On lemmy.world I posted a comment on how liberals use ‘tankie’ as an invective to shut down dialogue and received tons of hateful replies. I tried to respond in a rational way to each. Someone’s said ‘get educated’ I responded ‘Im reading Norman Finkelstein’s I’ll burn that bridge when I get there’ and tried to keep it civil.
They deleted every comment I made and banned me. Proving my point, they just want to shut down dialogue. Freedom of speech doesn’t existing in those ‘totalitarian’ countries right? But in our ‘enlightened’ western countries we just delete you.
This is liberal mental space, full of “freedom of speech”. Liberalism is a cancer which leads to right extremism. And social democracy leads to liberalism. If you exclude ML from discourse, you eliminate whole left wing point of view consequently.
Unrelated, but I like your pfp.
Thank you comrade!
omg i just had the misfortune of wandering into this thread, https://lemmygrad.ml/post/806853 i am so glad we have our own space where we can safely laugh at these fools. omg.
Holy shit what an insufferable group.
“Define Tankie”
Red fascist
Who defines a buzzword with a buzzword ffs.
Also! (Paraphrasing)
[…] people who justify genocides. […]
'scuze me what the fuck? Who here says genocides are cool and good actually? We are like the first fuckers to point them out and scream about them???
And even more!
Comrade Spood
Now that’s dose of Anarcho-Debilizm let me tell you. “Just press the communism button Xi and we’ll succeed no problem! They will just let us exist and everyone will love each other :3”
And it just still keeps going!
Educate yourself. / Please change and grow as a person. / Read a book.
Motherfuckers I read too much compared to your sorry asses.
Educate yourself. / […] / Read a book.
Their education:
“I have” doesn’t mean “I’ve read”, what a pretentious dumbass.
In the second part of this pic she tells the reader not having read any of it.
it’s real lmao
Hilarious how she doesn’t even have a problem admitting it’s all a matter of fitting the edgy cyberpunk aesthetic of blue hair, computers, skateboards and slapping stickers around. All about individual image and no political dedication.
And I can understand listening to theory audiobooks instead of reading them, although I think it’s worse as it’s harder for you to re-read lines and take notes, but… While skateboarding? Can you imagine yourself attempting to make any sense of a Das Kapital audiobook while playing basketball? Probably just to be able to say “yeah i’ve already read it” and nothing else. Once again, all about aesthetics.
That whole thread:
hmm, I wonder who controls the socialist state
It’s as much analysis as you can expect from the userbase of Tumblr lite.
Tumblr lite, or tumblr alt right?
Let’s be fair to them, at least they aren’t reactionary. Still, unfunny “uwu” memes mixed with Lockheed Left behaviour does not paint a much more enjoyable scene.
Just because a state brands itself socialist doesn’t say anything about the level of democracy or workers’ control of it.
sure, but if we were talking about non-socialist states that call themselves socialist, we wouldn’t call them socialist states
Well IMHO both USSR and China shows how gaining workers control and keeping it, or moreso making significant headway towards communism, is just much more complicated. Representative worker ownership of the means of production through the state doesn’t have a compelling track record. I think it’s dishonest, reactionary and anti intellectual to laugh off arguments like that of comrade spood from the screenshot above.
Edit: checked out my claim on calorie intake and discovered it was dubious. Removed, but letting the main argument stay.
The USSR was eventually compromised, so it technically failed in that sense, but how is China an example of failing to retain worker control? If you’re claiming that capitalists control China’s government, I’d challenge you to provide some evidence
Lack of press freedom, organization freedom, social credit system, great firewall of China, over 2000 work hours pr year (France has 1500), severely low scores in democracy rankings. This doesn’t smell much like worker control, more like authoritarianism. But then again, I’m very much from the West. Happy to be educated on my shortcomings in understanding 👍
And I had the misfortune of not resisting to participate in it. Do not recommend.
oh dear. I told myself i wouldn’t engage. (narrator: but he engaged). Just trying to gently nudge an anarchist towards materialist analysis, i’ll try resist getting sucked into any arguments for my own sake.
Like moths flying into a bug zapper: we know it will hurt, but we just cannot help it.
the brainworm infestation has proved devastating
We should call liberals coupies because of all their coups.
Call them boaties because NATO sent 19 warships to surround and blockade Lisbon in 1974 after Portugal overthrew fascism and started nationalizing industries and redistributing land.
I got 11 upvotes on a Ho Chi Minh quote in the clown shoes thread. Was that all you guys?
I see it got deleted. Ho Chi Minh should have known better and organize Vietnam’s liberation from colonialism through confederated and horizontally-organized municipal communes, I suppose.
