this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
29 points (75.4% liked)
Lemmy.World Announcements
29042 readers
1 users here now
This Community is intended for posts about the Lemmy.world server by the admins.
Follow us for server news ๐
Outages ๐ฅ
https://status.lemmy.world
For support with issues at Lemmy.world, go to the Lemmy.world Support community.
Support e-mail
Any support requests are best sent to [email protected] e-mail.
Report contact
- DM https://lemmy.world/u/lwreport
- Email [email protected] (PGP Supported)
Donations ๐
If you would like to make a donation to support the cost of running this platform, please do so at the following donation URLs.
If you can, please use / switch to Ko-Fi, it has the lowest fees for us
Join the team
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've suddenly started seeing the word "Tankie" around. WTF does it mean?
It originally was used to describe Leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist. It was used originally to describe Marxist-Leninist members of the Communist Great Party in Britain who supported the use of tanks by Soviets to quell a couple of uprisings in the late 50s and late 70s. It has since evolved as a term since then to include Leftists (or maybe not even leftists anymore, it's getting thrown around a lot now) who support similar actions in China and Russia. Usually they have an obsession with Mao and/or Stalin and China can do no wrong in their mind while claiming the western world is evil.
The term has an interesting history (to me as I'd describe myself as leftist, but I look at is as we all suck and can all improve) and Wikipedia has a decent article on it that I pulled most of this info from to double check my memory. Unfortunately they tend to be the most vocal part of leftist communities so I just tend to ignore any of them...
And history proved that support to be 100% correct given what those uprisings were. Have you ever actually looked at who was riling it up (gladio implanted fascists), who backed them and who was coordinating it? The US and CIA played a huge role.
It's fucking weird that this gets brought up as some huge gotcha thing by people when the supporters have been shown to have been historically correct in their decision. It was unpopular and split a lot of parties but they were on the right side ffs read a book.
And now it's used to describe people who ignore things like the genocide Uighur Muslims while saying things like China is so great. I actually never even mentioned the US in my brief (very brief) history of the term as it was just about why the term was there and why people are using it.
I mean, you used that reference because you are implying that shutting down those pro-capitalist counter-revolutions by literal fascists using force was a bad thing, that's why you said "leftists supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be leftist".
You're just demonstrating that you have never actually engaged with learning about any of these events. You have the vagueist knowledge about them and only understand them within the lens of "tankies bad" instead of what actually happened during those events, why certain decisions were made, and what we have learned in the decades since they occurred that proved the supporters to be on the right side of the decisions.
No I never implied that at all (that'd be like linking the history of the word Yankee would imply that I support the British rule of the American colonies), I said here is the history of the word, which does have that history. I'm not a fan of all the shit the US does, especially the CIA. I actually never implied one thing or another besides saying where the word came from and what it's evolved into today. I honestly have no opinion on the origin of the word, but what it's used for today is perfect. It even fits perfectly to evoke images of the Tiananmen Square protests, which when I heard it originally is what I would have assumed it meant. Honestly getting so bent out of shape about this word is just odd to me, if you support this stuff wear it. Quit picking teams in your politics, seriously the whole "but actually the killing of those people was good because my favorite government did it" gets old whether it comes from the US or China
Of course you implied that - you WROTE IT.
You are now backtracking instead of admitting wrong, what you should be saying "you know what, you're right I actually don't know anything about it but I regurgitate this because I've seen other anti-communists regurgitate a thousand times with literally no opposition so I've never taken any time to properly examine events, learn about them, or critically analyse whether the accusations have weight or not"... A response that would be mature, laudable, and the sign of a person who actually wants to grow as a human being. Instead what you seem to be doing is deflecting from this and trying to segue into something else. I am asking you to properly learn about this specific event first, if you want to talk about other events then I am fine with doing that.... But one at a time. This practice of bombarding people with dozens of different things at once is called Gish Gallop as is a tactic used in bad-faith to avoid any real critical engagement with the events.
And this is why people hate talking to tankies on the internet, you constantly rely on whataboutism and twisting everyone's words. I've never even said I'm anti-communist ever, literally just said that I don't support the actions taken by China and Russia when it comes to killing innocent people. I even said in my first comment I'm leftist, it's fine though, you really should read that Gish Gallop article you linked better.
I have done no whataboutism. What are you on about? Can you stick to the fucking topic?
If you don't want to engage that's on you. I told you I'm willing to, one at a time. That way we can get into each topic individually and give it the due care, research and understanding that it needs.
You are the ones avoiding engagement by demanding a 10,000 character response on every single topic simultaneously, which we all know that you will not read.
You don't need to say it, you display it in all of your actions. What do you do? What orgs are you in? What have you ever contributed to anti-capitalism other than spending all of your time on the internet shitting on every socialist project that has ever existed with absolutely no critical analysis of their rights and wrongs? I'm perfectly willing to get into the wrongs, there have been plenty of wrongs in the strategies of past projects or else we would've beaten capitalism already. The issue is that people like yourself tend towards only seeing and talking about wrongs, because you've created an identity for yourself around punching left and thusly preventing socialism instead of actually doing anything to construct it.
the other guy is right, insufferable, there's a reason no one wants to talk to people like you. It's like Ben Shapiro and a communist manifesto hate fucked and then was given internet access. You really need to brush up on the Gish Gallop article
Alright well I tried. You're the one that's avoiding learning literally anything at all. Gonna go ahead and block as this is very clearly a waste of time, take care.
If by try you mean constantly twist words sure. It's like you didn't even try to read anything I said then typed "high school debate club edgy communist" into ChatGPT
insufferable
Mate if you've got no counterpoint that's on you.
No u
We finally found the liberal's sincere definition of a Tankie.
Emphasis mine
Get out of here with that bad faith nonsense