term geopolitics to refer to how one of the top 3 global superpowers runs its markets?
As to lemm.ee: Here’s the policy. Long story short: Tankies don’t go harassing lemm.ee communities and aren’t doing illegal shit, spam, suchlike, elsewhere so they get a pass.
Her views are 100% bog standard modern “libertarian,” because her works are the most significant factor in the shaping of those beliefs, but in her day libertarians were anarchists just beginning the ideological split into today’s actual libertarians and anarcho-capitalists/“libertarians”/racist and pedophilic liberals and fascists lying about their real goals to useful idiots.
Rothbard, famous racist, slave desiring, apartheid supporting, pedophile ideological founder of anarcho-capitalism, who has quite a lot of suspiciously pro-fascism quotes, technically started the process in the 40’s, but it didn’t gain steam or co-opt the term libertarian until the populatization of “libertarianism” thanks to Rand’s works.
So yes, everything you just said is technically correct, but is still deliberately misleading in modern context.
Her views are 100% bog standard modern “libertarian,”
Wrong. She praises monopolies, hierarchical systems with hereditary aristocracy, money bending rights, some people being more human than others etc. She’s rather very roughly Darwinist, with the idea that the less you try to compensate for strength disparity, the better, and at the same time she’s rather centralist. Almost fascist.
Basically she’s an inverted Bolshevik, which is not surprising considering her family history. A Bolshevik from capitalists, if you like. Not even similar to libertarianism. Her ideas have simply nothing to do with liberty. She was sufficiently honest to explain these things herself.
and anarcho-capitalists/“libertarians”/racist and pedophilic liberals and fascists lying about their real goals to useful idiots.
I’m ancap (rather distributist as in Chesterton’s views, but that’s harder to explain), so this BS you can leave to yourself.
I’d generalize this as anarchist ideologies attracting people who’d like to get rid of certain limitations most others would consider sane. Like fucking children, stealing, killing etc. This is, sadly, a real tendency, but I’ve met such leftist anarchists too.
Rothbard, famous racist, slave desiring, apartheid supporting, pedophile ideological founder of anarcho-capitalism, who has quite a lot of suspiciously pro-fascism quotes, technically started the process in the 40’s, but it didn’t gain steam or co-opt the term libertarian until the populatization of “libertarianism” thanks to Rand’s works.
You forgot to say that he also kinda liked USSR, at least in his book, “For a new liberty” or something, a very interesting person surely.
Also Rothbard’s and Rand’s followers were always very different people. I’ve never met a person who’d like both. It’s a bit like tankies think that “liberal” and “fascist” are synonyms, completely removed from the reality. If you want to have some idea about libertarians, you should talk to them and not your leftist friends.
So yes, everything you just said is technically correct, but is still deliberately misleading in modern context.
It’s especially important in modern context. Ayn Rand is basically a spoiler for libertarianism, a strawman which every leftist uses against people whose ideology has nothing in common with her. And in reality she was just, like I said earlier, for capitalism what Bolsheviks were for leftist ideologies. Rather economically misguided and too impractical.
I mean, you can just read the sources, Rothbard’s most known books, Ayn Rand’s Atlas and other stuff, and make your own opinion. The only common thing between them is disdain for state regulation and leftism. But the root of Rothbard’s ideology is simply incompatible with the root of Rand’s ideology.
The former builds on natural right and non-aggression. The latter builds on people not being equal, and some being shit under the boot of others, better and more useful. These are in direct conflict.
I mean, explaining something to a tankie is similar to trying to teach a pig fly.
I have read, much, much more of Rothbard than I like, which is why I despise him personally with an incandescent fury, the lying hypocrite and diseased builder of a rotten foundation.
His only enjoyable work was The Betrayal of the American Right, because I enjoy watching a fool recount the way the people who would become the neoliberals ate his stupid face, the way actual libertarians had warned him would happen from the start.
Since that flag tried storming the capital building. I actually like the original meaning of the flag, but it got cooped by meat heads. I do like the pride and women’s rights versions of the gadsen flag.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but flags are inanimate objects that lack the ability to make conscious decisions like “storm the capitol.” People make those decisions, and people can carry whatever flag they so choose while doing so whether they embody the meaning of that flag or not, as evidenced by much of those same people also carrying conflicting thin blue line or maga gear. They could have chosen to storm the capitol carrying antifa flags, and besides the fact that you’d likely be cheering them on rather than admonishing them for the same behavior exhibited by your percieved enemy, the flag waved would largely be inconsequential to anything other than “your support.” In fact, you’d likely point out that ~1,003 have been charged from the incident which is not only a small percentage of the total supporters of either side, but is a small percentage of the crowd that was even at the rally that started it, meaning more people who fly either of those respective flags didn’t “do it” than did.
