I feel like communism has been conflated with ‘tankie’ for a long while thanks to the red scares. “Tankie” seems to be a more recent (or at least, recently resurrected) term that is attempting to split the authoritarianism away from ‘communism’ and bring that latter term back to its roots as ‘classless, stateless, cashless society’.
But also, you can often avoid using loaded terms like communism. Personally I like to just double down on “democracy” since it literally means rule by people and has positive connotations. If you add more and more rule by people, eventually you get communism.
Tbh, after dealing with Tankies on Lemmy for the past half year, I can understand why the red scares happened (understanding =/= agreeing with). With normal facists and bigots, you can tell they are assholes pretty much at a glance, but Tankies meanwhile seem nice and caring at first glance, but are salivating at the chance to violently revolutionize you
The Red Scare happened because it threatened the American ruling class, and America wasn’t occupied by Nazis in WW2 so they didn’t have the experience of being liberated by mostly leftist rebels. Immediately after WW2, communists and socialists were seen as liberators who freed various countries from Nazi rule, even in the UK where Winston Churchill lost re-election partly due to him going all-in on anti-communism (which the people didn’t like). As a result, Europeans were a lot friendlier to communism and were more open to adopting socialist policies. The US was both the leading capitalist power AND it was very distanced/separated from the oppression and rebellion against the Nazis, so they just saw communists as a threat.
The old adage goes “if you meet an asshole once in the morning, you merely met an asshole. If you meet an asshole in the morning, at noon and again at night, you are the asshole”
Reassess your behavior and stance; if you’re getting called a tankie it isn’t because the whole world decided to shift a definition.
It really isnt. Tankie is specifically for those who’d support Russia and China. Are you defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Are you making arguements that Taiwan should become part of China? THEN you are a Tankie, but if you believe true Communism hasnt been done yet, and Russia and China DEFINITELY havent done it right, then no one who matters is going to call you a Tankie. If Tankie and Communist were synonymous, there would literally be no need for the term Tankie. You dont see “Fuck off Communists” everywhere on Lemmy, you see “Fuck off Tankies”
yeah that’s too much singular linguistic prescriptivism for me. I’ve definitely seen a litany of people here called tankies. Lots of people just decrying US imperialism, particularly what’s happening in Gaza, lots of people criticizing Biden, that’s a classic way to get accused of being a tankie, I think I’ve also seen people advocating for basic shit like healthcare being called tankies. Prison reform is a big one that’ll get you called a tankie, as well as lots of anti-police takes, for whatever reason.
Yeah. It’s a term that’s like originating out of apologia for the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, it’s not used for that anymore. The definition has changed historically and from person to person over time. It doesn’t have this clear meaning that you seem to think it does. It can have that clear meaning for you, sure, you’ve defined your use case, but you can’t really guarantee that every other person using that term is going to use it correctly. It would be, you know, theoretically, pretty advantageous for some right wingers to pose as left wing and then just kind of throw around a term commonly used in left wing circles as a derogatory term to shut down discussions, with basically no coherence to use.
Look, you can either have a term for idiots who support russia and china when they CLAIM to care about minority rights, or you can defend the tankies because SOME people are using the term incorrectly. There isnt a 3rd option at the moment. Do you want us to start telling ALL communists to fuck off instead of just Tankies? Because thats the end result of being successful with your arguement. So you can either further the clarification that Tankies are communists that Support Russia or China, or you can help build a smoke screen for Tankies to hide behing. Pick one
Conservatives and liberal chuds also use it because they see us saying it, not realising that it’s a call-out of viscous authoritarianism, and not necessarily a critique of communism let alone socialism.
It’s your ideal, we’re giving communists who dont support Russia and China respect by labelling Tankies as Tankies, and not Communists, but if you want to give the Tankies a smoke screen to hide behind by letting the two terms blur, then its more your loss than its mine. Russia and China are not bastions of LGBTQ rights though, so I dont know why you’d want to help the Tankies
Anyone reading this should know, socsas ml account got banned over and over again on ml for rule 1&2 (at the time, enumerated as xenophobia and being a jerk) and eventually caught a perma for evading by doing the same thing on this account, which just got unbanned from ml a little over a week ago.
This alt has been catching bans from ml for the same reasons, including notably a unique one from the conservative community on shit because (and I’m paraphrasing) of not being there in good faith.
Too xenophobic and mean for the left, no place on the right, it’s hard out there for a conservative brony…
Of course their totallynotsocsa (yes, actually) alt on beehaw is alive and kicking just fine.
