• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        2 months ago

        That also makes it a very draining instance where there is constant skirmishing, but the plus side is that it’s a good frontier to try to push Leftist ideals for other instances to see.

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
          0·
          2 months ago

          It provides a good balance between seeing mainstream right wing opinions without having to deal with full on Republican fascists.

          Not being in an echo chamber helps to keep us grounded to what the layman CNN watcher believes.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            1·
            2 months ago

            Sure, but discussing the same points day after day is frequently unproductive. Hexbear and Lemmygrad, as an example, can be seen as an “echo-chamber” within the context of Lemmy, but Lemmy itself exists in the context of a western-dominated internet. It’s rare that a liberal wandering into Lemmy.ml brings a new argument to the table unheard of by leftists in their daily lives going against the grain.

            The benefit of such “echo chambers” is that there’s potential for higher understanding and discussion. I’m not going to find nuanced discusdion of, say, Marx’s Law of Value or Dialectical and Historical Materialism here as applied to current events. There’s opportunity to give the briefest overview to visitors here, but such topics require being a particular nerd for Leftist politics and theory as well as reading more in-depth than Lemmy conversations can provide.

          • morrowind@lemmy.ml
            0·
            2 months ago

            Where are you seeing these right wing opinions? I batangas haven’t seen any since wolfballs dropped

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 months ago

    Truly. Any moderate support for AES? Immediately labeled a tankie, I’ve seen Anarchists and even Liberals labeled a tankie. The term only exists to punch left from the Liberal POV, just like “Woke” is used to punch anything left of fascism.

  • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    – and they both punch left; exactly as conservatives like to do.

    • u_die_for_elmer@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I consider tankies to be on the right end of the socialist spectrum, so when I say it I’m punching right. They’re still comrades even if they are miss guided by state-capitalist governments. Cheers

      • o_d [he/him]@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Call it whatever the fuck you want. It’s working 100 million times better than this shit we’re doing. It’s lead to the most rapid increase of quality of life in human history for it’s people. Do you really think they care what you think about their government not being socialist enough?

        Poverty is not socialism. To uphold socialism, a socialism that is to be superior to capitalism, it is imperative first and foremost to eliminate poverty.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 months ago

        I think if you’re comparing “degrees” of left vs right, at that point you’re missing the forest for the trees. Ultimately, Anarchists and Marxists disagree on strategy and end goal, but both oppose Capitalism and Imperialism. At that point, there really isn’t a “more” or “less” left, there’s just differences in analysis and what must be done to get from A to B, as well as what B itself is.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            2·
            2 months ago

            I don’t think I’ve run into someone that thinks the NEP was authentically Socialist, but the collectivized, publicly owned and planned economy that defined the Soviet Union for the majority of its existence as “counter-revolutionary.” The NEP had more literal bourgeoisie and was defined by controlled markets, it’s still a form of Socialism but it’s common to deny it that along that basis. Are you a Bukharinist? Do those even exist? Even then, Bukharin seemed to just want to lengthen the NEP, not perpetuate it forever.

            Genuinely, this is a take I haven’t seen spelled out before. I don’t agree, of course, but I’m curious what your reasoning is.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        If you’re one of those people who just considers “tankie” to be a synonym for “Marxist-leninist” then I suppose I agree, but I think the term is used too nebulously to meaningfully place on the political spectrum.

      • SlayGuevara@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        2 months ago

        Lemmygrad admin here. I normally don’t look at reports from other instances but for this I had to make an exception. Probably the dumbest shit I have read so far lmao.

  • Carl@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    True but only for terminally online liberals. I still haven’t heard anyone in real life ever use that word.

  • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    Tankie doesn’t really mean anything to me anymore. Even self-proclaimed tankies often have trouble defining it in a way that is consistent among leftist groups.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 months ago

      I believe in reclaiming “tankie” in the same way as “queer.” Schoolyard bullies don’t really care to distinguish between the many different labels encompassed by LGBT+, and so they inadvertently invented a term that could be very inclusive and all encompassing, even if you’re still figuring out who you are, you call always fall back on “queer” to give the general idea.

      In the same way, the term “tankie” gets applied to people of all sorts of different left ideologies. There are significant differences between different leftist ideologies, but our critics don’t care to understand or distinguish between them, so I consider tankie to be a similarly inclusive term. Do you support anything that any socialist government has ever done? Do you think Cuba had an effective literacy program? Congratulations, you’re a tankie, welcome to the club.

      Note that my identifying with the term isn’t really an invitation for people to use it. But, you know, if people want to keep using it as this broad, meaningless term that lumps a bunch of people together, as I see it, it only works to our advantage as “tankies,” it pushes people towards us and helps us remember what we have in common instead of fighting over our differences. So I’m not exactly going to fight the label particularly hard.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I thought it had to include the pro authoritarian and often pro war aspect of it. So a Marxist/communist or what not wouldn’t fall into tankies without the call for an authoritarian leader like Stalin.

        • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Nope, you will get called a tankie if you support Palestine. Tankies are generally anti imperialist war while the squishier social Democrat types are pro-war. Tankie authoritarians were against WW1 while the “lib left” all voted along nationalist lines

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            This is why I don’t think this term will ever really leave usage on the internet moving forward.(not talking about historical use in GB and such). It seems many people believe it means something different. Not that I want it to be a mainstream media term.

            Not that stack exchange users are the end all be all of what one should believe is correct, but this was what they showed as their agreed definition.

            The parts about supporting the aggressive putting down of a rebellion with tanks is what usually has people tie in the supporting authoritarian violence. If you look at it from the other side one would would argue the ends justified the means which was to stop an escalation and thus a possible war as well. So really all sides of the term were going to be tied to aggression and supporting one mindedness ruling over another.

            I don’t see anyone using it as a compliment for anyone anytime soon

            • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              2·
              2 months ago

              That “authoritarian putting down of a revolution” was the squashing of anti-Semitic rightwing pogroms and mobs. Good riddance.

              Every nation state in existence is authoritarian, the different is towards who. You are still deep in Liberal dogma

              • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                2 months ago

                I didn’t say what I believed, I was discussing the usage of the term tankie in mainstream media. If it were used, I would assume western media would voice it with the red scare propaganda that is always pushed. With the media conglomerates jostling to find a way to fall in line with Trump’s administration I figure they’d label anything left of them a violent communistic extremest group.

                • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  2·
                  2 months ago

                  The average lib who uses tankie has no idea of its origins, and it’s origins are now so irrelevant as it has nothing to do with the groups that are labeled. Only liberals bring up the Hungary thing instead of discussing how the term is used in modern context

    • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      2 months ago

      Tankie always meant a fan of authoritarianism but not of the nazi variety. And hand to hand with that goes hate for America, but hate for America isn’t enough on it’s own, it should be paired with love of Strong Hand Of The East.
      Tankie thinks China, Russia, North Korea are just swell, and not because of some underlying ideology, but because they have an authoritarian model of governance and generally in opposition to the west to some degree.
      And that’s the reason why it’s so hard to define for some people, boiled down to it’s definition, it’s very hard to spin into something universally good, so talking to a general public they have to do what authoritarian lovers from the other side of the spectrum call “hiding the power lever”, which muddies the water.