Of course, that isn’t propaganda-y enough for most, or is too propaganda-y because I’m only supposed to talk bad about one side not both. Oh well, c’est la pipe.
He is right though. It isn’t a fallacy, the usage of the word tankie is so far removed from content that it is a bad term and more thought terminating than anything.
Tankies were originally a small subset of some Western and some, mostly East European, socialists and communists which were in favour of a (para-)military response to the revolt in Hungary in 1956. It was a complex situation and even people not on the side of Nagy within Hungary were in favour of the Soviet action.
The term now was used, and amplified by intelligence agencies and Western media, to decry the Soviet action and more importantly de-legitimize several communist groups. In that sense the functional usage of the term is similar, but the question is where would the slur hit actually?
In principle it would hit a small sub section of MLs who followed Khrushchev’s decision. Many people within the pact did see the de-Stalinisation and how it was communicated as problematic, as it enabled opposition forces to claim ground in countries. Nagy tried to do introduce reforms, the most far reaching: “Hungary to leave the Warsaw Pact and declare neutrality in the Cold War.”
Countries thinking about leaving the dominant two powers spheres of influence during the Cold War were often met with violence. See the Jakarta Method for more information about that (i.e. Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, the whole of South America). During that time colonialism was also still relevant and colonial powers did use excessive violence, this is another part of the book.
Now what you and others do is labeling people who are to the left of the Soviets at that point as Tankies. Which is doubly wrong and cynical. What is interesting is that the slur can be traced back for the last 6 years to the US and there to more right wing places. It wasn’t primarily a phrase that was used by leftists. However after the heating chamber of the alt right online people used it to label even people who are democratic socialists at best.
In that sense it is a continuity to the Red Scare, to not have to engage with content.
Bullshit. Everyone’s a tankie. My dog is a tankie. Tankie doesn’t mean shit, in the four years it’s been revived, nobody has ever been able to give me a universal definition. It literally just means “people I don’t like”.
I’ve seen anarchists get called tankies. I myself am a Marxist-Leninist but because I may be better at conveying my thoughts and opinions I don’t get called a tankie, while other MLs do. I literally have the same opinions they do, but anarchists sometimes think I’m cool with them lol.
tl:dr “Tankie” means someone who’s more interested in following a communist team rather then a communist ideal. Even if the team leader is just a grifter.
If you acknowledge the short comings of certain states that don’t really follow the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”, you’re not a tankie.
By your definition, every community is a tankie because every communist rejects idealism. If these are the only two options, the only option left is to choose a team. But that can’t be right because you imply that some communists aren’t tankies.
Further, does it count as a definition if other people use the term in different ways?
If so, how do you know who is a communist and who is a tankie without asking them how they decided to show (critical) support for XYZ?
By your definition, you must first know whether someone has strong reasons to support XYZ before being able to decide that they really decided because XYZ was on the right team. That would be exhausting and fraught with the problem that nobody is going to say they didn’t do the reading; if they give an argument, how do you determine whether it’s valid or a cover for ‘choosing by reference to team’?
I’m unsure if it’s possible to define ‘tankie’ by reference to ‘communist’ without also defining the latter and showing how they’re different.
ah, you think I don’t have definitions of those words?
“Woke” as we’re using it today start around the 1920’s America and the was by the black community to refer to white people who were aware of and sympathetic to social injustices committed against the black community. It’s sense evolved to include anyone belong to a majority group aware of and sympathetic to an oppressed group.
“Tankie” refers to people who profess their love of communism, but pick allies not on action, but on team affiliation. Any short coming of their favorite communist™ state isn’t an internal fault, but something the evil “west” has committed against them. Which, to be fair, the CIA loves fucking around in South America,
The tankie isn’t at all much different from the “patriotic” Maga head. A Maga head will scream about how free America is, but defending it whenever the county, or more specifically, their team, starts restricting personal freedoms of lgbt individuals, minority rights, or women’s and particularly women’s reproductive rights.
Both tankies and Maga heads will preform mental gymnastics to try and rationalize why the gays can’t be married even though the text of either group doesn’t have any problem with them.
I don’t have any problem with textbook Communist. So long as they can acknowledge the short comings of how it’s been applied so far and how it’s been subverted by people who want to consolidate power and wealth. Same logic goes for Capitalists. In principle, both systems are viable economic models, although textbook communism is the more progressive one. But both, at least as applied by real and would be super powers, are corrupt and dangerous.
