As a leftist its also important to keep in mind we do differentiate between leftists who hold some opinions we disagree with compared to a Liberal who disagrees with us on nearly everything. Especially when said Liberals demand to be treated like leftists yet support imperalism, genocide, apartheid, capitalism, bigotry, and yet constantly call people “fake leftists” or “tankies”.
It’s a strange state of affairs, there is a right wing recruitment pipeline deticated to making fun of liberals for being “cringe but also wrong”™.
An interesting experament you can do, replace “leftist”, “the left” and “liberal” with “SJW” (swap the insider and outsider language) and ask yourself how much and in what interesting ways does the sentimate of the post change.
It’s not about defending tankies it’s about people who are constantly shifting the focus of conversation to the most mockable section of online lefties.
The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.
Liberals who are constantly calling people tankies are helping the ruling class.
I’m not taking cues from the far-right in not denouncing our worst aspects when I see them and letting them take up shop in our spaces. I don’t see the need to whataboutism to them either and will call that out, but I don’t want them in spaces I’m in either.
No one’s defending tankies, nor saying we shouldn’t call them out. The original commenter was saying liberals call all manner of leftists “tankies” when they actually aren’t in order to derail them.
The next commenter stated: “The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.” Distancing themselves includes calling them out. So it sounds to me like they’re saying we need to be pragmatic like the ruling class and not distance ourselves from tankies, which is absolutely not something I’m ever going to do for those slimeballs. Actively doing it like some sort of performance apropos of nothing? Sure, maybe not. But if a tankie ever tries to associate with us, they need to be given the boot over their disgusting ideals.
I’m saying the need to instantly and constantly denounce tankies is tedious and counterproductive. I’m saying that policing the boundaries of leftism based on dumb shit said online is a reactionary distraction.
It’s a common strategy used to distract from the core issues. It’s like when supporters of israel go “but do you condemn hamas?!” or “oh, I notice you don’t criticize hamas as much (therefore you must support them)”
It’s a political slang word. It refers to those who support leftist authoritarian regimes such as communist, China. Regimes where the state can do no wrong and the people do all the wrong so the state must step in to crush the people and “protect them” from dangerous, Western and capitalist ideas. Pretty sure the name derives from the 1989 tiananmen square incident.
This is the internet, everyone is as anonymous as they want to be. Lots of people find these posts by browsing by All, so they’re not likely to be aware of (or care about) the rules for a particular instance. If a Liberal and a Leftist wander into the same community, it can be hard to tell them apart unless they’ve made politics their whole identity.
I’ve seen conservatives lob the word tankie around before like they do with other scary sounding political words. But not here on lemmy. “Tankie” has a very precise meaning on lemmy that everyone here seems to understand, despite a few tankies trying to gaslight people into thinking the term has “lost it’s meaning”.
In a nutshell, alternative-imperialists with a leftist bent. They’re hypocrites. “Imperialism is evil…with these exceptions, those empires are cool”.
It’s frustrating trying to talk with tankies, because really I agree with practically all of their criticisms of the US and a few criticisms of NATO and the West at large. But then that gets turned around into a justification for X formerly-socialist country drafting soldiers to invade sovereign country “Y” with practically unanimous resistance, and I just don’t see how the hell that’s supposed to help the working class of either state.
someone who claims to be leftist but tacitly or gleefully supports authoritarianism, imperialism, or violent repression. Many are easily identifiable by their pointing to places that are not The West™️ and smoothing over, apologizing for, or denying, blatant horrors on the basis that they are unfriendly with the west. sometimes called red fascists.
It’s actually important to ostracize these people as they are obviously the most blatant opportunists in leftist movements looking to implement authoritarian repressive regimes.
claims to be leftist but tacitly or gleefully supports authoritarianism, imperialism, or violent repression.
including those resisting US evil? Not supporting a war on Russia is tankie, because being too stupid to not understand we the people lose, and Russia needs to defend itself, is not as important as believing US propaganda that Russian leadership is evil for defending itself?
Is there a name for leftists that believe everyone deserves every war the US tells them is a “strategic imperative”? Even the ones where they use motivated nazis and very illiberal Islamist rulers?