Anyone reading this should know that this is a lie, and you can easily look at the logs yourself. Better yet, the broader body of my post history should illustrate that I am not a troll. My bans from .ml have nothing to do with xenophobia of any kind, and this is a perfect example of how .ml trolls abuse this kind of language to censor any dissent. And the irony of the name calling in there just perfectly illustrates how these types are used to special treatment, double standards and protection on their home instance. Chef’s kiss
It’s actually pretty hilarious that you took the time to write all that out but didn’t bother citing any of my own words which produced said bans. I think we all understand why.
Palestinians have the right to revolution just like the Americans, French, and Chinese did. That revolution might be bloody, but the fight for sovereignty and equality is rarely peaceful.
Socsa ml’s response, which was removed and resulted in them being banned for 1&2:
MFW American settlers went door to door executing British families and taking children hostage.
Someone else almost a month ago:
In my experience, Lemmy is not as censored as Reddit
You can disagree here, as long as you keep it civil, all is good
Socsa shits response, which had the same results:
Lmao. I went 14 years on Reddit without getting a single site ban, and barely lasted 14 days on .ml without getting banned for very controversial statements about, eg, that time Russia shot down a civilian airliner in Ukraine. And pointing out that the US revolution generally didn’t involve much mass rape. And calling out genocide denial on hexbear. And then mocking these petty bans. I’m sure this will get me another one.
What stands out here is that not only did socsa immediately jump to defend israel, which I could understand a lib doing right after October 7, but then complained six months later that they got banned for parroting the mass rape hasbara disinformation which best I can tell they didn’t even actually invoke.
Dae evil tankies ban me for telling lies smdh my dick head?
If I made this exact comment on .ml, I’d get banned for the name calling and mild sarcasm alone.
It is nice to know I’ve got fans, at least. You all know you are rapidly becoming a joke in the fediverse. I can just feel the seethe and cope. I guess you can either do better, or keep impotently trolling, and banning everyone who makes fun of you.
If those tankies could read, they’d be very upset!
Advocating for Communism is not Advocating for the USSR.
Hence why we call them Tankies and not communists
I get called a tankie quite regularly advocating for Communism, like it or not the terms are becoming ubiquitous.
I feel like communism has been conflated with ‘tankie’ for a long while thanks to the red scares. “Tankie” seems to be a more recent (or at least, recently resurrected) term that is attempting to split the authoritarianism away from ‘communism’ and bring that latter term back to its roots as ‘classless, stateless, cashless society’.
But also, you can often avoid using loaded terms like communism. Personally I like to just double down on “democracy” since it literally means rule by people and has positive connotations. If you add more and more rule by people, eventually you get communism.
Tbh, after dealing with Tankies on Lemmy for the past half year, I can understand why the red scares happened (understanding =/= agreeing with). With normal facists and bigots, you can tell they are assholes pretty much at a glance, but Tankies meanwhile seem nice and caring at first glance, but are salivating at the chance to violently revolutionize you
The Red Scare happened because it threatened the American ruling class, and America wasn’t occupied by Nazis in WW2 so they didn’t have the experience of being liberated by mostly leftist rebels. Immediately after WW2, communists and socialists were seen as liberators who freed various countries from Nazi rule, even in the UK where Winston Churchill lost re-election partly due to him going all-in on anti-communism (which the people didn’t like). As a result, Europeans were a lot friendlier to communism and were more open to adopting socialist policies. The US was both the leading capitalist power AND it was very distanced/separated from the oppression and rebellion against the Nazis, so they just saw communists as a threat.
Yes, I understand the history and the political motivation, my point on Tankies being fucked in a kind of scary way still stands however
The old adage goes “if you meet an asshole once in the morning, you merely met an asshole. If you meet an asshole in the morning, at noon and again at night, you are the asshole”
Reassess your behavior and stance; if you’re getting called a tankie it isn’t because the whole world decided to shift a definition.
Eh it is a bit of a catch-all though tbh
It really isnt. Tankie is specifically for those who’d support Russia and China. Are you defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Are you making arguements that Taiwan should become part of China? THEN you are a Tankie, but if you believe true Communism hasnt been done yet, and Russia and China DEFINITELY havent done it right, then no one who matters is going to call you a Tankie. If Tankie and Communist were synonymous, there would literally be no need for the term Tankie. You dont see “Fuck off Communists” everywhere on Lemmy, you see “Fuck off Tankies”
yeah that’s too much singular linguistic prescriptivism for me. I’ve definitely seen a litany of people here called tankies. Lots of people just decrying US imperialism, particularly what’s happening in Gaza, lots of people criticizing Biden, that’s a classic way to get accused of being a tankie, I think I’ve also seen people advocating for basic shit like healthcare being called tankies. Prison reform is a big one that’ll get you called a tankie, as well as lots of anti-police takes, for whatever reason.