Any short coming of their favorite communist™ state isn’t an internal fault, but something the evil “west” has committed against them.
To be fair, as you said, many of these problems are because of the International Community™. As for the rest, maybe all support should be critical, with increasingly less “critical” the less there is to criticize.
Both tankies and Maga heads will preform mental gymnastics to try and rationalize why the gays can’t be married
I haven’t seen anyone on Lemmygrad express that view, and I certainly support our LGBT comrades.
I haven’t seen anyone on Lemmygrad express that view, and I certainly support our LGBT comrades.
I’ve seen it else were. Gonzalo Lira might be a special case though. I mean you have to be a special kind of stupid to spread Russian propaganda while in Ukraine. He’s also complained that women don’t dress up anymore while looking like hobo for his online “debates”.
Point being is that it’s well known that Russian and China aren’t lgbt friendly and supporters of those countries either need to be ok with that or intentionally ignorant of that. I have seen some snide comments on other communist forums towards lgbt people. The rational, if there is any, is that childless people don’t belong in a long term society.
Well, perhaps you’d be relieved to know that on Lemmygrad, we condemned the Russian Federation for its recent anti-LGBT policies then.
Tell me, what should a communist do if they’re a citizen of the U.S. and the US were to make voting mandatory, punishable by death? Should we die rather than vote for someone we disagree with, or should we pick someone we think might be marginally better?
That’s how we feel about Russia — we don’t pretend to think they’re communist, and there are things we disagree with, but they’re still better than the US, so we vote for them.
No that won’t happen. This is a tactic by whatever group that is so butthurt about having left wing views on the internet to try to tone-control Lemmy. If they can get everyone to agree the slur tankie is bad, they can claim anyone that supports a left wing government that imposes a policy that restricts US freedom to exploit that country is a Tankie.
We need to stop differentiating between liberal and fascist tendendcies. Anyone who aligns with NATO ideals is a fascist, period, regardless of what label you claim.
Yes it’s calling them tankies. They currently seem to be keen on framing it as “buzzword” or “undefined culture war slur against the whole left”, while in more or less the same breath of course still stanning for North Korea and calling China communist and ignoring that they’re called out by the collective rest of the left for that. With that exact term.
Which is on brand for them. The original “tankies” were cheering on the Soviets violently crushing uprisings by other communists for attempting to practice the “wrong kind” of communism, AKA “Anything other than complete submission to Soviet oppression.”
That’s the sole identifying mark of a tankie: a desire to crush dissidence of their peers through violence, particularly if their victims share their professed economic ideology. Tankies aren’t communists: they’re fascists cosplaying as communists.
Well I’m not a communist so I’m kinda the wrong guy to ask but you’d be surprised, Lenin is on that list for me. You know the guy who warned everyone that Stalin must under no circumstance be allowed to lead. A lot of good analysis, alas his solutions often had first solution syndrome, meaning they were insufficiently hardened against good ole power dynamics taking over because, as Marx so rightly observed, it’s in a class’ interest to act in its own self-interest and ultimately the nomenklatura is a class as distinct from the proletariat, or even party base, as priests are from believers. I’m pretty sure if the guy had Lenin’s failures to look back at he’d do a lot better, though.
If you want something random to read to learn from I’d recommend the Anarchist Library. And Bookchin in particular.
Where did you learn that? The school of enlightened centrism? How do you explain the Nazis putting every communist they could find in a concentration camp? They just violently disagreed on the wording of the exact same position?
ML works just fine if you assume a benevolent dictator with a merciful, honest, and well educated population of party leaders who will listen to agricultural, industrial, and economic experts instead of taking a hard line ideological stance on everything and not try to force the abolition of personal property before society is ready.
What’s wrong with you calling ancaps fascist? I mean, they are not more or less fascist than anyone in this pic except for the tankie getting pummeled, and the tankie always has this coming.
![The Whole Fediverse is Wholesome [fixed]](https://media.kbin.social/media/75/34/7534fdd6766a8bc7f83436386577e62a42333384f5e0e25621c1ee00ac70f675.jpg){kind=link}
What’s wrong with you people? You’re cheering on fascists when they beat up communists? Shouldn’t you help instead?
Tankies aren’t communists, they’re authoritarians with the red aesthetics. They agree with fascists on every valuable part of their worldview, and only disagree on which historical genocidal dictator was totally innocent actually
The Liberal says as they side with Fascists against Communists every single time
Let’s not pretend that your politics aren’t inherently authoritarian as well.