Go ahead liberals. Call me a tankie. See if I give one ten thousandth of a fuck. Literally such a low-tier insult. “Uhh its like… uh…you support this large cool looking machine that stopped Color Revolutions and was responsible for Liberating the Eastern Front during World War II” “Yea, I do😐” “😨”
Tankie means you approve when a communist state uses military/tanks against its own people… Not against a Nazi state. I would reconsider if you really want to wear that label with pride…
Tankie just means “any communist I don’t like” at this point. Take your McCarthyism and complete ignorance about color revolutions elsewhere.
The nazis aren’t our people.
And everyone who don’t likes Stalin is a Nazi
/kappa
There’s a really great graphic novel called ‘Berlin’ that goes into how the Nazis came to be, how the communists were the ones that organized worker strikes to stop railroads to death camps etc. I don’t think our meme warfare on the net will change anything but if your looking for a fun read checkit. Is there anything you would recommend for me? I probably I’ll read it. I’m a reader.
Oh i totaly agree that communists were often the strongest force against fascists. Don’t have to like Stalin to be a communist nor to be antifascist though
The uprising in hungary was a nazi uprising, with pogroms.
That’s correct, specifically a state that uses tanks against its people in revolt.
However, people on Reddit (and on Lemmy now) basically use it to refer to any leftist they have a disagreement with.
Well saying tankies support using tanks against civilians gets you down voted on lemmygrad.
No tankies here though, all just libs propaganda
/kappa
So you want the nazis to murder everyone in hungary?
Thats such an obvious strawman, i dont think i need to answer that ;)
Because if you would answer that you would have to admit that the wokes were right.
This is a rhetorical trap called “reality”.
Oh I think there are a lot of people who get called woke and are right. Your rhetorical trap is not reality, its trying to get me to say something which confirms your prejustices.
Remember, my claim, forwhich you guys are fighting me here was “tankie” has other than “someone I don’t like”
You attacked me verbally for saying that, and then realized, that you can’t win this argument, cause in reality you agree with me so you try to shift the battlefield to a discussion you can win (and kept pressing really hard with your Hungarian Nazis ^^)
That’s your rhetorical strategy, it has nothing to do with reality ;)
Cause everybody who dislikes tankies is a liberal?
Almost always that or worse.
Hm interesting, seems to dedependent on your locality. Where I live, there are lots of communists, anarchists materialists and general left at university’s, factories and unions, but there is also a (very small) group of communists, who loves stalin,think everything that Russia does is automatically good (mostly while denieng they are a imperialist state) and everyone who doesn’t treat Lenin’s and Stalin’s books like sacred texts which need to be followed down to the letter (instead of valuable contributions to a scientific debate) is wrong by definition and need to be shut down. All new Marxist philosophy’s (material feminism, postkolonial study’s, frankfurter schule, etc. Pp.) get denied the right to exist, people who write or work in other communist schools of thinking then them are called a counter revolutionary and spat on and threatens to get killed in the revolution. Furthermore they make it very clear, that everyone who hasn’t exactly the same opinion as them is not welcomed in their communist utopia and would get put in to gulags (yes they use that word with pride) or directly killed by them/the state
Those people are get called tankies by the much bigger rest of th e communist/Marxist scene
So when people over here self describe as tankies and wear that label with pride (happend under this post)I was quite puzzled.
At least here its not a general slur against communists (like queer were for homosexuals) which can be turned around easily, it is a very specific description of a very specific group of people in the communists scene
So the people who call others tankies are almost never liberals (they don’t even know that word, they just say communists and think this is enough of insult), it’s mostly other Marxists/communists or more or less close ideology’s like anarchists or socialists
They don’t like you because you carry water for the colonialist usa. The people outside the west must be liberated and idealists like you want to stop their liberators because they are not clean enough or something. “Oh no they used violence once”
Oh and most of the nonwestern progressives fit your definition of t*****. Oh it’s a slur that targets mostly non-caucasians again.
Oh you again, your the best of them all.
Soo let me recap:
You criticise anything about russia (like saying not everything they do is automatically good) --> you carry water for the USA
The man says the people outside the west need to be liberated.
I would agree, I would even say the people inside the west needs to be liberated. The world needs to be liberated.
But he thinks, the people in Russia or China are already liberated or even are the liberators.
Did it ever occur to you, that those countries are just imoerialisric states with a bad communist mask?
Or is your liberty one where you get put in jail or worse if you are gay, where the working class still works for rich old man and gets almost nothing, where ideological power is maintained through prisons and shootings?
In the west, you lose your job, then go homeless and then get put in jail when you do not conform to the cishet ableist neurotypical society.
The people in russia have been re-enslaved by the west.
The people in the west are mostly complicit in the usa’s imperialism, they don’t need to be “liberated” from their slavery loot.
