Tweets about lefties supposedly infighting about this never show likes or retweets. And that’s for a good reason.
Free Palestine
I mean, the guy set himself on fire on purpose… I don’t think sympathy was really what he was going for lol
So calling someone a “tankie” is suggesting they’re a communist according to the internet as I’m seeing- so uh
WHAT
As I understand it “tankie” is more like a weekend communist who makes a point of letting everyone know just how much they love communism until people get sick of hearing about it.
Quite the opposite. It’s blanket opposition to capitalism often in an aggressive manner, mostly in support of countries who are closer to fascism than communism like Russia and China.
I always associate tankie with “I say I love communism and when it comes to Tianamen square, I side with the tank.”
It’s actually a term coined by British communists to describe the chuds who supported the Soviets sending tanks into the Hungarian revolt in ‘56.
But the Tiananmen Square massacre just goes to further show how fucked up ML is and its hatred for the people.
From wikipedia:
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to communists who express support for one-party communist regimes that are associated with Marxism–Leninism, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberals and right‐wing factions as well.[5][6]
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.[7][8]
By extension, the term is used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the crimes committed by communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin,[9][10] Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxha, Pol Pot, and Kim Il Sung. In modern times, the term is used across the political spectrum to describe those who have a bias in favor of illiberal or authoritarian states with a socialist legacy or a nominally left-wing government, such as the Republic of Belarus, People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Additionally, tankies are said to have a tendency to support non-socialist states with no socialist legacy if they are opposed to the United States and the Western world in general, regardless of their ideology,[4][11] such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.
There are a number of progressive and/or leftist and/or communist but explicitly anti-tankie communities out there, including !196 and !tankiejerk (as well as r/196 and r/tankiejerk back on reddit).
As for whether this guy was a tankie, idk. I’d have to read up on him further.
196 on blahaj telling the tankies to fuck off was a great day in lemmy history. I’ll see if I can find it and edit it in.
Found it but the dm got redacted. Basically hexbear admin/mod/something asked 196 to remove their “fuck tankies” banner because it made their community feel excluded. 196 said “lol. Lmao.”
o7 Godspeed, 196
Actions speak louder than words. Not saying what he did is admirable, but he obviously believed in the statement he was making. Which, to my understanding was standing up against the US government contributing to a genocide.
Anyone who decides to to kill themselves by what is generally considered to be one of the most painful ways to do so is not worthy of being taken seriously
No matter what, they were protesting in favor of Palestinians, sending a sobering message.
They weren’t self-immolating in defense of Assad, Xi, or Putin.