Either you support capitalism (or worse), which is grossly authoritarian as it inflicts massive violence not only via warfare but through mass starvation and deprivation, or you support socialism, in which case you have two options:
The violent overthrow of the current system (spoiler alert: that’s a very authoritarian thing to do!)
The gradual reform of the current system, meaning maintaining the status quo for an exceptionally long time as we ever so slowly creep our way to a more just economic system while countless people starve, go homeless, die without healthcare, end up in yet-another war and so on (which is a very authoritarian proposition, just throwing away the lives of the poor in your own country—not to mention those in the developing world—just so you can have a neat and tidy reformist approach that doesn’t rock the boat.)
Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise not through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.
Nah, I didn’t do that. I just pointed out that they are either a supporter of capitalism (or reactionary politics) or they support revolutionary/evolutionary socialism, all of which are inherently authoritarian in their own ways.
The material conditions that give rise to authoritarianism is a different question altogether. I was specific in my choice of words for a reason.
I’m sorry. I meant to agree.
I think I am gonna stay with social democracy. You all are way too extreme.
Capitalism was extreme as well when compared to the feudal order. But eventually they fought, they won, and now we get to wake up every day at 6 and drive 45 minutes to work.
“I like capitalism with minor concessions (won by communists) that will continually be rolled back over time.”
Fuck dude, add some god damn spice to your politics. Milk toast is better with chili powder. Maybe read some books and come up with your own opinion via critical thinking too.
Won by communists? Bruh. My country has climbed the ranks as one of the best countries in terms of HDI, happiness, etc. All the communists ever did was threaten and spy on us.
Pure communism will never happen and will never function. Humans are human and don’t want equality, we need something to thrive for.
Does your country’s QOL not come at anyone’s expense, disproportionately? The Global South’s for instance?
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Yes, and both of our countries are wrong for it.
Any concessions capitalists have given the working class in your country are likely due to their fear of a proletariat uprising in your own country because a socialist country was on your doorstep. Turns out when people see that other people are able to seize back the power in their country and don’t have to lick boots they start to think, “huh, maybe we could do that here too.”
This scared the shit out of those in power, so they gave social concessions. After the fall of nearby socialist states, you’ll see those concessions slowly erode as capitalism begins eating its own ass again and they “need” more profits at the expense of your social welfare. If it hasn’t happened yet, just wait until your country can no longer export the levels of exploitation they need for unlimited growth.
Go read a history book and think critically before posting such stupid shit online again. It was the capitalist countries who began shit with the communist countries and that continues to be true to this very day. Ask yourself, how many foreign communist military bases were there? Sure sounds like they were the aggressor compared to capitalists in this regard.
equality sounds nice but its boring is completely applied to everything.
No it’s not, because that literally has never happened. The propaganda of “under communism everyone will eat dry bread and live in grey cubes” is both not rooted in actual examples. In those times and states there were both still a privileged elite and the majority of world superpowers were not only not participating in the sharing of resources, they were actively attacking it either indirectly through political pressure or directly through literally killing people.
If we had actual true global equality everyone would be doing better than you’re probably doing right now.
And it will never happen. Everyone is greedy and corrupt.
Spoken like someone benefiting from the status quo
thankfully!
Libertarians are anti-war. Capitalism is not colonialism.
Do you mean libertarians, or “libertarians” as per Murray Rothbard’s quote:
“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…”
Oh yes, wanting to raise people out of poverty is totally what fascists want.
You don’t know what you are talking about. You are just repeating something someone in authority once told you to believe. Ironic.
Yes, Mao and Stalin raised people out of poverty by killing enough people so there was enough to go around.
what US state education does to a mf
You’re just jealous because your spoon isn’t as big as Stalin’s was.
Which is why the population grew by a lot under them? Reality disproves your childish arguments.
Show me the numbers. Curious how population growth rate in both USSR and China rises unprecendently, after these two came to power.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractal_wrongness
You played their own card, lmaooo
So you’re saying communists are fascists now?
In before you say Stalin’s spoon actually killed 100,000,000 Ukrainians
Pretty sure he’s saying the exact opposite. Russian/CCP simps aren’t communists. They’re just a different flavor authoritarianism then the maga chuds.
Can you explain why MLs are not communists? With your own arguments.
No, because MLs aren’t necessarily tankies. And I do consider tankies a subset of Communists. Just not the very bright subset.
“Tankie” means someone who’s more interested in following a communist team rather then a communist ideal. Even if the team leader is just a grifter.
If you acknowledge the short comings of certain states that don’t really follow the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”, you’re not a tankie.
