It says "there are other extreme leftists", like "Bernie Bros". As if wanting medicare for all is as extreme as being a tankie.
Dunno how that makes me a tankie.
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Recently learned about Tankies, leftist subgroup who think old communist empires are awesome.
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It says "there are other extreme leftists", like "Bernie Bros". As if wanting medicare for all is as extreme as being a tankie.
Dunno how that makes me a tankie.
Marxist-Leninists who stuck with the USSR after the Hungarian invasion are not a recent subgroup. This is an old, decades old, term that has been used as an insult/descriptor within socialist infighting for a long time and naturally took on a wider application as time advanced. Recently liberals found out about it and started using it incorrectly for an even wider variety of people.
"You are being manipulated [by the nebulous powers that be]" is the wildcard of reality denial arguments. Once you convince yourself that no reputable source is actually trustworthy, you can believe literally anything, from homeopathy to flat Earth to 5G causing COVID.
I didn't specifically know about tankies, but in a world where people believe Nazi Germany's atrocities didn't exist, I have no trouble imagining people convincing themselves that gulags were holiday resorts and North Korea is a paradise, especially if it supports their pre-existing political beliefs.
It doesn't make you a tankie, it was meant as a mild jokey jab in response to your neolib thing. I still tend to post like I did in the early 2000s, despite the temperature on this board being much higher nowadays. Sorry!
Edit: the author is specifically calling out "very fired up" extreme left Bernie Bros, which do exist. He's not saying all Bernie Bros are extreme left.
It was inevitable. Unless you grew up experiencing the oppression or brutality, you just hear about it from older people. Combine that with youthful rebellion and you have young people saying "oh it couldn't have been THAT bad" despite ample evidence to the contrary. That and US whataboutism to shut down any argument about it.
While I definitely am not a tankie, and I don't like them, there is some degree of validity in recognizing that everything we think about these states like the USSR is viewed through a western imperialist perspective, and often we are filtering through decades of American propaganda. That doesn't make what Stalin did ok, but there is value in trying to second guess whether the US narrative of history is correct. There was a lot of terrible shit the US did throughout the Cold War era, and most communist states did experience some sort of imperialist intervention to disrupt them.
Even back then there was the disconnection between leftist people who lived under these regimes and saw them as a deturpation of what they believed in, and the westerns who thought of the Soviet Union as paradise on earth, without ever seeing for themselves how it was.
Tankies are a bit of a spook.
In leftist circles they get talked about (derisively) but an actual unironic tankie? They are incredibly rare. They are more of a liberal boogeyman than anything.
In leftist circles they get talked about (derisively) but an actual unironic tankie? They are incredibly rare. They are more of a liberal boogeyman than anything.
Here's a question: I, liberal, have jokingly called my friend (who's a dem-soc Bernie bro) a "tankie" for being generally sympathetic to Nicolas Maduro. Does supporting an authoritarian regime that uses death squads to murder political opponents by the thousands make one a tankie, or am I stretching the term?
Venezuela's army death squads kill thousands – DW – 07/04/2019
A UN report has detailed the extrajudicial executions of thousands of young men by special forces. The report says that the death squads are carrying out President Maduro's strategy for neutralizing political opponents.
www.dw.com
ngl the constant whiplash between "who cares about the online larpers which are the equivalent of people wearing che guevara shirts back in the 90s" and "watch out these radical communists (including anything that is not on the democratic mainstream platform) is the reason the left is losing" gets kinda old
meanwhile the right is unironically pushing and succeeding at regressing societies all over the planet to fascism
the article unironically using bernie bro and painting them as "extreme leftists" already sets the tone for what this is lol
meanwhile the right is unironically pushing and succeeding at regressing societies all over the planet to fascism
the article unironically using bernie bro and painting them as "extreme leftists" already sets the tone for what this is lol
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Here's a question: I, liberal, have jokingly called my friend (who's a dem-soc Bernie bro) a "tankie" for being generally sympathetic to Nicolas Maduro. Does supporting an authoritarian regime that uses death squads to murder political opponents by the thousands make one a tankie, or am I stretching the term?
Venezuela's army death squads kill thousands – DW – 07/04/2019
A UN report has detailed the extrajudicial executions of thousands of young men by special forces. The report says that the death squads are carrying out President Maduro's strategy for neutralizing political opponents.
In socialist terminology it is specifically applicable to uncritical Marxist-Leninists, so if he's not a Marxist-Leninist, it doesn't actually apply. It's like how liberals complain about the overuse of "neoliberal" but in the opposite direction. Someone can support bad things without being "a tankie".
