I'm not one to post often. I'm not really one to rant to strangers online often, even. But, after migrating from r*ddit to lemmy, I've had this on my mind and this seemed like the place to vent.
I see discourse about tankies constantly on Lemmy. This struck me as odd. Why are these so called tankies such a threat? Why do I see people calling themselves left-wing and attacking tankies more voraciously than neoliberals and, sometimes, even fascists?
I think I know the answer, just as well as most people who will read this. These are the Zizeks of the world: people who do indeed think in a left-wing oriented way, but fail to recognise that they're also Western to the core and the biases that come with that.
I sincerely care about this much less than the actual reason I'm making this post. That is: why don't these people notice that their talking points, left-oriented as they may seem, always end up supporting US allies or attacking US enemies? I mean, do these people not see that Ukraine winning the war is a boon to the US, regardless of who is "right" in that conflict? Many other such cases, but I think I've made my point, or, rather, my confusion, clear.
That's it. That's the post.
A combination of the american civic religion, american exceptionalism, their own material conditions, recognition of their position as the secondary (or perhaps tertiary) benefactors of imperialism, and a century of anti-communist propaganda have left them believing the following:
Whenever you bring up things that force them to address the dissonance between one of these and reality, they use the the other three to deflect. If you continue to press further, they either disengage, call you a tankie, or start the long slow path to tankiedom themselves.
I used to believe in all 4 of those things. It is painful when the illusion is shattered, so many avoid it.
At most, I can gently suggest that we're actually the bad guys, not the good guys, and people are starting to agree with me.