Anarchists follow their team too; they’re opposed to any state whatsoever, no matter what the character of that state is and no matter the achievements of that state. Their team is the abolition of the state and anything that works towards that goal, no matter who it comes from, is considered by anarchists to be anarchist(ic). By this definition they would be tankies too.
In other words, you do not know what “tankie” means. You’re just an anti-communist too cowardly to say so.
Can you please explain how the Communist Party of China isn’t communist?
Also, are you suggesting the US isn’t “authoritarian” or do you just mean countries you don’t like?
Authoritarian regimes like to call themselves different names with better connotations than they deserve.
Anybody who screeches about authoritarian regimes exposes themselves as being intellectually bankrupt, and can be safely ignored. A great explanation of why this is a nonsensical narrative peddled by western pseudoleft https://cym.ie/2020/04/01/left-anti-communism-the-unkindest-cut-by-michael-parenti/
Don’t you call America an authoritarian regime on an hourly basis?
That’s right, I often highlight how the language western propagandists use to describe countries like China sounds when applied to western countries.
The same way the DPRK isn’t democratic.
Which it is, thank you for proving that the CPC is a communist party.
How do you define “democratic?” Would North Korea be democratic if there were two candidates instead, where they fought in a pretend culture war, but one of them really just deferred to the other if they won? North Korea has different parties too, you know.
And yet somehow the head office with total power is hereditary just like a monarchy.
Now you’re being dense and bad faith.
No, I genuinely don’t consider the US a democracy.
Because anyone can call anything what they want. Is the Patriot Act very patriotic? Call something what it isn’t and mock people who call it out. It’s a form of double talk.
Let me be blunt then. Has the People’s Republic of China achieved the final stage of communism? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.
Are they trying to work towards communism and improve the conditions of their population? I would say so.
I would not. They’re trying to erase the cultures of any non-Han Chinese and suppressing any lgbt groups. How does that support the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” creed?
LGBT rights in China are admittedly at a frustratingly slow speed. Other comrades more familiar than I am with Chinese politics have suggested that the democratic centralism means that as they do advance, it will be collectively, and without a conservative backlash as we see in the US
Reducing all the nuance of Marxism, socialism, and communism to
is problematic.
It’s not going to lead to much explanation and it ignores the hundreds of thousands of other words that Marxists have written.
This is in addition to the problem that “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” is the goal of communism and you’re arguing with someone who (rightly) says communism hasn’t been reached.
Can you please explain which of their policies and actions on a national and international scale constitute communism?
You’re welcome to read about socialism with Chinese characteristics if you’re interested.
So no answer?
is the answer…
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This is like really basic geopolitics my dude, China is a thoroughly capitalist economy by any definition that isn’t being massaged specifically to exclude them.
Maybe do not try to use basic geopolitics to answer a question of political economy?
… is this supposed to be some sort of gotcha? Did I commit a whoopsie by using the term geopolitics to refer to how one of the top 3 global superpowers runs its markets?
It means you did not understand the question, and your answer proved me right. You are completely ignorant regarding communist theory.
I really want a good explanation for why the dumb shit admin thought it was a good idea to federate with tankie fucks
Go cry to him then lmao, what the fuck do you want us to do about it?
To stop being tankie retards and shut the fuck up
Again, there’s no point in telling me this lol. Go cry to your admin to defederate from the big bad tankies that give you nightmares.
Yikes. Sounds like a personal problem. Maybe don’t engage with “tankies” if you don’t like them?
We’re defederated on Beehaw if you want to go there instead
lemmy.ml admins? Same admins as lemmygrad.ml.
As to lemm.ee: Here’s the policy. Long story short: Tankies don’t go harassing lemm.ee communities and aren’t doing illegal shit, spam, suchlike, elsewhere so they get a pass.
🤦 Of course they would be the same ones.
Since when were libertarians fascists?
Even if they aren’t fascists, I wouldn’t side with anyone that agrees with Atlas Shrugged
The author of that book didn’t consider herself libertarian, and educated ancaps usually do not consider herself one of their own.
That is, apparently you’ve never met one yet write such pretentious phrases.
Her views are 100% bog standard modern “libertarian,” because her works are the most significant factor in the shaping of those beliefs, but in her day libertarians were anarchists just beginning the ideological split into today’s actual libertarians and anarcho-capitalists/“libertarians”/racist and pedophilic liberals and fascists lying about their real goals to useful idiots.