Spoken like a true lib who hasn’t grabbed a history book in their lives. You have done exactly ZERO study of this so-called “authoritarianism”, its characteristics, actual comparisons with western systems, and the reasons for certain degrees of oppression in different systems. Your entire analysis is vibes-based, and doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny, and leads you to being on the side of the US Department of State propaganda on 99% of occasions. Remember, people called us tankies 20 years ago for opposing the invasion of Iraq, because “Saddam is a rabid dog”.
Winning is authoritarian. Everything makes more sense when you understand that this is where the opposition to “authoritarianism” comes from.
It’s how you can denounce movements that win, while suggesting the left uses tactics that lose. It is a meaningless word that means successful deviation from the desires of the West.
yet support imperalism, genocide, apartheid, capitalism, bigotry
Yeah as a liberal I resent this. Im against all of these things except that I believe that the world is capitalist and would probably not be really any different even with a sudden communist takeover. Power corrupts any system just like it always has so you need safegaurds and checks that our system did have until everyone decided to throw out baby with the bath water
There are ideas i like that are communist(social programs, centralized production, not a huge fan of not owning my own stuff, but i dont think businesses should really own land), but i believe there is a lot of resistance to it and a slow burn towards utopia is a more fruitful endeavor.
Uh… Assuming you’re from the west. The US was founded on slavery and genocide, and western Europe got to where it is through colonialism. What checks and safeguards did our countries ever have?
As a leftist its also important to keep in mind we do differentiate between leftists who hold some opinions we disagree with compared to a Liberal who disagrees with us on nearly everything. Especially when said Liberals demand to be treated like leftists yet support imperalism, genocide, apartheid, capitalism, bigotry, and yet constantly call people “fake leftists” or “tankies”.
It’s a strange state of affairs, there is a right wing recruitment pipeline deticated to making fun of liberals for being “cringe but also wrong”™.
An interesting experament you can do, replace “leftist”, “the left” and “liberal” with “SJW” (swap the insider and outsider language) and ask yourself how much and in what interesting ways does the sentimate of the post change.
Damn SJWs supporting checks notes imperialism, bigotry and capitalism
You had me until “tankies”. Tankies are scum and don’t need defending.
It’s not about defending tankies it’s about people who are constantly shifting the focus of conversation to the most mockable section of online lefties.
The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.
Liberals who are constantly calling people tankies are helping the ruling class.
I’m not taking cues from the far-right in not denouncing our worst aspects when I see them and letting them take up shop in our spaces. I don’t see the need to whataboutism to them either and will call that out, but I don’t want them in spaces I’m in either.
No one’s defending tankies, nor saying we shouldn’t call them out. The original commenter was saying liberals call all manner of leftists “tankies” when they actually aren’t in order to derail them.
The next commenter stated: “The ruling class don’t waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.” Distancing themselves includes calling them out. So it sounds to me like they’re saying we need to be pragmatic like the ruling class and not distance ourselves from tankies, which is absolutely not something I’m ever going to do for those slimeballs. Actively doing it like some sort of performance apropos of nothing? Sure, maybe not. But if a tankie ever tries to associate with us, they need to be given the boot over their disgusting ideals.
I’m saying the need to instantly and constantly denounce tankies is tedious and counterproductive. I’m saying that policing the boundaries of leftism based on dumb shit said online is a reactionary distraction.
It’s a common strategy used to distract from the core issues. It’s like when supporters of israel go “but do you condemn hamas?!” or “oh, I notice you don’t criticize hamas as much (therefore you must support them)”
I feel like you thought they were disagreeing with you, when they were pointing out the hypocrisy of Liberals but I dunno…
What’s a tankie?
It’s a political slang word. It refers to those who support leftist authoritarian regimes such as communist, China. Regimes where the state can do no wrong and the people do all the wrong so the state must step in to crush the people and “protect them” from dangerous, Western and capitalist ideas. Pretty sure the name derives from the 1989 tiananmen square incident.
The term has nothing to do with Tiananmen square and it’s usage actually predates the massacre by almost 40 years.
Yeah you’re right. I was for some reason conflating the USSR invading Hungary
You cant use your favorite strawman argument? How sad
And how do we do that?
