this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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Hence why we call them Tankies and not communists
Edit: Stop defending Tankies. If you are truly a Communist that doesnt support Russia and China, then defending the Tankies by letting them pretend ALL communists get called Tankies is only making you look bad by comparison. If Tankie was synonymous with communist, it wouldnt need to exist as a word.
2nd edit: I'm giving some of you WAAAYYY too much benefit of doubt but heres a further point, at the moment there is two options
1: You help clarify that Tankie means "Communist who Supports Authoritarian Regimes and their use of violences to suppress dissent" for people who are using the word incorrectly
or
2: You help create a smokescreen for Tankies to hide behind and let Tankie and Communist blur so Tankies can claim that all Communists get called that so the word means nothing. And if you are successful in that, the vast majority of us with great distaste for the Chinese and Russian goverment will just switch to telling ALL communists to fuck off because we certainly arent going to grow more tolerance for regimes that have no issues violently suppressing minorities
There is no 3rd option
Final Addition: 9 communists are sitting at a table when 1 Tankie decides to join the table. No one rejects the Tankie from sitting. 10 Tankies sit at a table
I get called a tankie quite regularly advocating for Communism, like it or not the terms are becoming ubiquitous.
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
Lemmy gold 🥇🪙
Just puked a little bit in my mouth. And chuckled
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
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 behind. Pick one
You could just tell them that supporting Russia and China is bad, or that those are authoritarian regimes, and cite sources, rather than dismissing them out of hand, based on what the surface level interpretation of their arguments are, you know?
We have more than a one word limit here on Lemmy, people can respond with thought out rebuttals, rather than one word dismissals. It's just that the one word dismissals are easier to write and understand, so they're more likely to get thrown at an argument early and then up votes after someone skims a long ass set of paragraphs.
There's not like an either-or option there, I also really question your "well if we don't discard tankies then we're gonna have to discard all communists, and how would you like that!". That doesn't make any sense to me. Your "Pick one" is a false dichotomy. People are capable of more nuanced conversations, just labelling people and throwing around out of hand dismissals isn't going to be helpful in actually working out anything, convincing those people, or convincing bystanders. Even if you were to convince bystanders with such a tactic, you'd be convincing them in a bad faith way where they don't fully understand the usage of the term, so they'd be just as likely to throw it around as an out of hand dismissal without understanding what it means.
But then I suppose, you know, it's probably gonna be easier for most people to just call me a tankie and move on, right, on the basis that my argument advocating for nuanced responses and more well-reasoned argumentation is actually carrying water and "providing a smokescreen for tankies", so I might as well be one, right? Term gets stretched even further.
I have always been of the belief that if you are to respond, it better be with a well-reasoned and dignified comment, rather than just a kind of lazy dismissal. If people are doing shit that's actually against the rules, then report them. If they're engaging in bad faith behavior, you are more likely to reveal that by responding to them with good faith behavior than also responding with bad faith behavior. If you aren't going to say something nice, don't bother to say anything at all, or, put another way, don't feed the trolls.
Dunno why internet rules 101 is becoming such an uncommon thing now.
Or or, if you wanna defend Tankies, I literally dont have time for you. Do I give Nazi's time to explain the nuances of their views? No, same goes for Tankies
That's what I said people should do though? Just ignore comments and move on if they're not actually willing to engage with what's being said
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.
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.
I feel like communism has been conflated with 'tankie' (as in, the meaning, not the word) 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
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.
I've only met one or two communists who are genuinely decent and principled. The rest are nutters.