Rothbard, famous racist, slave desiring, apartheid supporting, pedophile ideological founder of anarcho-capitalism, who has quite a lot of suspiciously pro-fascism quotes, technically started the process in the 40’s, but it didn’t gain steam or co-opt the term libertarian until the populatization of “libertarianism” thanks to Rand’s works.
So yes, everything you just said is technically correct, but is still deliberately misleading in modern context.
Wrong. She praises monopolies, hierarchical systems with hereditary aristocracy, money bending rights, some people being more human than others etc. She’s rather very roughly Darwinist, with the idea that the less you try to compensate for strength disparity, the better, and at the same time she’s rather centralist. Almost fascist.
Basically she’s an inverted Bolshevik, which is not surprising considering her family history. A Bolshevik from capitalists, if you like. Not even similar to libertarianism. Her ideas have simply nothing to do with liberty. She was sufficiently honest to explain these things herself.
I’m ancap (rather distributist as in Chesterton’s views, but that’s harder to explain), so this BS you can leave to yourself.
I’d generalize this as anarchist ideologies attracting people who’d like to get rid of certain limitations most others would consider sane. Like fucking children, stealing, killing etc. This is, sadly, a real tendency, but I’ve met such leftist anarchists too.
You forgot to say that he also kinda liked USSR, at least in his book, “For a new liberty” or something, a very interesting person surely.
Also Rothbard’s and Rand’s followers were always very different people. I’ve never met a person who’d like both. It’s a bit like tankies think that “liberal” and “fascist” are synonyms, completely removed from the reality. If you want to have some idea about libertarians, you should talk to them and not your leftist friends.
It’s especially important in modern context. Ayn Rand is basically a spoiler for libertarianism, a strawman which every leftist uses against people whose ideology has nothing in common with her. And in reality she was just, like I said earlier, for capitalism what Bolsheviks were for leftist ideologies. Rather economically misguided and too impractical.
LMAO- The only dignity your lies and cope deserve.
I mean, you can just read the sources, Rothbard’s most known books, Ayn Rand’s Atlas and other stuff, and make your own opinion. The only common thing between them is disdain for state regulation and leftism. But the root of Rothbard’s ideology is simply incompatible with the root of Rand’s ideology.
The former builds on natural right and non-aggression. The latter builds on people not being equal, and some being shit under the boot of others, better and more useful. These are in direct conflict.
I mean, explaining something to a tankie is similar to trying to teach a pig fly.
I have read, much, much more of Rothbard than I like, which is why I despise him personally with an incandescent fury, the lying hypocrite and diseased builder of a rotten foundation.
His only enjoyable work was The Betrayal of the American Right, because I enjoy watching a fool recount the way the people who would become the neoliberals ate his stupid face, the way actual libertarians had warned him would happen from the start.
Since that flag tried storming the capital building. I actually like the original meaning of the flag, but it got cooped by meat heads. I do like the pride and women’s rights versions of the gadsen flag.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but flags are inanimate objects that lack the ability to make conscious decisions like “storm the capitol.” People make those decisions, and people can carry whatever flag they so choose while doing so whether they embody the meaning of that flag or not, as evidenced by much of those same people also carrying conflicting thin blue line or maga gear. They could have chosen to storm the capitol carrying antifa flags, and besides the fact that you’d likely be cheering them on rather than admonishing them for the same behavior exhibited by your percieved enemy, the flag waved would largely be inconsequential to anything other than “your support.” In fact, you’d likely point out that ~1,003 have been charged from the incident which is not only a small percentage of the total supporters of either side, but is a small percentage of the crowd that was even at the rally that started it, meaning more people who fly either of those respective flags didn’t “do it” than did.
Of course, that isn’t propaganda-y enough for most, or is too propaganda-y because I’m only supposed to talk bad about one side not both. Oh well, c’est la pipe.
We’re taking the Gadsden Flag back! The right doesn’t own it. It belongs to the people and we’re taking it back!
What’s the point? Gadsen was a slave owning piece of shit. It’s a dumb flag.
Sometimes a shithead can be right about something.
How many high-minded ideals were written by people that were absolute assholes or monsters in the other parts of their life?
We need a way to differentiate between communists and the tankie subset.
Spoiler alert: “Tankie” is just a buzzword like the conservative interpretation of “woke”
Ah the classic “No True Tankie” fallacy
Edit: whoops, replied to the wrong comment
He is right though. It isn’t a fallacy, the usage of the word tankie is so far removed from content that it is a bad term and more thought terminating than anything.
Tankies were originally a small subset of some Western and some, mostly East European, socialists and communists which were in favour of a (para-)military response to the revolt in Hungary in 1956. It was a complex situation and even people not on the side of Nagy within Hungary were in favour of the Soviet action.