For example, one of the dumbest instances is people calling Glenn Greenwald a tankie for his stances on Russia. He's not even a communist in the first place, nor is Russia a ML state, much less a socialist one. Criticizing him is all well and good but calling him a "tankie" is pretty cringe, because it's clearly an outsider incorrectly trying to use what they think is hip new lingo.
Even worse is using the USSR to generalize about any advocate of the Left and equating them with supporters of Nazism.
www.guengl.eu
The European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament condemns in the strongest possible terms attempts to use the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War as an excuse for political point scoring and historical revisionism.
Through a proposed resolution under the title 'The importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe', an asymmetrical coalition of political groups in the European Parliament wants to whitewash historical facts and undermine EU solidarity by equating the murderous Nazi regime with socialist and communist ideals of equality and justice.
The text of the proposed resolution justifies the undemocratic bans against Communist parties in some member states and, by extension, legitimises the repression against left-wing organisations and resistance across Europe in support of socially progressive causes and against the real threat of the far-right.
This represents an attempt to detract from the real and urgent issues facing our citizens: the rise of the far-right, the social crisis, the climate emergency and the continuously devastating legacy left by the EU neoliberal policy of austerity.
By selectively and deliberately misrepresenting historical facts, this new asymmetrical coalition has once again retreated back to its obsession on ideology and undemocratic governance by falsely equating communism with the evils of fascism.
We reject this dangerous and unacceptable resolution and vote. It represents yet another insult to our common European historical memory and has real consequences on repression of EU citizens exercising their democratic rights.
European remembrance debate smacks of political point scoring
Attempt by an asymmetrical coalition of political groups to whitewash historical facts condemned
www.guengl.eu
The European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament condemns in the strongest possible terms attempts to use the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War as an excuse for political point scoring and historical revisionism.
Through a proposed resolution under the title 'The importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe', an asymmetrical coalition of political groups in the European Parliament wants to whitewash historical facts and undermine EU solidarity by equating the murderous Nazi regime with socialist and communist ideals of equality and justice.
The text of the proposed resolution justifies the undemocratic bans against Communist parties in some member states and, by extension, legitimises the repression against left-wing organisations and resistance across Europe in support of socially progressive causes and against the real threat of the far-right.
This represents an attempt to detract from the real and urgent issues facing our citizens: the rise of the far-right, the social crisis, the climate emergency and the continuously devastating legacy left by the EU neoliberal policy of austerity.
By selectively and deliberately misrepresenting historical facts, this new asymmetrical coalition has once again retreated back to its obsession on ideology and undemocratic governance by falsely equating communism with the evils of fascism.
We reject this dangerous and unacceptable resolution and vote. It represents yet another insult to our common European historical memory and has real consequences on repression of EU citizens exercising their democratic rights.
I hadnr heard GG called a tankie, that is pretty silly. I'll stick with Russia shill.
I'm less concerned about Tankies (vanishingly small) than I am about people advocating for violent revolution. There are a lot more of those around (and seemingly increasing) than there are Tankies.
I'm less concerned about Tankies (vanishingly small) than I am about people advocating for violent revolution. There are a lot more of those around (and seemingly increasing) than there are Tankies.
This is a natural reaction to a collapsing society. It always happens, every single time. The concern should be about the collapsing society that leads to an increase in calls for violent revolution! Capitalists have historically done well at marginalizing such calls when they co-opt the message in a moderated fashion to make some concessions.
when you hate the american empire but are still a raving lunatic
yeah
agreed.
people like to focus on the symptoms and not the causes.
i fear people still think this country "looping" politically is still viable
It certainly is the reaction to stress on the society (the word collapsing implies an inevitably I don't agree with). It's just not a good solution to the problem.
Legislate to redistribute the wealth, or have a violent revolution to redistribute the poverty.
Concessions to the calls are exactly how a stable society rights itself. We've been going a long time without those concessions and actually backsliding in many ways.
Even if they were at one point, it's surprisingly easy to meme an extremist group into existence.
Yeah that immediately stood out to me as pretty sus. Calling any political position "extemist" if it's literally just advocating for a candidate within the US electoral system seems pretty disingenuous.
