• Justice@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    6 months ago

    Anti-communism has always been a reaction to communism (leftist movements broadly).

    Anyone who unironically uses the word tankie... ever... is immediately written off in my book. They're terminally online and have never read anything, never thought about anything seriously, they're useful idiots for fascists at best and, a lot of times, just fascists.

    I feel like they think I'm being hyperbolic or forcing a false dichotomy, but, no, if you self-label as anti-communist that's basically the same as modern day "all lives matter" people which was a right wing, reactionary, movement against the movement for justice for black people in the US. There is a movement which is objectively on the side of people, justice, etc. and there is a reaction to that movement. Just how it goes. If you identify on the reactionary side... well, there you go. Not sure why this is so complicated for the "bBUT TANKIES" dipshits.

    • taiphlosion@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      6 months ago

      Meh, I've embraced the term tankie I don't think it's that bad. Only terminally online people really care about a meaningless term.

      • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        6 months ago

        If they use it to mean "person who doesn't get bogged down in stupid details over the USSR (or China) just for the sake of hating a communist country" then fine. I don't care. It just gets old seeing it used as "person left of me, which means they're bad" by the most historically illiterate motherfuckers on the planet. The kind of fuckers who say they want socialism and then cry every time someone protests in a street. Do you see what I mean? It's not the word, I don't care in the end. I get like a death threat per day from random Nazis who (ironically) call me antisemitic for criticizing Israel. I'll take tankie over that, given the choice. But it's worth acknowledging the people calling me or us or whoever "tankie" are absolutely just the dumbest fuckers online. That's all.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          6 months ago

          But it’s worth acknowledging the people calling me or us or whoever “tankie” are absolutely just the dumbest fuckers online. That’s all.

          Lmao you said that and one appeared soon after.

          • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            6 months ago

            This one seems a little less dumb than most. I think they're close to connecting the dots. They seem to realise that something is deeply wrong with their worldview and it is making them very angry so they're lashing out at what they perceive to be the cause ("Tankies" ruining socialism). I don't think I was too clear with them, certainly not patient enough, but I do hope they listen anyway.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              edit-2
              6 months ago

              Well indeed we can hope, though i wouldn't hope too much, i seen that pattern ending with doubledown enough times to

              Show debate pervert
              warning switching on

              • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
                ·
                6 months ago

                Yeah, I don't think they will come away from this with anything other than "redfash tankies hate the truth! I owned them so hard!" But I think this will be another straw on the camel's back, not the one that breaks it, but will add to the load of doubts their have about their worldview.

          • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            6 months ago

            If I put the cheese out too obviously the mouse will know what I am doing

            But if I eat some cheese in the corner and, "oppsie" drop a small piece in a sticky trap area... I might just awaken to an angry mouse chirping at me.

      • kot [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        "Tankie" is used by liberals and left anti-communists to defame & differentiate themselves from principled communists, and really from anyone who defends AES states. That use is cringe and outs the person saying it as an absolute tool who shouldn't be taken seriously.

        I have no problem calling myself a tankie though. Sending tanks to kill fascists is good. Every tankie should be awarded their own tank.

      • casskaydee [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Same. I think we need to expropriate the term from the lib/fash.

        ...socialist revolution is neither easy (as the Trotskyists and ultraleftists would have it) nor impossible (as the liberals and conservatives would have it), but hard. It will require dedication and sacrifice and it won’t be won in a day. Tankies are those people who think the millions of communists who fought and died for socialism in the twentieth century weren’t evil, dupes, or wasting their time, but people to whom we owe a great deal and who can still teach us a lot.

        Or, to put it another way: socialism has powerful enemies. Those enemies don’t care how you feel about Marx or Makhno or Deleuze or communism in the abstract, they care about your feelings towards FARC, the Naxals, Cuba, North Korea, etc. They care about your position with respect to states and contenders-for-statehood, and how likely you are to try and emulate them. They are not worried about the molecular and the rhizomatic because they know that those things can be brought back into line by the application of force. It’s their monopoly on force that they are primarily concerned to protect. When you desert real socialism in favor of ideal socialism, the kind that never took up arms against anybody, you’re doing them a favor.