The term now was used, and amplified by intelligence agencies and Western media, to decry the Soviet action and more importantly de-legitimize several communist groups. In that sense the functional usage of the term is similar, but the question is where would the slur hit actually?
In principle it would hit a small sub section of MLs who followed Khrushchev’s decision. Many people within the pact did see the de-Stalinisation and how it was communicated as problematic, as it enabled opposition forces to claim ground in countries. Nagy tried to do introduce reforms, the most far reaching: “Hungary to leave the Warsaw Pact and declare neutrality in the Cold War.”
Countries thinking about leaving the dominant two powers spheres of influence during the Cold War were often met with violence. See the Jakarta Method for more information about that (i.e. Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, the whole of South America). During that time colonialism was also still relevant and colonial powers did use excessive violence, this is another part of the book.
Now what you and others do is labeling people who are to the left of the Soviets at that point as Tankies. Which is doubly wrong and cynical. What is interesting is that the slur can be traced back for the last 6 years to the US and there to more right wing places. It wasn’t primarily a phrase that was used by leftists. However after the heating chamber of the alt right online people used it to label even people who are democratic socialists at best.
In that sense it is a continuity to the Red Scare, to not have to engage with content.
Luckily the US would never in the 1950s use regime change in countries, for example it would never use military force in Guatemala to ensure the profits of the United Fruit company and the CIA director’s family or
alike
Bullshit. Everyone’s a tankie. My dog is a tankie. Tankie doesn’t mean shit, in the four years it’s been revived, nobody has ever been able to give me a universal definition. It literally just means “people I don’t like”.
I’ve seen anarchists get called tankies. I myself am a Marxist-Leninist but because I may be better at conveying my thoughts and opinions I don’t get called a tankie, while other MLs do. I literally have the same opinions they do, but anarchists sometimes think I’m cool with them lol.
Tankie doesn’t mean anything. You’re a tankie.
tl:dr “Tankie” means someone who’s more interested in following a communist team rather then a communist ideal. Even if the team leader is just a grifter.
If you acknowledge the short comings of certain states that don’t really follow the “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”, you’re not a tankie.
By your definition, every community is a tankie because every communist rejects idealism. If these are the only two options, the only option left is to choose a team. But that can’t be right because you imply that some communists aren’t tankies.
Further, does it count as a definition if other people use the term in different ways?
If so, how do you know who is a communist and who is a tankie without asking them how they decided to show (critical) support for XYZ?
By your definition, you must first know whether someone has strong reasons to support XYZ before being able to decide that they really decided because XYZ was on the right team. That would be exhausting and fraught with the problem that nobody is going to say they didn’t do the reading; if they give an argument, how do you determine whether it’s valid or a cover for ‘choosing by reference to team’?
I’m unsure if it’s possible to define ‘tankie’ by reference to ‘communist’ without also defining the latter and showing how they’re different.
That’s a pretty vague definition you came up for to dismiss people.
Ah the classic pretending to invoke fallacies instead of just telling me what a “tankie” is supposed to be…
If you really just mean “commie,” just say it
ah, you think I don’t have definitions of those words?
“Woke” as we’re using it today start around the 1920’s America and the was by the black community to refer to white people who were aware of and sympathetic to social injustices committed against the black community. It’s sense evolved to include anyone belong to a majority group aware of and sympathetic to an oppressed group.
“Tankie” refers to people who profess their love of communism, but pick allies not on action, but on team affiliation. Any short coming of their favorite communist™ state isn’t an internal fault, but something the evil “west” has committed against them. Which, to be fair, the CIA loves fucking around in South America,
The tankie isn’t at all much different from the “patriotic” Maga head. A Maga head will scream about how free America is, but defending it whenever the county, or more specifically, their team, starts restricting personal freedoms of lgbt individuals, minority rights, or women’s and particularly women’s reproductive rights.
Both tankies and Maga heads will preform mental gymnastics to try and rationalize why the gays can’t be married even though the text of either group doesn’t have any problem with them.
I don’t have any problem with textbook Communist. So long as they can acknowledge the short comings of how it’s been applied so far and how it’s been subverted by people who want to consolidate power and wealth. Same logic goes for Capitalists. In principle, both systems are viable economic models, although textbook communism is the more progressive one. But both, at least as applied by real and would be super powers, are corrupt and dangerous.
A tankie is someone who supports the Soviets sending tanks to stop the Hungarian revolution and other other use is made-up bullshit.