Defining it out of existence via semantics is a bit short-sighted. What do you call the socialist-communist people supporting Maduro then?
there was a dude i followed once who seemed cool and then suddenly he was talking about how the hong kong protests were an american psyop and that the entire uyghur thing was a western media lie. it's really amazing how people can be so sure of things with no basis in reality
I would disagree. I'm pretty confident the US is collapsing around us in real time. Not gonna make a prediction when (cause I'll be wrong) but the rise of facism on the right and the calls for socialist revolution on the left aren't a accident that can just be ignored. More and more people are having their living situations get worse and neither corporate backed party is gonna do what needs to be done to improve these people's lives. Just so everyone knows Donald Trump loosing didn't defeat facisms rise in the US. Unless Biden takes a left leaning position I don't see things improving.
Pure tankies are rare, but soft tankies supporting current Russia or China dictatorships only to oppose USA is not weird in the left wing scene in Europe (sadly)
Best Korea is sadly a common joke in left wing youth parties in Europe
the problem is that it becomes more apparent what actually is achievable electorally.
as society fractures, government becomes more unable or unwilling to hold the power structure accountable.
that trend i don't see reversing any time soon esp with most folks not even willing to say capitalism is the problem.
The problem is, the legislature has made it abundantly clear that they are absolutely not interested in fixing the system, and they're pretty interested in making it actively worse. What can the people do at this point? Especially when millions are suffering right now, and any sort of incrementalism plan would take years to get people out of this situation, even if it didn't hit many roadblocks in terms of legislators shooting it down. I don't know what can be done to fix this but incremental change clearly isn't doing it.
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User Banned (1 Month): Inflammatory Generalization; Cross Community Drama; Prior Serious Ban for Xenophobia
yep.
the question isn't "will the system collapse?" its "when will it collapse and what will it look like afterwards?"
Exactly lol, the Khmer Rogue was about as communist as your average CIA employee.
Indeed
Which are, of course, all just euphemisms for Tankie too!
I hate this kind of meme so much, not all Communism == USSR and/or China, and even then, it isn't like those countries have a monopoly on state sponsored violence
Depending on how young people are I think it's just a phase for a lot of them. The "powers that be" in the US labeling everything as communist (including a lot of potentially good expanding of social programs) while being pretty damn incompetent makes it even easier to be a rebel by talking about how cool you think communism is. Doesn't help that the right in the US feels the need to continually act like socialism and communism are the same thing.
To put another spin on it. People are being subjected to violence/death on a daily basis under the current system. Cops are targeting and killing black propel across the country. People are unable to pay their medical bills and becoming homeless. Opioids are ravaging communities. Hell, Flint hasn't had clean water for 6 years. We can't even give people $2000 for 6+ months of suffering under the pandemic. People are suffering and dying right now, and all they get is not even incremental change, but borderline nothing. I can't really blame people who are having revolutionary thoughts when the system has failed them so completely and is violent and brutal to them every minute of every day. It's just a distraction.
Not sure many people would describe themselves as a tankie as in my experience it's used to mock people who ignore or deflect the atrocities the USSR inflicted on its people and the world.
As far as the other thread that people mocked, I think there's a place to say, compliment the Soviet space program while admitting that it was done under a horrible regime, in the same way you can say the same about the American space program.
Generally, I find whenever there's a vague superficial discussion about capitalism vs. communism, it's rare to actually discuss what both of them are, their strengths and weaknesses. More likely it's just mud slinging. For instance, is there something fundamental about communism which causes its people to suffer more than under capitalism? Are totalilitarian regimes a conclusion to any Communist revolution? Because really, that's what we end up talking about. Even staunch capitalists understand that exploitation of the labor force is by design in its system, but under capitalism is it required that racism be encouraged and even used by the people in power to keep its labor force powerless?
Pretty sure Marx actively discouraged proactively starting such revolutions even if he thought they were inevitable.
As far as the other thread that people mocked, I think there's a place to say, compliment the Soviet space program while admitting that it was done under a horrible regime, in the same way you can say the same about the American space program.
Generally, I find whenever there's a vague superficial discussion about capitalism vs. communism, it's rare to actually discuss what both of them are, their strengths and weaknesses. More likely it's just mud slinging. For instance, is there something fundamental about communism which causes its people to suffer more than under capitalism? Are totalilitarian regimes a conclusion to any Communist revolution? Because really, that's what we end up talking about. Even staunch capitalists understand that exploitation of the labor force is by design in its system, but under capitalism is it required that racism be encouraged and even used by the people in power to keep its labor force powerless?
Pretty sure Marx actively discouraged proactively starting such revolutions even if he thought they were inevitable.
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Tankies are Stalinists. The term was coined by MLs criticizing other MLs.
Tankies are people that are willing to support any kind of state authoritarianism if the state is a communist one, there could be overlap here but they aren't necessarily the same (at least as far as I understand it)
Either way they don't make up a big proportion of the votes on there