Edit: and you are a nazi enabler.
The stawman is strong in this one
So you have not been on reddit lately.
Oh you are now so engaged you follow me to other threads? That’s nice of you.
This is the same thread.
Also, you are a nazi enabler.
By the way, it seems that moderators in 196 are deleting those comments from lemmygrad posters in a way that appear as visible while seen from lemmygrad while they appear as deleted by mods from any other instances (or so I suppose, I do not know very well how does Lemmy work). This is happening even if there is no breaking of rules in sight.
it seems that moderators in 196 are deleting those comments from lemmygrad posters in a way that appear as visible while seen from lemmygrad while they appear as deleted by mods from any other instances
Whoa, that’s pretty 1984 Animal House of them
Totally agree. Edgy Russian conquest apologists is far more apt. I hate the modern use of the term “tankie.” “Tankies” were at least communist. Had some ideas and principles. Neither Russia nor China has communist core economic systems.
You used so many words to say that you do not have a clue regarding how the economic system in China functions.
“
“So many words” I’m sorry my “micro blog” isn’t micro enough for you, message board warrior.
Not sure you understand what communism is. Nor how financial systems work. China is no more communist than North Korea is a republic.
Mate you’re really making yourself look like a fool here I’d just quit while you’re ahead. Clear as day you haven’t a clue about geopolitics or economics. Must have missed the stop for reddit.
I just don’t get why people are downvotin’ this comrade when they are clearly correct. According to the party doctrine on socialism with Chinese characteristics, China is not presently communist but is in the primary stage of socialism, aiming to develop towards full, egalitarian socialism and then on towards communism as the productive forces are modernized and the society develops further.
So I’ve heard tankies defined as “someone who specifically supports the centralized, authorization flavor of communism practiced by the USSR”. They also often mention worship of Stalin and Mao, and a revisionist version of history supporting such a stance
This seems odd to me, especially since a group of tankies flocked early to a decentralized platform geared for long-form discussions
Personally, I believe capitalism is an ideological virus. You can trace a clear path from the Roman empire to the modern day, where a hyper-specialized society eradicated every other system of resource husbandry by sloppily harvesting as quick as possible and using that advantage to gangpress everyone else into service under them (and destroying anything that would even slightly slow down the process )
I don’t think communism is the answer, because I don’t think it’s a path we can walk without first curing the disease, but the guiding concepts resonate with me.
So in that light, I’d like to ask in good faith:
Self-identified tankies - how do you define a tankie?
you’re not going to get an answer because people don’t self identify as a tankie - it’s a pejorative term. you should ask for the opinion of modern marxist-lenninists and you’ll get plenty of explanation. like most political persuasions it’s not the ideology that is flawed it’s the execution.
Fair enough, a pejorative term for what exactly though? The most nuanced answer I’ve gotten is from a proponent of communism who pointed at the authoritarian bent to it… Which seems super weird to me.
The way I see it, a bureaucracy has more leeway in allocating goods the higher up you go, which is very literal administrative capitol - it’s totally in conflict with the core concept of Marx, which is a person getting the fruits of their own labor, and no one getting to milk others (which is really the only way to get much inequality)
I’m a lot more critical of lennonists. While on the surface it imitates capitalism’s ability to optimize production (and with a more aligned goal, minimizing scarcity instead of maximizing the supply-demand equation), it also reintroduces the alignment problem. As you scale up, individual action and ideological beliefs become blips in the data, and the super organism created through humans arranged in the structure.
Individuals have a perverse incentive to maximize their own authority, the number of people under them, and the scale of their operations - by doing that they appear more meritocratous and are more likely to move up the hierarchy. Eventually someone gets the idea to fudge the numbers, and since the metrics are too complex to spot this in a spreadsheet, the most widely selected for skill to move up the ladder is to distort (or spin) the numbers so an individual appears to be serving a greater need than what actually exists.
Lennon’s theory is great, the more centralized the distribution, the greater the potential for optimization - but it ignores the emergent properties that appear when humans form an entity too complex for individual humans to grasp the full picture. You can reign in the worst excesses through watchdogs and harsh punishments, but ultimately that just becomes another layer for power to concentrate. You can keep layering and slow down the rot, but it’s a fundamental alignment problem - either you purposely concentrate the power in a person or group and regress to autocracy, or you constantly keep adding layers of checks and balances (which eats away at the efficiency gains)
So I see a fundamental contradiction here, which is why I can get behind techno-communism with intelligent agents running the show, or I can get behind decentralizing the system and creating something more anarchistic (or ideally, both), but Lennon always seemed to me to be a smart architect given a problem with a scale and an urgency beyond his abilities
Or am I missing something fundamental?