Words and their usage evolve over time. That’s the origin of the word.
To be fair, as you said, many of these problems are because of the International Community™. As for the rest, maybe all support should be critical, with increasingly less “critical” the less there is to criticize.
I haven’t seen anyone on Lemmygrad express that view, and I certainly support our LGBT comrades.
I’ve seen it else were. Gonzalo Lira might be a special case though. I mean you have to be a special kind of stupid to spread Russian propaganda while in Ukraine. He’s also complained that women don’t dress up anymore while looking like hobo for his online “debates”.
Point being is that it’s well known that Russian and China aren’t lgbt friendly and supporters of those countries either need to be ok with that or intentionally ignorant of that. I have seen some snide comments on other communist forums towards lgbt people. The rational, if there is any, is that childless people don’t belong in a long term society.
Well, perhaps you’d be relieved to know that on Lemmygrad, we condemned the Russian Federation for its recent anti-LGBT policies then.
Tell me, what should a communist do if they’re a citizen of the U.S. and the US were to make voting mandatory, punishable by death? Should we die rather than vote for someone we disagree with, or should we pick someone we think might be marginally better?
That’s how we feel about Russia — we don’t pretend to think they’re communist, and there are things we disagree with, but they’re still better than the US, so we vote for them.
No that won’t happen. This is a tactic by whatever group that is so butthurt about having left wing views on the internet to try to tone-control Lemmy. If they can get everyone to agree the slur tankie is bad, they can claim anyone that supports a left wing government that imposes a policy that restricts US freedom to exploit that country is a Tankie.
We need to stop differentiating between liberal and fascist tendendcies. Anyone who aligns with NATO ideals is a fascist, period, regardless of what label you claim.
Yes it’s calling them tankies. They currently seem to be keen on framing it as “buzzword” or “undefined culture war slur against the whole left”, while in more or less the same breath of course still stanning for North Korea and calling China communist and ignoring that they’re called out by the collective rest of the left for that. With that exact term.
In case you have too much time have Keffals on Hakim on the world tankie.
Which is on brand for them. The original “tankies” were cheering on the Soviets violently crushing uprisings by other communists for attempting to practice the “wrong kind” of communism, AKA “Anything other than complete submission to Soviet oppression.”
That’s the sole identifying mark of a tankie: a desire to crush dissidence of their peers through violence, particularly if their victims share their professed economic ideology. Tankies aren’t communists: they’re fascists cosplaying as communists.
Tankies are a COINTELPRO plot to discredit the left, convince me otherwise.
Can you send me your list of nice, approved communists plz? Would be much appreciated. lol
Well I’m not a communist so I’m kinda the wrong guy to ask but you’d be surprised, Lenin is on that list for me. You know the guy who warned everyone that Stalin must under no circumstance be allowed to lead. A lot of good analysis, alas his solutions often had first solution syndrome, meaning they were insufficiently hardened against good ole power dynamics taking over because, as Marx so rightly observed, it’s in a class’ interest to act in its own self-interest and ultimately the nomenklatura is a class as distinct from the proletariat, or even party base, as priests are from believers. I’m pretty sure if the guy had Lenin’s failures to look back at he’d do a lot better, though.
If you want something random to read to learn from I’d recommend the Anarchist Library. And Bookchin in particular.
That’s not what the meme is saying.
Hmm, is it criticizing lemmings for cheering on fascists beating up communists?
There’s no intended camps in the image. It’s just a bunch of individual infighting.
Are we looking at the same image? How’s that the correct interpretation?
help the “fascists” would be fun but I can just sit back and enjoy the show.
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Where did you learn that? The school of enlightened centrism? How do you explain the Nazis putting every communist they could find in a concentration camp? They just violently disagreed on the wording of the exact same position?
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The "Holo"domor is a fascist myth. Hence why most countries do not recognize it. The Aral sea destruction happened mostly after the end of the USSR…
Meanwhile fascists did the Holocaust, which did happen and the genocidal roadshow that was WW2 followed by the genocidal roadshow that is the USA.
MLs aren’t communists.
Stalinists aren’t communists.
ML works just fine if you assume a benevolent dictator with a merciful, honest, and well educated population of party leaders who will listen to agricultural, industrial, and economic experts instead of taking a hard line ideological stance on everything and not try to force the abolition of personal property before society is ready.
Should be easy, right?
dumbass vs dumbass bro, i am just lolling at both
exactly!
What’s wrong with you calling ancaps fascist? I mean, they are not more or less fascist than anyone in this pic except for the tankie getting pummeled, and the tankie always has this coming.