Yeah. It’s a term that’s like originating out of apologia for the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, it’s not used for that anymore. The definition has changed historically and from person to person over time. It doesn’t have this clear meaning that you seem to think it does. It can have that clear meaning for you, sure, you’ve defined your use case, but you can’t really guarantee that every other person using that term is going to use it correctly. It would be, you know, theoretically, pretty advantageous for some right wingers to pose as left wing and then just kind of throw around a term commonly used in left wing circles as a derogatory term to shut down discussions, with basically no coherence to use.
Look, you can either have a term for idiots who support russia and china when they CLAIM to care about minority rights, or you can defend the tankies because SOME people are using the term incorrectly. There isnt a 3rd option at the moment. Do you want us to start telling ALL communists to fuck off instead of just Tankies? Because thats the end result of being successful with your arguement. So you can either further the clarification that Tankies are communists that Support Russia or China, or you can help build a smoke screen for Tankies to hide behing. Pick one
If your goal is to help the proletariat and not to create a oligopoly (or kleptocracy) then you’re aces in my book for what little it’s worth.
Conservatives and liberal chuds also use it because they see us saying it, not realising that it’s a call-out of viscous authoritarianism, and not necessarily a critique of communism let alone socialism.
Is it because you occasionally simp for authoritarians?
I too advocate for socialism, but I keep getting banned from “socialist” spaces for wrong think, because I think Lenin’s shit stinks.
It’s your ideal, we’re giving communists who dont support Russia and China respect by labelling Tankies as Tankies, and not Communists, but if you want to give the Tankies a smoke screen to hide behind by letting the two terms blur, then its more your loss than its mine. Russia and China are not bastions of LGBTQ rights though, so I dont know why you’d want to help the Tankies
Damn, I wish I could up vote twice for that response alone.
My brother in Christ, you can make infinity Lemmy accounts.
Hey you are right
Lemmy gold 🥇🪙
Just puked a little bit in my mouth. And chuckled
I’ve only met one or two communists who are genuinely decent and principled. The rest are nutters.
Tell that to all the tankies that suck off Putin every chance they get then.
It’s pretty hard to tell on Lemmy.
I’ve been banned from .ml twice for criticizing Putin’s Russia.
Anyone reading this should know, socsas ml account got banned over and over again on ml for rule 1&2 (at the time, enumerated as xenophobia and being a jerk) and eventually caught a perma for evading by doing the same thing on this account, which just got unbanned from ml a little over a week ago.
This alt has been catching bans from ml for the same reasons, including notably a unique one from the conservative community on shit because (and I’m paraphrasing) of not being there in good faith.
Too xenophobic and mean for the left, no place on the right, it’s hard out there for a conservative brony…
Of course their totallynotsocsa (yes, actually) alt on beehaw is alive and kicking just fine.
Anyone reading this should know that this is a lie, and you can easily look at the logs yourself. Better yet, the broader body of my post history should illustrate that I am not a troll. My bans from .ml have nothing to do with xenophobia of any kind, and this is a perfect example of how .ml trolls abuse this kind of language to censor any dissent. And the irony of the name calling in there just perfectly illustrates how these types are used to special treatment, double standards and protection on their home instance. Chef’s kiss
It’s actually pretty hilarious that you took the time to write all that out but didn’t bother citing any of my own words which produced said bans. I think we all understand why.
Okay.
Someone else seven months ago:
Socsa ml’s response, which was removed and resulted in them being banned for 1&2:
Someone else almost a month ago:
Socsa shits response, which had the same results:
What stands out here is that not only did socsa immediately jump to defend israel, which I could understand a lib doing right after October 7, but then complained six months later that they got banned for parroting the mass rape hasbara disinformation which best I can tell they didn’t even actually invoke.
Dae evil tankies ban me for telling lies smdh my dick head?
I rest my case.
If I made this exact comment on .ml, I’d get banned for the name calling and mild sarcasm alone.
It is nice to know I’ve got fans, at least. You all know you are rapidly becoming a joke in the fediverse. I can just feel the seethe and cope. I guess you can either do better, or keep impotently trolling, and banning everyone who makes fun of you.
That’s not Lemmy. That’s lemmy.ml. it’s like David S. Pumpkins.
Hanks and SNL should give us a David S. Pumpkins comedy horror movie, with the villain/hero being Paul F. Tompkins.
I’d watch it
Tankies are advocating for the USSR, with any eventual communist utopia being optional.
Cue in Omaega Haxor and Yoghurt jumping in to appologize for Putin and North Korea.