This is the internet, everyone is as anonymous as they want to be. Lots of people find these posts by browsing by All, so they’re not likely to be aware of (or care about) the rules for a particular instance. If a Liberal and a Leftist wander into the same community, it can be hard to tell them apart unless they’ve made politics their whole identity.
Its pretty simple, do you support genocide?
Maybe I’m in a bubble, but I have yet to see anyone who’s not genuinely a tankie being accused of such.
Ive seen people be called tankies for not supporting Kamala and opposing Liberal Democracy
That’s wild. I’ve never heard that take and have a difficult time believing that it is common.
What alternative were they in favor of?
World users were literally calling anyone who critiqued Kamala Russian bots, were you not paying attention for the last several months?
Depends, some leftists support a workers democracy, im personally an Anarcho Syndicalist
Ah. I think I see where the problem is. I believe my instance defederated from
lemmy.worlda while back.You arent missing out on much
I’ve seen conservatives lob the word tankie around before like they do with other scary sounding political words. But not here on lemmy. “Tankie” has a very precise meaning on lemmy that everyone here seems to understand, despite a few tankies trying to gaslight people into thinking the term has “lost it’s meaning”.
For those who don’t know what it means, what is “clear definition of tankie”?
In a nutshell, alternative-imperialists with a leftist bent. They’re hypocrites. “Imperialism is evil…with these exceptions, those empires are cool”.
It’s frustrating trying to talk with tankies, because really I agree with practically all of their criticisms of the US and a few criticisms of NATO and the West at large. But then that gets turned around into a justification for X formerly-socialist country drafting soldiers to invade sovereign country “Y” with practically unanimous resistance, and I just don’t see how the hell that’s supposed to help the working class of either state.
someone who claims to be leftist but tacitly or gleefully supports authoritarianism, imperialism, or violent repression. Many are easily identifiable by their pointing to places that are not The West™️ and smoothing over, apologizing for, or denying, blatant horrors on the basis that they are unfriendly with the west. sometimes called red fascists.
It’s actually important to ostracize these people as they are obviously the most blatant opportunists in leftist movements looking to implement authoritarian repressive regimes.
including those resisting US evil? Not supporting a war on Russia is tankie, because being too stupid to not understand we the people lose, and Russia needs to defend itself, is not as important as believing US propaganda that Russian leadership is evil for defending itself?
on the brightside ya’ll normally just can’t resist outing yourselves.
Is there a name for leftists that believe everyone deserves every war the US tells them is a “strategic imperative”? Even the ones where they use motivated nazis and very illiberal Islamist rulers?
yes. “Western leftist”
Doubt it.
Spoken like a true lib who hasn’t grabbed a history book in their lives. You have done exactly ZERO study of this so-called “authoritarianism”, its characteristics, actual comparisons with western systems, and the reasons for certain degrees of oppression in different systems. Your entire analysis is vibes-based, and doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny, and leads you to being on the side of the US Department of State propaganda on 99% of occasions. Remember, people called us tankies 20 years ago for opposing the invasion of Iraq, because “Saddam is a rabid dog”.
really searching for straws to grasp here eh?
“I’m a leftist, and I proudly support 0 historical leftist movements which actually achieved anything”
wild leaps of logic, care to show your work? i could use entertainment
Winning is authoritarian. Everything makes more sense when you understand that this is where the opposition to “authoritarianism” comes from.
It’s how you can denounce movements that win, while suggesting the left uses tactics that lose. It is a meaningless word that means successful deviation from the desires of the West.
Yeah as a liberal I resent this. Im against all of these things except that I believe that the world is capitalist and would probably not be really any different even with a sudden communist takeover. Power corrupts any system just like it always has so you need safegaurds and checks that our system did have until everyone decided to throw out baby with the bath water
There are ideas i like that are communist(social programs, centralized production, not a huge fan of not owning my own stuff, but i dont think businesses should really own land), but i believe there is a lot of resistance to it and a slow burn towards utopia is a more fruitful endeavor.
Communism is when I own your toothbrush. Hand it over liberal.
Uh… Assuming you’re from the west. The US was founded on slavery and genocide, and western Europe got to where it is through colonialism. What checks and safeguards did our countries ever have?
Have you heard of Market Socialism?